Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - From Swipes to Scams: Online Dating and Digital Safety

Episode Date: March 25, 2026

Online dating can be thrilling—but it comes with new risks in a world full of apps, smart devices, and AI tricks. In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we break down practical ways to stay safe while navigating the digital dating scene, from your first swipe to meeting someone in person.We dive into the evolving landscape of digital risks, including catfishing, scams, oversharing on dating apps, and the emerging threat of AI voice spoofing. Through real stories and practical examples, we share how to set boundaries, recognize red flags, and trust your instincts—so you can date confidently without letting fear take over.Along the way, we explore how technology is changing the way we connect, why awareness matters more than ever, and how simple habits and smart precautions can make online dating safer, more enjoyable, and more empowering. Whether you’re messaging, planning a date, or just curious about staying secure in the digital world, this episode gives you the tools to interact safely, confidently, and thoughtfully in today’s dating landscape.If you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestions

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to explore the questions you've always been curious about, but don't always feel comfortable asking out loud. No judgment, no shame, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. Before we unzip today's episode, today's topic, we have now partnered with JackandJillAdult.com, one of the top online adult stores. And because you're here with us, you get 20% off with code UNZIPPING20. So go check them out. Build up that shopping cart. So now that I've got that out of the way, today's episode, we are going to be talking about dating and digital safety. But before we do, I'm here with Dr. Sue. Hey, Dr. Sue.

Hey, Charlie. How are you? I'm excited about this one, but also not like I hate that we have to talk about it, but also excited to do it. Yeah, it's something that never, never, I don't know, gets old or never, doesn't ever not need more information surrounding it in context. So I'm glad, I'm very glad we're doing it as well. Before we do that, though, you want to give our listeners a little bit about your background before we get started? We should probably explain why we're here. So I actually wanted to be a health teacher and I bring that up. I want to be a high school health teacher. That was the dream when I was in college. And I bring that up because teaching digital literacy, well, it didn't exist back then because the Internet didn't exist back then. But teaching health literacy was a thing back then. And it's still something that we like. It's one of the things I talk to my budding health educators now is that this is part of what we do is we teach digital literacy. So the dream was to be a health educator. So I have a bachelor's and a master's in health education. And then I decided to specialize for my Ph.D. and I have a Ph.D. in human sexuality education. And so I did the professor thing, which is the, you know, normal expected. You got a Ph.D. I love I shouldn't say that. I love it. I really do love it. But a few years ago, I figured out it was almost five years ago. i looked up the original date because i always said i don't know how long it's been

just about five years ago i had this crisis of conscience where i was like i'm not doing enough like this information isn't getting out like information about sex information about digital literacy information about so many things as being it's being reserved for the privileged few who get to go to school whether that's k through 12 or or higher level college university um and they're not getting the information i didn't feel right gatekeeping it so about five years ago about five it's like june i actually did look up the date um i started doing hey dr sue which is where folks send anonymous sex questions to my website and then every sunday at 9 p.m eastern i answer it all over social media and that's been interesting but then i decided it still wasn't enough

And so the crisis of conscience was not gone because I do think that people deserve to have conversations about this. And so I decided it was time to reach even more people and do a podcast so people can not only just read my stuff, but hear me. Dulce Tones of Dr. Seuss. Said no one ever. No, but we just we and then I approached Charlie. That's kind of our how we started thing. But it's really important to me that we're having these conversations because there aren't a lot of spaces where we get to unzip these taboos. And so the perfect person to have help me unzip those taboos is our co-host, Charlie.

So for those of you who do and don't, I know, I feel like everyone should know you. For those of you who do and don't know our fantastic co-host, Charlie, she is one of those people who likes to challenge, not just for the sake of like, I'm going to be a problem dialed, though sometimes. Depends on the audience. Yeah. But really to understand the why. So yeah, I feel like, I mean, that really sums up a lot of you, but not enough of you. So you should tell us more. I'm Charlie, Dr. Sue and I have been friends for many years. And it's exactly what Dr. Sue said. I meet, I aim to meet moments with curiosity and, um, and as little judgment as possible, although we are humans and that is our nature because it's programmed into our survival. Um, but with as little judgment as

possible on many, many subjects, um, I won't say all because that's, there are some that I will judge heavily. Um, but they are rarely ever ones that are surrounded by sex, sexual health, um, sexual behavior. Um, and, and then really challenging why, why we do what we do and kind of the social contracts that we buy into and maintain and, and, and maybe some of those it's time to archive or downright destroy, but really digging into why, why each of us, myself included. I do a lot of self-reflection and trying to understand why I understood it. And there's a piece where, yes, there's social conditioning and messaging you get from the time that you're a child, but there's a point where we all get to decide. We get to analyze and decide

and choose and um and for many reasons many many people don't really get to that place for a variety of reasons one of them being access equity to access to this kinds of the kinds of information that make you look at where you are now what it has been what it is and what it could be um and so that's really that was really the exciting piece about being invited to be dr sue's co-host on this was because we got to we're coming from these two different worlds but i think with a very humanistic approach yep so that's how you find us dr sue and charlie unzipping taboos so this topic it's funny because we well we tried to record this the other day and we had some technology problems which is hysterical because we're talking about technology

and I've been thinking about it so we we can do a whole how we got here but it's I've done stuff on digital on digital dating on dating online I never called it digital dating for seniors so not like seniors in high school but like seem like people 16 over um and I was thinking like how much we scare people because they're like I don't want to give my real I don't want to give my first name and I'm like you kind of have to in a dating profile like but they've been so scared not to give information out but that we also miss some of the basics of of of digital safety especially when it comes to dating um so it was I was reflecting on that when I was like oh yeah I forgot we kind of did some of that but anyway I do you want to tell us the listeners how

we got to this topic because I think it was started by you yeah there was a as we were brainstorming and reviewing um show ideas that we have in our parking lot it was kind of at the pinnacle of the stories that were being reported on in the uk about this um this guy who has the meta glasses that record and stream um and and what he was doing was approaching women talking to them and recording that interaction and then posting it on his social media and then what would happen is that these women had one had no idea that the interaction was being recorded or that they had been posted to his social media because those videos would ultimately go viral and then people would find the viewers of that viral video would find these

women and all of a sudden they're they're thrust into this this spotlight that they had no idea that they participated in um and so i brought up the subject of that and then we kind of um and we also had something in our parking lot about dating online and digital literacy so we rebranded it digital safety because there's a whole lot of things out there right now that um that contribute to our digital world and a whole lot of new motivations for digital content yeah because this the whole idea of like and we're going to talk about catfishing and i know catfishing has existed now maybe not as a tv show but but catfishing existed before the internet like people would put fake ads out in newspapers because that's back in the day how

some people would meet um and so a lot of i think what we're going to talk about is just how things have changed um we never had to worry about being taped in public taped it listen to how old i am recorded in public um without our consent because it used to be that to record needed such big devices like we'd be like oh why is that like camera on your shoulder we see it yeah um so it's it's one of those things where the the the issues have not necessarily become new it's how they're presenting themselves um the the real idea is that you can be online you know sorry you could be posted and recorded i guess you'd be recorded first recorded and posted without ever knowing because if i'm having a conversation with charlie in public and i'm you know i'm i'm

videoing it because it's a great moment and we're recording this great thing in public and you walk by in the back you are now in my image and the idea is that if you're in public you have to assume you're being recorded and not just by the government that's a whole nother topic um But we never had to worry about this before. We never had to worry about people sneaking recording devices into dinner like we'd see them. And now because they're on glasses and now because it could just be our cell phones in our pockets, we have to be a lot more aware of that. Neither of us are lawyers. No. That I know of. No? No. You haven't been secretly?

I don't have the attention span to go to law school. so so we want to make sure that when we're talking about things like recording we're not giving consent for that and you should probably check your state law about who has to give consent for recording we're going to talk about how you can be careful um so i just want to make sure we're clear on that yeah and i and rip off their glasses take their phone no don't do that no um but i think you're certainly allowed to ask like so that that's one thing i guess we can start on the subject of these glasses. If they look like out of the ordinary glasses frames, or go look at what the meta glasses look like. So you have an awareness of their shape,

the thickness of the frames, etc. So that if you're approached by somebody that you don't know that is wearing glasses that look like meta glasses, it could be as simple as asking if you feel safe and in an okay environment um to say hey those look like meta glasses are they and then whether or not they say no if you feel even comfortable more comfortable because anybody can lie and say oh no no no people lie these are just like my retro frames or whatever um then you know depending again depending on your comfort level you could say okay well if they are i don't consent to being recorded so if they are recording that is part of the recording so if it ever comes and it comes to issue hopefully they don't clip that part but um

but at least you said it out loud yeah you know and and then if you are still skeptical that they aren't that they are meta glasses start recording yourself yeah or if you can just walk away yeah yeah yeah but but that's all couched around how you help your physical safety yeah and your environment because sometimes you know our our protective our that survival instinct will kick in and your brain will carve a way to keep you safe yeah as much as it can well what we don't want to do is scare you to the point where you're like i'm never going outside i'm never meeting someone off a dating app i'm never i'm never you know interacting with a human we don't want you to do that we just want you to be a little more more aware of the things that are out there that

weren't there even even with online dating that weren't there like five ten years ago yeah so we're not in like a be afraid be very afraid kind of place that's we just want to bring awareness if you're not sure of it be aware yeah and we're not anti-bad glasses i know educators who use them for great purposes. So, um, yeah, I would, yeah, I would with that, I would say with every, um, I learned this in a, in a seminar. I was at, at one point where you're talking about your strengths and your weaknesses. So with every addict, there's a basement. So for every person that is using them for great educational, whatever purposes, there are bad actors and, And it's really not the awareness around the bad actors, kind of always assume that there's going to be some bad actors, but it's for that space to keep you comfortable and safe and knowledgeable.

Because I think what you said at the top of the episode, Dr. Sue, is that, you know, so many times these messages come out with a message of fear and maybe a little bit of shame. and that's not what we're aiming to do because because you're going to interact we're social creatures and you're going to want to foster perhaps you're in a spot where you're ready to meet new people this is not meant to overwhelm this is just meant to to give you an idea of things to keep an eye out for not not from a place of fear because I also think some of those stories really highlight they highlight vulnerabilities but then they hyper fixate on them yeah and it Misses so much of the context that surrounded the vulnerability that victims got exploited by. So here we are, just information, just things to consider.

Yes. And it's like, and it's like an a la carte menu. You can feel like, you know what? I don't think I'll ever be in a space for that. Great. Still listen to the episode, please. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's, but the topics will be, yeah, the awareness, different flags will be different colors for each people it could be a yellow flag for one and a red flag for another so so let's start with catfishing because i already brought it up yes let's do that so for those of you who are unfamiliar there is there was a show on was it mtv oh wow which no longer exists talking about technology changing so there's a show on on mtv where they um would have people who they were suspected was being catfished so the idea of being catfished is that you are being lured into having a conversation with someone who presents as one thing and that's not who they are and so you know these people contact the the people who were in all the episodes the hosts i guess you would call

them and you know they say i think i'm being catfished in wine they do all the sleuthing and then they like travel to take the person and go meet them and sometimes it was the real person and sometimes it was very much not um and we hear stories about people being catfished and and um sending money i always think like that's just a big red flag is the whole sending money thing but it's not just about sending money it's also this idea of like i've met this person they seem really cool and now it's not who they are and there's a grieving process like you you know especially if you're the only that's the only conversation you've maintained on some of these apps or however you may have met them so that's where this catfish concept comes from and i know

when i talk to my my older folks i talked to are terrified of this they're like how do i know that they are i'm like you kind of don't yeah you kind of don't um my younger students are like oh we all know about that but then they all know someone had happened to recently so it is definitely something that's still happening yeah so it used to be sometimes that folks would do it just because they could be this other human and live this other life and attract people that they may not have attracted if they were presenting it themselves um where it becomes catfishing is interesting because if i lie about something about me the question is like how much lying do i have to do charlie how much lying does someone have to do like before someone's considered

catfishing like if i tell you a different name but everything is the same if i tell you a different age or if i tell you a different height or i tell you a different weight or i tell you a different like i don't know if there's that's an interesting question i don't know that i've ever thought about it that way thank you very much you're welcome yeah we have these conversations a lot i for me what i consider catfishing and i've uh back when i was doing online dating and i'm happy to share this story um i had i had one attempted catfish and one where he was just trying to get money like we had met in person um he purportedly had this great job and at one point after he flaked on a date um a couple days later as we were texting

he asked me for money and we again we had met in person he you know all of the things um had coffee a couple of times and and yeah it's just I mean he was like hey I I need blah blah blah would you lend me some money and I was like I'm sorry are you asking me for money and he's like yeah lol i was like okay well no i'm not gonna give you money and don't ever contact me again bye and then the other one the catfish attempt um was through an online dating site there were texts and there were phone calls and like voice calls just voice okay yeah just voice calls how old school I know I know I love that it's it's such a different effect when you just do that yeah sorry for those of you not watching we're having a whole like phone gesturing

dating ourselves moment yeah the gen x version and then the millennial screaming into the speakerphone um so voice calls and text messages and what I had assumed at the time more you know accurate pictures um and there was a moment where like we were we were going to meet in person when a construction project in a nearby city wrapped up and then all of a sudden he got whisked away to a different construction project in a different city and then and then he was getting take air quote taken off that project and uh because he got an opportunity to run a project in nigeria for a prince and they did not say it was for building the royal palace and i was like okay cool you know like have fun this great opportunity blah blah blah and then

i hear nothing for like a week and a half and then he comes back and um talks about how tough it's been to get uh to get workers for the site and he needed uh he didn't realize what he needed to do for his license because he was an engineer air quote um and he uh so he asked me for 500 to send him $500 to help him get his licensing that he didn't realize he needed to do work in a different country. Um, and I have friends who are engineers in construction and, uh, they are very aware of their licensing needs and requirements when they're going into different markets so uh i said no and then and then he disappeared and then he came back like a month later and tried to guilt me and said that he he found someone that gave that was able to give him

the money thank god he couldn't and he couldn't believe that i was willing to leave him there like that oh well yeah hey Charlie do you want to send me some money so that that is the attempted catfish but those are the things to look out for like for me the first the first flag was the we're getting ready to meet up and then all of a sudden you're unavailable and not to say that that doesn't happen but when it happens right at each time you're about to meet you know start to just notch notch those like take take a moment to to put it on a little list especially when you're beginning just beginning to interact with somebody from a dating site and there there hasn't been an in-person meeting because as I in that first example it there was an attempt to get

money for me from someone I did meet in person yeah so I'm gonna go back to my original question though to me it was the second story when you start asking for money having never met but how much does someone have to lie about to make it catfishing I think the whole like the whole this is such a maybe a cop-out answer but like the whole package if you're telling me your name is this your age is this your job is this and you and you live here or you're divorced and none of that is true like all of the above is not true to me that's catfishing so just little things are okay i mean we all do it we do and there's there's research out there that says

everybody lies on social media um i am also no longer on the dating apps for my sanity um but i did meet someone off this off of it and they were a good six inches shorter than advertised for lack of a better word and it it didn't bother me that they were shorter than me it bothered me that they lied about it and the answer was oh well i didn't think you'd go on a date with me i'm like a you know there's there's me like trying to be understanding and be like i'm sure you run into this but also i'm not that shallow um so i i don't know if i would have called that catfish it's it's just it's an interesting line um i have a friend who for a while was not i'm trying to do this in a way that sounds supportive um they had been given a pretty

serious health diagnosis and they weren't quite wrapping their heads around to themselves and they weren't disclosing it when they were first dating or even on like there's no section on that if you haven't been in the apps in a while there's no section for like do you have any major like health issues people that actually is not the worst idea for her there is there is a dating site which one i i don't know the name of it but um i am aware of a dating site for um people with certain chronic like stis and stuff yes yes um this was not one of them sorry let me make sure i said that there are definitely um ones where you can list your hiv status um another sti status this wasn't one this was okay um and that was his thing his thing was like

this has nothing to do with the person you know it's not something that's transmissible um but it changes how they saw themselves you know they and they were working i actually don't think they should have been dating while they were figuring other lives out um but it came out after he happens to be he he he went on a few dates with this woman and then finally told her and same thing she was like I kind of wish I knew that you know not like hi my name is and I have these issues but there was the sense of like they weren't the real person um but yeah that's an interesting question I feel like I need might need to do some more asking about that like how much does a person need to lie about so to me my my understanding and my experience with catfishing

is the digital the digital profile the the who you prepare purport yourself to be because when you're in person and you start dating somebody there i mean we all kind i believe that we many of us i won't do absolutes but many of us release very vulnerable information in increments yeah because because here i can see your friend's point like on a first date it's not really their business because i don't know if i'm gonna see them again yep um but to me catfishing is more about, um, it's solely digital and it is when people create a whole other person persona or person even using pictures that are not yourself, um, and information that is not you. Um, and then, and then the extra level is you are manipulating someone into into financial gain or or any or

status or anything like that um so to me catfishing is a purely digital form of fraud gotcha so let's give some some tips to folks who are like because i think most of us know not to trust all the images like sometimes the images are old sometimes the images have people cropped out of them because they don't want you to see their kids their exes their whatever their current spouse see i was giving people the benefit of the doubt there this is why i don't do positive um so i think and there are things you can do i mean if you really want to super sleuth it you can download those images and run them through google imaging or other other search engines and see if the pictures pop up somewhere um so outside of that there are a few things that i can't read my own notes

okay that's not unheard of um but there are a few things for me because i i do have some friends out in the dating world they're like how do i know like what am i looking for anyone who starts talking to you about crypto or gold anyone who starts i mean i laugh but that's not wrong yeah anyone who starts asking you about the price and it's may not even be like someone being someone else it could be a bot and that was not something we worried about 15 years ago yeah um so anyone who starts talking to you about crypto anyone who starts talking to you about buying gold and how cheap it is and how it's a great long-term investment just just any financial requests anything tied to financials yeah just red flag don't do it yeah just and and remember

that you don't have to explain why you can just walk away also real quick as dr sue says no is a complete sentence yeah um thank you i feel like you should say to me um some of the apps do you have a reporting option whether or not anything happens with those who knows um but some of them do have so you can report them if you want if that makes you feel better um arguing with a bot isn't going to get you anywhere um other things that say catfishing to me or bot i guess i want explore out to bot is someone who doesn't answer the question you're asking answer the question that you're asking there's a great video about this it's like just say potato have you started have you seen it i haven't seen it you've told me i've told you about it where it's like this

this ongoing conversation and the person thinks that it's a bot impersonating a woman and he's like just say potato you know just prove to me you're real and say potato and the person just keeps saying everything else so if i'm having a conversation with you and i suddenly change the subject because i want to and you are not locking into the words being said that to me says auto auto send or auto you know that it's a bot of some kind so anyone who can't stay on topic um to me that's a big warning sign of either a bot or just someone who doesn't give a shit about what you're saying yeah yeah either way it's a flag yeah um even if they're real yes and the other thing and i'm hearing this a lot from my friends who are in the dating world

right now is the people who try to force them off the app oh it would be so much easier if we just and it's inevitably well I shouldn't say that because I'm actually hearing different things now it's not even like I want to go to text sometimes it's I want to go to whatsapp not that there's anything wrong with whatsapp or signal or signal and they're definitely and I know there are reasons why people use signal but when someone says let's move just to whatsapp first of now I have to give you my information and I may not be comfortable doing that like but also you can't be bothered to check an app right turn your damn notifications on you'll get to the same place that you'll get your your texting notifications unless so to me that says a couple things one

you either want to pitch me something um or that you're not real um or you're trying to hide the fact that you're on the app by someone who may see the notification come up so if you're living with a partner and they don't know you're on the notification there that you're on the app and the notification comes up it's much easier to hide a text than just to hide something from like bumble or yeah bumble or hinge or grinder or whatever it may be that you're on um so anyone who and anyone who doesn't take no for an answer easily like if you the folks that i know on dating apps um are straight they identify straight and so and and i hear the stories from both sides from from both men and women in my lives um and the men are like

well i just thought it would be easier to move out like not my friends who are catfishing none of my friends better be if you're out there catfishing i'm gonna kick your ass um but it's like well i just thought it would be easier to move to the app you know why won't they just give me their number i'm like because she doesn't know you and having her phone number is a powerful thing um so if someone if if you say to someone if someone says to you hey can we move this off the app and you say no i'm not comfortable i'd really love to keep talking to you or i'm finding this conversation really interesting i'd like to see how it goes and they get angry huge red flag um are they're not who they say they are or they're just trying to get something from you

um or they're just a dick yeah because i feel like the subtitle of our last few episodes is don't be a dick um anyone who if you say no and if you're not like no fuck you i don't want to move off the ad like then that person could probably be a dick because you are um but if you're like hey no i'm you know i want to keep having the conversation i just feel safer or more comfortable or i'd like to keep everything i want but whatever you phrase it as and they get angry red flag for whatever reason and you don't need to know what the red flag is just run yeah just run block and move on another another thing to look for for potential catfishing um is refusing to like verify themselves like commit maybe committing to a video call and then bailing

at the last minute and that keeps happening or or even meeting in person they could they could say that they're in the same area and then come up with ways to meet and then bail at the last second constant flaking could be could be legitimate but also that could that could signify that um that they just don't have the bandwidth to meet somebody new and date in their life so there's that side of it but it is also a key indicator of a likely catfish attempt you are not living in a rom-com it is not like they were just so excited to meet you and so nervous that they just, you've got mail. Yeah. They, they got to the door of the restaurant and didn't, it was just, they walked away. I'm sure there are people with anxiety and I'm not trying to

mock that, but you're not living in a rom-com and your time is precious and valuable. And if someone can't respect it and again, whether it's catfishing or just, it's not a good fit, they don't have the bandwidth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, and that's the thing that I would, it is, it, it is a strong indicator, uh, you know, constant flaking on video calls or in-person a meeting to like show you that they are the person that they say they are um and and if if they are the person they say they are they flake once you can you can decide if you want to give them a second chance a second chance a second flaking at the last minute either they don't have the bandwidth and are not interested and um don't know how to say so or maybe don't feel safe

to say so. Uh, you know, many, many, um, girlfriends of mine that have had to build the habit of ghosting because it keeps them safer. Yeah. Um, so there's that, that's a whole episode I think. Um, but, but the, again, these are just indicators and then you decide your level of tolerance before you decide to cut cut loose and explore other places so yeah and i know for some people it's about the timing yeah like like if i mean that's everything yeah if you're already sitting in a restaurant and someone's like oops not gonna make it like that's a little worse i would think if it was me but if someone was like hey you know beginning of the day like hey i got a meeting put on my books and there's just no way i'm gonna make it can we reschedule like

that to me feels a little a little more acceptable but those are my rules um but again it's up to you to decide how much you want to put up with in terms of that someone who might not be meeting you offline may have legitimate reasons in their own head you get to decide for yourself if that works yeah exactly um other things you can do before you move it offline a lot of the dating apps now have an option of doing a phone call through the app so you don't have to give your phone number out including video calls through the app so this whole like my friend was trying to date this person i'm like oh i don't have facetime and they were like it's built into the app oh my phone can't do video and they were like yeah okay bye bye um so there are definite things that are worked

into the system that could be helpful um using the in-person phone voice call or using the in-person video call so those are all things we want you to know if something feels hinky to you trust your guide yeah go with your spidey senses yeah um if something just feels a little off and you need clarification and they won't give it that that should be it for in my mind that should be it yeah um we are putting a lot of our own values into this and i just want to make sure yeah i want to because there are some people like no i let them like miss five dates i'm more proud to you you get like two seconds with me yeah bless you for your patience um but that's the thing i think there's also a space where maybe people there there's a possibility where people have

felt like you know i wanted to but i didn't want to seem like i was fill in whatever yeah and so you put up with something that you don't really want to that doesn't align with your values or your principles because you don't want to be seen or perceived as overly difficult or guarded or anything like that but they're your they're your boundaries they are yours and you have your reasons for them and if you feel like internally they might be unreasonable but it then that's when you find someone to talk them out with and maybe unpack if you if you're able i'm going to go back to another indicator of catfishing if i may um and that is and this is i mean uh something to pay attention to catfishing or no is a love emotional manipulation future faking love bombing

too um and this does i you know this happens frequently in my experience on the digital on the online apps is the oh my gosh I've never hit it off so well with somebody so quickly well you know I could see I get the sense that we can insert long-term commitment euphemism or whatever there but look look out for that like right like within a couple of interactions and not like days but like within one interaction two lines in they're talking about how they can see themselves falling in love with you like just be wary catfish or no that that's that rarely ever turns out to be sustainable or true um and rarely ever turns out to be a safe person yeah it's a trick it's interesting because you set me up for two things that i wanted to do

I wanted to go forward. I wanted to further a point. That's good. That's great. Thank you. That's why you have me here. You could have done that better if you saw my notes and understood my handwriting. Because one of the questions I get is why would they do that?

Why spend the time in the energy meeting me or talking to me or maybe even doing a phone call or a video date? Like why spend all that time and then stand me up? Why have that great flow, right? so there's like this oh like this person we're just talking well we're communicating well like why do that some people just need that validation some people just want to know that someone else is interested in them someone wants to know that they could get someone to fall for them and that's sometimes what we see with the love bombing the i'm gonna throw all this at you and tell you i could be with you and you're my forever human and you know and then they're like

okay i got what i needed out of it and that's why we think it's well i'm gonna speak for you for charlie for a second um that's why we think it's so important that you set your own boundaries and expectations because if there are and there are there are people out there who are just like i'm doing this to make me myself feel loved and wanted you get to set those same boundaries for yourself don't be a dick please but if your boundary is you flake on me once we're done then that's okay for it to bend your boundary yeah but it also goes so talking about boundaries to get to the second thing um talking about boundaries and values and things like that because we have this conversation offline there's if you are going to meet someone you have not met before whether

whether or not you've done a video date um there are some things you can do to make sure that you are trying to keep yourself safer um people have been doing this since online dating started and actually even before that people were doing this kind of thing even when it was still like in the personals um but we're gonna do some safety tips about like letting people know where you are and and if you've never thought about some of this you're like okay dr sue and charlie now you've like now you've got the tinfoil hats on like you've gone too far i to this day have female friends who will send me pictures screenshots of the person they're going to meet and their location and depending on how unsafe they feel or how nervous they sometimes it's just about nerves

and they want someone checking in because it's their first date in a while um we'll have check-in times that if i do not hear by them by x time i will start calling them and i know where are they do you do this with your friends or is it just my friends no it's not just you i get left at i feel like some of our listeners may be like really um yeah there's if you're meeting a stranger other people should know who you're meeting um what that person's name is what they look like um I've had people give me like phone numbers be like hey here's this person's or at least the phone number we're using um and they tell me where they are and there's a if you don't hear from him by x time um assume I'm dead and call the cop no don't do that um but like that

someone needs to check in however it may be so along those lines because we're getting into like people's values here i don't ever think it's safe for someone to pick you up at your house the first time you're meeting and taking you to a date yes but again that's charlie and i's values you may think that that is an important part of dating some yes like dating someone like chivalry may be very important to you and this is how you see it um i don't love the idea for two reasons one that person knows where you live which maybe you're all like again like dr c you're going off the edge um i don't like the idea of someone knowing where you live and i don't like the idea that you can't get home from wherever you may be does uber and lyft exist yes do they

exist everywhere no so i don't love that idea but again these are your values if you're like i'm okay with that that's okay yeah yeah these are um these are ways that like i said at the beginning and kind of a la carte ways to to have an awareness when you're interacting with when you're having an online interaction because you sometimes you may not know if it's a bot or a human um and your level of comfort for self-vigilance that's really what this is it's not hyper vigilance it's not anything other than here are some ideas yep because one of the things And I think this, this has been documented, um, in many ways is that the online dating hookup world is also kind of, and this, this might be a little tinfoil hat of Charlie is

kind of prime hunting ground for, uh, bad actors. And you never know who those bad actors are going to be. Yeah. and they can, they can present as being like the, the, the guy you've been waiting or the, the partner you've been waiting for. Um, but it's there, you have to have a level of vigilance for yourself and your safety. Um, so, so I will, I will just say that, but yes, me and my friends, I actually have a story where, um, a friend of mine had moved to a new city and they were going to go on a date with someone from a dating app.

And I was like, well, give your roommate a screenshot of the profile of the person and where you're meeting and the time. And she was like, oh, okay. And told their friend and they both kind of had a laugh at my suggestion. But it's so important. It's so important. If for any other reason, you know that someone else knows where you are. Yep.

Yep. um and it may never have to go anywhere but you would be remiss not to do that that very basic step i had a friend who um is now also sworn off online dating and and here's the thing like we're not trying to get you to do that we're really not if you can make it work for you that's great and you can always go back to it if you're if you're still through the app and I say that because they didn't have like her phone number that's actually for me that's an important part of this story and they had agreed where they wanted to go to a restaurant and he said I'll pick you up and she said no I'm good thanks and he goes no no you're

on my way what yeah because she called me when this happened and she was frantic and she's like tell me I'm not being like over I'm like no you are being absolutely appropriately paranoid the guy had like taken her images and done a reverse image search and like figured out all these things and he never even had her phone like I can almost see that if you have a phone number um and he's like yeah I know where you live you you know blah blah blah blah blah and she was like nope nope we're done um but yeah she had that moment of like am I just being paranoid like I do some deep digging on the guys that I want to date I'm like do you ever find out where they live she's like no i'm like well that's right that's your line and that's okay um yeah

i know where you live how is it never seen as a threat i know where you live every horror film ever right um and true crime documentary so yeah we just we just want to use just like don't put don't don't push your own boundaries that you're comfortable with in terms of putting yourself out there if there are dating apps because i know there's some dating apps like when you log on it's like oh we're just going to show the general neighborhood you're on and i have friends who are like nope thank you i'm yeah absolutely not um so what i encourage you to do is trust your spidey sense um if something doesn't feel right it probably isn't um if you're going out and meeting someone in person we'd like you to let someone know where the person is

and if not also if the date goes really well then your friend knows you're on a date and gets to be like hey how was it like this is either going to be a um i haven't heard from you where are you or a hey i didn't hear from you was you know you're just that wrapped up it can be a great thing to just continue the conversation with your friend um i have three other things i want to cover that I cannot link in my own brain. But okay. I don't know if one of these I did, did want to bring it back a little bit to digital literacy, literacy and safety. Some of the things that you need to be aware of, like on your own devices, some settings on your own devices that you want to pay attention to. There are, there are apps that will ask you if they can track your, your data,

and back and background app refreshes be very selective with that because what it's doing what the digital world is doing is pinging your phone and there's a like a specific little digital profile that your phone sends back with bits of information so if you use like a pedometer app a step counting app a fitness app something that tracks your workouts you know pay attention to what it's asking you for. Is it asking for your location? If it does work better with your location, change it to only while using app instead of always. Pictures. Take a look at your picture, your photo settings, because many times every phone, every update, every new something will default to your photos with a geotagging feature, which logs where the picture

was taken like precisely where the picture was taken yeah and that's something to be aware of too if you're a parent taking a picture of your kids that's a whole nother thing about putting your pictures of your kids online yeah and putting and putting people like not just kids but like your friends you know being aware of what including a group photo in your dating profile might do or entail without checking with the people in the photo first that they're okay with their image out there because the day the dating the company running the app isn't only gonna focus on your facial features it's gonna look at everybody in that photo i'm laughing because i just put an image up online and before we took the photo for posterity and then the first thing i said is

everyone okay with me posting this on social media and if i don't get a yes i don't post it um so my anyone who's listening to this who knows me is like yep she just did that this week um it's also a consent thing to me yeah yeah just basic and going back to just living with basic consent yeah but for this this digital proficiency piece you really understand what the settings are on your devices as much as much as you can as much as you have bandwidth for anything like that. They're great content contributors who are data and digital safety experts that put their stuff out on social media. So just start to build that curiosity to your comfort level so that you can feel more informed when you get that little pop-up when you

download a new app that says, this app wants to do this. Yes or no? Then you can say no. I err on the side of saying no first and then figuring out what performance it impacts when I use the app and if it's something detrimental if if tracking me 24 7 is crucial to that app's functionality I don't use that app anymore no no some you might and I do want to throw this out there so um if you're using something like heart monitors that are doing testing on you um some other other other telehealth stuff the e-health stuff um some of that stuff does require information about you because they are tracking lots of things around you and what's happening to you um so if you have a doctor who's asked you to use one of these i don't want to talk

about a pedometer like that does not need to know everything about your life um but there are people who are using things where that information is being sent to their doctor so i just want to throw out there if someone is telling you to get an app because of that ask the question How much is it tracking and how much do I need? But especially if it's information that's being relayed straight from your device to your physician. Some of those do require a lot more consent and permission in what you're giving them. And there's an assumption there, though, that if someone in a professional environment like your physician is saying, use this app specifically, there is a level of assumed vetting, which is totally okay.

I mean, that's kind of the default for many of us is trusting that the medical group or whatever is suggesting this app because blah, blah, blah. But the literacy piece is understanding it to just a level above that like are they being compensated by this app development company to promote the use of this app is it really necessary um just ask it just asking the questions and that's the digital literacy piece yeah and if your doctor's like hey i need you to use this monitor because i need this information while you're wearing whatever tracking thing i'm giving you for your health and you go oh i've got some concerns about that um do you know why how much it's tracking and their answer is oh i don't know that that kind of that kind of throw

away of well i don't deal with that side of it is to me is not acceptable in this day and age right yeah right and and think even like ai looking at the settings of your ai if you're using a chat gpt or a clod or i mean those are language models that are learning off of input from humans and there are settings in there where you can tell it i don't want i don't want you to broadcast like keep keep it in this little bubble yeah so just always explore settings on anything all right you've had some points i had some three random points that i cannot link together we don't need to link them together it's a candid conversation no my brain i like to link links I like to link you you throw them out there and I'll work on how I can connect them

I don't know if this first one is true again not on the dating app so I don't know um someone told me that AI that bots can't do emojis and and that may have been true at one point I don't know if it's still true so if she was talking to someone she didn't think was real she'd be like oh what's your favorite emoji and which I actually think is a great question like you could also that's a that's a really like what your top three emojis you use or like describe yourself in three emojis or less that would actually be that would actually be a really fun sorry that would actually really fun assignment in class actually um if my students were listening prepare for that one in the next few months um so i don't know if that's true i don't know if you're fact checking

me right now it wasn't my fact though yeah i'm working on it okay cool so that was fact number one that was that was thing number one i don't know if it's still true it definitely was at a time because she would show me these conversations and yeah there's no reason why that person wouldn't have just sent an emoji um i have a friend who suggested doing this and i know i talked to you about this in the pre-show and i think this is a brilliant idea um what she does is she says no at some point to something not in like uh no like fuck you i don't want to do that but they'll the way she described it to me was that someone would be like oh like i'd really love to get Italian how about we go to this place and that you just come back with no I think I'd

rather try this place I've heard some you know I've heard some great things about it it's closer to my work it's easier to get to but that's that first no she said was very telling for her because she would have people be like no I said we were going here and she'd just be like block um or they would demand an explanation of why they were picking somewhere and not like a oh i've never heard of that like what have you heard about that is it good reviews it was it was more like well why can't you just take what i'm telling you so her thing and and don't don't be a dick as you're saying like the no don't be like no i'm gonna say no just to say no um or if someone says hey can we meet in six go no six doesn't work for me how about seven how

about seven and they could come back and say seven doesn't really work for me i have to get home whatever it may be but the tenor of that conversation she said was more eye-opening than almost any other thing she did so that's thing two thing three goes back to my senior citizens i was working with they have been told and this is some good stuff to never put their personal information online right like don't put your social security number online don't put bank account numbers like all that they have become so terrified that when we did a whole workshop on how to build um bless you did i ruin it sorry no i'm done okay um they have been so terrified of this that when we were doing we were actually doing a workshop which was really fun on on creating your

dating profile because they never learned how to do that and they were like well what name should i call myself i'm like your name will work well no i was told not to put my personal information i'm like you you can put your your name and then like okay and then they put their entire like first middle last and I'm like okay maiden yeah let's let's do some shades of gray here um so just being careful about what you are putting out and not just in your profile but also in the conversations that you're having if you're if you're on a dating app um it is okay to put your real name we actually prefer people use their real name on dating apps or the name you like to be called um but they were just so terrified to put information out

yeah which which is understandable because especially it's such a punch line right when um someone who is 60 or above or 55 and above or gets gets taken for their their financial information or whatever it becomes a punch line and uh oh obviously that's what was happening you never you rarely can ever pinpoint it in the interaction especially in a dating sense if a person is putting themselves out there because they're open to meeting somebody there's a level of vulnerability there and desire to believe that the information you're getting back the responses you're getting back are based in some level of honesty yeah and lester me in which case you're going into every interaction cynicism

flying like let's see how this east coast sense really benefits you let's see how this person's a liar now yeah yeah um but yeah i just i think that there is there's there's a there's a fine line between like i'm not going to share anything and like how i i don't want to say fine line but I can't take it back because this is candid and I can't edit. There's a level of understanding. There's a level of literacy here between what can I safely put online. Your first name is fine. Your age is okay.

Most people can find that anyway with like two seconds of searching. To just putting it all out there. Not putting bank account numbers, social security numbers, credit card numbers. Don't take, yeah. While we're talking about age, dumbasses who are below 20, i want any pictures of your first credit card and then take pictures of the back with a security code i have seen that more in people getting their first credit cards like looking at my first credit card and people be like oh i show this picture of the back and they send like they'll

post it i'm like yeah you know that reminds me of in the myspace days the questionnaires that so my space i'm sorry i wasn't cool so for for those who were my spacers with me one of the trends was answering these like fun questionnaires it was like what city were you born in oh my god did you go to tell me what was the name of your first pet what was tell me all your security answers thank you so don't do that yeah um just and then just to go back um to your first like chat bots can now use emojis i just went on chat gpt and uh it gave me its top 10 okay so never mind so it's not true sorry my friend that's not true if you're the

person who was doing that hopefully you realize they were bought otherwise yeah there's like one more thing that i feel like it fits but then i also don't feel like it fits put it out there it's so the new thing with ai and this has nothing to do with dating i'm also thinking about people who have kids and people with parents which i feel like captures a lot of people you got it you got the whole population there dr sue it's the it's the thing where they're using ai to spoof um voices and so people are getting calls from their nieces their nephews their grandkids their parents and it sounds enough like them yeah i feel like this could be his own episode on safety and digital safety i think i think it's a good thing to introduce here for digital

literacy to understand the power that ai can quickly ai is evolving yeah i mean it's it's moving fast yeah and that's not to scare people off of ai although i that's a different type of podcast um but you have to be aware because it's becoming a part of our fabric again or it's not again but it's becoming becoming a part of our fabric so staying ignorant to it doesn't serve you yeah so let me just say truth because i don't want to leave that without a solution um so what they're doing is it's coming from a random number and when someone goes oh well this isn't your number it's oh i'm at the police station oh i've lost my phone oh um so what i would advise you to do if you have kids who are old enough or even with your parents or

whoever your loved ones is have a word that you recognize not a safe word that's a whole nother subject um but have like a key that if yeah a code word so like if i call charlie and our code word is avalanche um but you know if i'm like hey i need money you know i'm stuck my phone got stolen i i my i lost my wallet like what do i do and you say what's the code word and i'm like what code word like just send me the stuff like you know that's not true yeah you know what that makes me think of um there was this this info not infomercial but this video in the 80s um like how to raise a street smart kid or something and it was it was the at the height of like the stranger danger messaging and it was this whole thing about you know someone pulling up and saying

your parents asked me to pick you up. And telling in this video, teaching kids and the parents like have a specific word. So if someone comes up to your kid, and they don't have the word your kid knows not to get in the car. And that's very much the same concept. That kind of vigilance should never leave our consciousness. Which is also the perfect way to wrap up that these things have always existed. Like these problems have always existed. It just evolves. Yeah. It evolves with available technology. And again, for every attic, um, attic level, ATT, I see, um, every, every peak, there is a valley. There are people that will operate in shadows and there are bad actors um i don't think there's i don't think it's 50 50 that's the optimist to me i think there's

more good than bad but that doesn't mean we we let our guard down completely so so two things before i let you wrap up one first thing we have to do is change our code word when we get off this call when we get off this video the second thing is that if you have stories that you would want because I feel like a lot of times when we talk about this people like oh I don't know anyone that's happened to and then I get a oh my god let me share my story so if you have stories you want to share either anonymously or if you if we know you and you want a guest with us like we're always happy to to share because I feel like sometimes the stories that people can tell about how it impacted them are really important so please feel free to use

the link in the description that Charlie's about to tell you and yeah we just got to change that code word. Noted. Write that down. Change code word. Change code word. All right, everyone. Well, I want to thank you all for joining us on this episode of Unzipping Taboos. We really hope today's episode sparked new thoughts, heightened awareness and new awareness perhaps around digital for parents in safety, online safety, and that it will open up conversations worth having with those around you, those near and dear to you. And then remember, everything stems from your curiosity. It is that is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of this world, life and sex and relationships. If you enjoyed today's show, please subscribe,

leave a review and share it with someone who you think might need to hear this. We would benefit from hearing it or any other episode. And if you've got a question or a topic you want us to unzip, reach out to us via the link in the episode description. A huge thanks to jackandjilladult.com for supporting Unzipping Taboos. Don't forget, you can get 20% off your order with code UNZIPPING20. We want to give a very special shout out to Allie O'Brien for incredible theme music. Thank you so much, Allie. And until next time, keep the conversation going, Keep unzipping those taboos and everyone take care.