Unzipping Taboos: Candid Conversations about Sex - Is Online Dating Worth It? Depends on your “Worth It”

Episode Date: May 7, 2025

Online dating: Is it worth it? Well… that really depends on your "worth it." In this episode of Unzipping Taboos, we get real about the highs, lows, and “what even is this?” moments of dating online. Charlie shares why online dating hasn’t worked for her, while Dr. Sue brings in perspective from her work with students, seniors, and curious minds of all ages.We talk about setting realistic expectations, navigating dishonesty (hi, bots), and why knowing what you want before diving in can save you a lot of heartache. From ethical non-monogamy to decoding bios and red flags, we cover the good, the bad, and the confusing parts of digital dating.Whether you're new to online dating or feeling jaded by the apps, we’re here to help you check in with yourself, stay grounded, and figure out what your version of “worth it” really looks like.To see the question that prompted today's episode, you can read it on Substack or listen to it on YouTubeIf you have a story, thoughts and/or a topic or question for Dr. Sue and Charlie please share your ideas here:  ⁠Show suggestionsIf you want to ask Dr Sue a sex question for the weekly Q&A you can submit it here: Ask a question

Hey everyone, welcome to Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We're here to dive into the topics of sex and sexuality that you might be curious about, but don't always feel comfortable talking about. No judgment, just open, honest conversation. So zip down and let's get candid. Today, we're going to talk a little bit about online dating and maybe across the lifespan and is it worth it? Is it worth your time? But before we get into all of that, hey, Dr. Sue. Hey, Charlie. How's it going? It's going well. Good. I'm glad to hear that. Would you like to tell our listeners a little bit about your background before we

dive in? Sure. Trying to figure out which hat I want to put on for this one. The one with the feathers. I like that one. So a lot of the work that I do is based in academia, but I think for today's conversation, there's a couple of things I want to talk about because I feel like these both kind of happened in the last few weeks for me. So one of the things that I do is I am HeyDrSue on social media and folks submit their anonymous questions to my website but i also get questions at live events because i'm back to doing live events now that covid is under control ish um and so people ask me sex questions and then once a week on sunday i post the answers to it and i bring this up because

that was actually a question that came up at a live event was is online dating worth it and i did not include the tone i was gonna say wasn't there a little spice on it it was like oh it's online dating even worth it? And I do have permission, by the way, from the person who asked the question to be using it for the stuff. But then the other thing, so I also do a lot of work across lifespan. So I do community presentations and things like that. And so one of the presentations that I've done recently is actually on online dating for seniors. So a population that may have very, very limited and lots of questions, very limited experience and lots of questions about online dating. So I guess I want to use

focus on those two because i feel like i actually don't talk about online dating a lot with my college students and i don't know why that is interesting yeah maybe we'll get into it maybe but before we do i think we need to get a little more about you charlie so for those of you okay if we must if we must um for those of you don't know charlie charlie is our curious co-host who is always ready to explore the ins and outs of sex relationships and all those taboo topics that we as a culture very rarely talk about do you want to tell us a bit more than that because there's so much more to you is there yes um yeah i uh dr sue and i have been friends for many many years and we found that we just kind of had these types of conversations a little bit by virtue of what

dr sue does for a living and for my penchant for challenging expectations of um of society and what they uh how they expect me to act and move about the world as a woman um and comfortably talking about topics around sex and sexuality has never intimidated me and um and i have just kind of a fascination with the the humanity of human behavior and curiosity and so here i am with dr sue you're also very good at keeping me on on task that is a skill set one of my core talents keeping dr sue on task feedback i get a lot in my life you keep us on task all right so online is it worth it online even worth it i don't even know if i could get the level yeah worth it so it's interesting for those of you who haven't read the post or listen

to the youtube video that i did for this question i feel like maybe we'll put a link to that in the description um when i asked consent if i could use this for a q a for a weekly q a they were like yes but you have to point out that i'm a straight woman and i'm like okay i can i can make sure to include that information and then i was talking to someone about it after the post came out and it was a guy and he's like well why does that matter i'm like because it's a very different experience for men and women yeah um it's a very different experience for gay men and straight men it's very different experience for folks who are non-binary like it's a different it's just a different experience and then for my older folks who have nothing a lot of them have

never done online dating um their questions are usually i want to say their questions are usually much more optimistic because they don't know what they a lot of times they don't know what they're getting into they've not been uh corrupted by the the world wide web i feel like as much as those of us who have interacted with online dating have i feel like we've kind of given away our answer of whether or not we think actually you and i don't have the same answer to this question so it's true yeah for those of you who are familiar with the show and those of you who aren't we we don't script this. You're welcome, listeners. Join us on this ride, won't you? But we're also not unprepared. I mean, we have a little conversation and we get out the important

points, whatever the question is, we kind of answer it for each other. So we know where we're going. It makes it easier to corral me when you know where I'm supposed to be going. But we did not have the same answer to this question. We didn't. Although I answered from experience and not kind of a neutral, not from a neutral, we're going to have a conversation for general public to listen to. So my answer is personally, no, it's not worth it. Do you want to do more? I'm sure. I have tried several times. I've had one long-term relationship out of it very early on in the online dating scheme of things. But I have, I've reached a point in my

life where I have the relationships with my friends and my family that fulfill, fulfill my life. Uh, I can travel with many of my friends. I can travel to visit friends. And so kind of, yeah. Um, so making memories in that way, I, for me, romance has never been an essential ingredient for traveling to France or Italy or, um, New York, or that's never been a requirement. Um, And then on top of that, I typically, when I have been created online profiles, I have been looking for male partners. And there is just, especially now, so having gone through it in the very early stages of online dating, love it, AOL.com.

Wow. Age myself. Um, but from the very early stages of online dating and profiles to now, there's just so many avenues into, um, potential violence against me, like my safety, always being cognizant of my safety, trying to build filters when interacting with someone online and then agreeing to meet them in person. I've had people attempt to catfish me on online profiles. And so for me, because I have fulfilling non-romantic relationships, I don't need the romantic relationship. Don't necessarily want it at this point in my life either.

So, so, but this sounds a lot, not, I mean, obviously you touched a little bit on the online portion of it but this is also just you're kind of done with dating and not necessarily online dating I just because that if I'm listening to this as a listener like that's what I'm hearing you say but a lot of it has been informed by online dating interactions setting up a profile going through bumble going through those platforms and having been in and out of the online dating profile pool seeing the same profile and same profile picture from 20 years ago in in match and in plenty of fish and in bumble you know the same people with again with the same picture from 20 years ago so that's already a lack of trust and what really is has been your

motivation and then interactions the interactions that I have gotten on online dating in the past 10 years have all been aimed at trying to get salacious pictures or money yep so for me no online dating isn't worth it if I'm answering in the capacity of from a non-personal experience then my answer aligns with you it depends on what you set your expectations as yeah and what platform you're using because there's hookup platforms too right I haven't actually given it my opinion yet by the way spoiler alert thanks for stealing my thunder you're welcome appreciate that you're welcome so that's me Dr. Sue is it worth it what's your answer you stole my thunder um I think it depends on what you want from it

I really do think it depends on what you want for it and some people I mean some people are genuinely getting on these apps and thinking they're going to meet the love of their life and some of them do I mean if you look at some of the research that's out there when they pull partners like people who are engaged or married there's a good chunk of them and and it's hard to give a number because like depending on the survey it was anywhere from like 27 to 60 percent I'm like that's literally a hundred percent march like that's a hundred percent difference there um but but that is i mean meeting our partners through online dating is one of the primary ways that we're meeting people still that is that's been true for for a while now um so if you are

getting on some of these sites thinking i'm going to meet the love of my life and my or my next major partner or my spouse potentially sure like but i think you also have to go into it with reasonable expectations. Um, for some people they're going into it just because it's a way to kill time and see what's out there. Um, you know, some people go into it with a way of reaffirming their decision to be single. I have a lot of friends actually are in the same boat as you who are like every once in a while, I like reload the app on my phone. And then after about seven hours, I delete it. Um, you know, some people are looking to connect to another human and not meet and this is actually what I see with some of my seniors that I work with is that

they don't they're not necessarily looking for a relationship so much as they're looking for connection and and sometimes there is no plan on ever meeting which is something I have to explain to them that you know they're all like oh well I have to meet these people like no you you actually don't there are plenty of people who keep their relationships in an online capacity for folks who are looking for a hookup sure like this this could be the thing for you but please use caution you know if you're meeting strangers off the internet so I think it really depends on what it is that you're looking for and I think it's about setting expectations so I don't think it's I don't think it's I think it's like mostly it's not like it's good or bad inherently right

I think it's how you're using it you know if you're spending all of your free time looking at profiles and you are not going out with friends and you are not doing other things that's that's concerning well and if it starts impacting your self-image and your self-worth based on the quality of the interactions that you're engaging with right right because it's not always you could be out there with the best intentions and then you're on there long enough that you start to get a little a little calloused yeah you know yeah and a little like what the hell wrong with me that i'm still on here after x amount of time so yeah um so yeah i think it's about going into it with realistic expectations and checking in with yourself about those

expectations on a regular basis um right but what's fascinating is that so i this one seemed to generate a lot of so the post i had done generate a lot of side conversation in my real life in my real life um and a lot of it was tying back to what we had talked about in a previous episode on the mating crisis oh yes yes like when we look at who's on dating websites it's a very different gender shift than we used to see before because if you were and i don't have the numbers handy i'm not we're not backed by any major dating company though i'd be open to that any major dating platform that's listening to this if charlie didn't ruin that opportunity with her her testimony at the top of the episode we can separate the two of us yes at least for that

so what we know about dating in general right now is that there are a lot more men who are looking for relationships than there are women who are looking for relationships and that ties back to that whole mating crisis we did the the episode on i we should probably talk Yeah. People can't see the air quotes. I know. We'll link that episode in our description, too, just for anybody that's curious. We should probably just do a quick little like what it is just for folks. We don't want to throw. I don't like throwing. This is the teacher in me. I don't like throwing terms out there without describing and defining them.

So, hey, Dr. Sue. Yes, Charlie. That's the mating crisis. The mating crisis is a completely made up thing. um mating crisis is a horrible term what the what a mating crisis really is it's i'm not it's it's a term that's being used to refer to the fact that women are not seeking partners male partners because that's what it's really about it's about male female relationships um that female partners are not seeking out male partnerships the way they had in the past because they are setting

different standards they for themselves for their partners they are looking for different things And so we're seeing more and more men who are single, not by choice, like they would like to be in a relationship and they're not. And so culture, for a lot of reasons that you very eloquently talk about in that podcast, I'm not going to go into too deep into it. We've, we dubbed them, not we, you and I, but culture dubbed it the mating crisis. So really, it's about the fact that women are choosing to be single in a way that they have not done in the past. But I just want to throw that out there. I don't want to use a term without. Yeah. And when really it is the more accurate description, I would say, or the more accurate term is the male loneliness crisis. Which is what it started as. Right. And the mating crisis, not to derail this particular episode, but we talk a little bit about how it's in that term is effective because it gives an other to ascribe the responsibility to and not to the male loneliness epidemic and what what's happening there and why

people are not interacting with males on a romantic level but back to this it's your job to corral me what do you i was i was about to okay take a breath we're all good so online dating and setting expectations what are the uh some of the things that come to mind when you say that for you sorry well in this realm not for you personally um I think it's a lot about that like what am I willing what am I looking for what am I willing to accept in that process how am i checking my expectations am i okay with what's going on because it can be really frustrating people can do great but you know and one of the things i've done in the past is i've helped people with their profiles and um and photo selection of like they should be of you

and not 15 of your friends so people to figure out who they're looking at and not minimize the holding of the fish pictures yeah um so so it can be really frustrating when you have a really great profile and you're a wonderful human being and you're not getting the interaction that you were craving or that you were looking for and so i do think it's really important that people are kind of checking where they are and their expectations every once in a while like it doesn't have to be you put up your profile on a friday and on monday you're like what am i doing um but but if you find that you're getting really frustrated taking a break and you can from most of the major platforms i mean i don't know them all but most of them the major

platforms that my friends are on you know there's like a pause option um or like a hide my visibility for now option so you don't even have to like get rid of your account but you can pause it and so i think that that's that's really important because it's like you said before how you feel being on that site you know on those sites if you feeling if it's making you feel badly about yourself this might not be the best thing for you right now yeah yeah absolutely keeping that awareness of how it is impacting your anxiety if you're a naturally kind of high anxiety person is this adding a level to that and is that where you need to be right now for yourself or if you're having maybe you're not getting as many maybe you were on 10 years prior and you got

all this attention and then you signed up again 10 years later and you're not getting quite as much attention, is that impacting kind of your self-image and your self-worth and always checking in and having key people that support your journey that receive, hey, I'm going to sign up for match again. Oh, okay, great. I'm here. Let me know how it's going, that kind of thing. Having people like that in your corner so when you hit those days where it's like it's just the same shit over and over you can talk to them and they can help you unravel or process if it's still the right the right avenue for you and then if you're going on there going on there to hook up be honest about that on your profile yeah that's the other piece I mean it's kind of the that's the challenge I

think of it too is that the quality of those interactions are largely dependent on how honest and transparent other users are with their intentions and their expectations of being on the platform although not everybody always has very clear intentions and i mean true this this has been since online dating has started so way back in the day i used to teach class in sex and technology and this was something we talked about um and this was like back in the day like at the very beginning of online dating it was a very different experience um and and even then i mean people lied people lie all the time people lie in dating all the time so i don't want people you know there's there are things that are true in dating that are true in online dating and one of

the things is is that people put their best foot forward and sometimes it's not a realistic foot Like sometimes they're misrepresenting themselves. But we see that happen in offline dating as well. Yeah. So I think it's yeah, I think it's important. Like it would be nice if everyone was honest. There's a different level of dishonesty I'm seeing now or hearing from some of my friends who are on on the dating profiles, on the dating profiles, on the dating websites. But I want to go make sure I go back and talk about the thing I want to talk about, please. It's on my paper. I'm taking it. well since it's on the paper i will make sure to come back to it um the type of dishonesty i think i want to talk about because it used to be like everyone would most people lie about something on it whether it's their height their weight their age their location their you know like people usually misrepresent themselves just a little bit i think we all do that we all do that in person as well like we tell stories that inflate us like we do that what i'm hearing about now probably one of the biggest frustrations i'm hearing now for my for my friends who are

online dating um there's two one is the immense number of fake profiles and bots because bots weren't always a thing yeah um and that can be really frustrating um and it's it was interesting i was talking to someone and and they said that the way they figure out there's ways of tracking if the person if it's a real profile or not um if if you're answering questions and they're not incorporating your answers and their response to you. You know, if it sounds like a scripted response, it probably is a scripted response. If they immediately start trying to sell you on like Bitcoin or buying gold, like that's usually a dead giveaway that it's a scammer profile. But and I don't know if this is true. And I probably should have checked it before we did

this. But someone told me that what they do is they ask the person to send them their favorite emoji because they said that bots can't do emojis. And I don't know if that's true because chat gpt yeah chat gpt um emojis me all the time so like we'll be in conversations and it's like emoji emojiing apparently this is a verb now so so i mean i know artificial intelligence is capable of it i just don't know the bots um and there's a there's a great there was a great meme that was going around for a while where it was this guy was talking to what he what was presenting itself as a female profile and was obviously not and he kept saying like say potato like just say the word potato i really wish i had the the original author so i could like shout out who that was um and

there and and the other person it was like they were it was like there had been no response um and so you know trust your gut and that goes trust your gut in real life like if you're having a conversation with someone they don't seem to be responding to what you're saying then this is not a good conversation to be having um so the bots are definitely one of the this was some interesting i had a friend screenshot me once um the bot responded to her in what looked like chinese i don't speak chinese so she wrote a response and ran it through google translate and like reposted it in chinese or whatever again i'm not trying to laugh at the different

language I didn't I don't know what she was running it through and and and the bot just kind of took it in stride like that the language had changed dramatically yeah um so that's the first the first form of deception I wanted to talk about I don't know if you have any thoughts on because it's different than catfishing it's you know catfishing is where you're trying to represent yourself as someone you're not with the idea of building a relationship this is not about building a relationship this is about interacting and trying to get you to like buy shit or send money other yeah i i suppose with catfishing there's an assumption that there's a human on the other end doing it right and this is just bots for bot's sake

i might be up with all suit all sorts of new words for the lexicon i know that might be our t-shirt for the week bots for bots oh for bot's sake um yeah so that's all of those things can make it make a process that is already daunting and overwhelming especially if you're coming back to dating after having been in a long-term relationship or just not in the dating pool for a long time so now so now you have all these extra layers that you didn't have to consider the last time you were active in the dating pool it it can seem very overwhelming and that's I think a little bit of why we answer it depends it depends on what your expectations are if you because it can be frustrating it can be frustrating to sign

up on a dating platform that couches itself to help you find that long term partner. And you sign up, you go through all their questionnaires, you pick pictures that you feel are both flattering and accurate for your current, you know, appearance, and then, and then aren't heavily AI enhanced right and then you pay for the membership you sign it maybe you pay for the year subscription the annual subscription which is a lot of money up front and all you're getting are send me nudes yeah although a lot of the sites aren't doing paid but anyway a lot of them have free but yeah no a lot of a lot of them do have free but if you go on i i have known people who who turn to this to expand their access to people who are dating

which is which is one of the ways that online dating is a great tool because it does broaden that circle that kind of dating radius for you but if you i've had friends that do that with the intention of trying to find that long-term partner potential spouse partner and and you know there's the free level of the profile there's the monthly subscription there's the free trial for paid features um and and then there's the annual subscription price all heavily discounted the more money you're willing to send up front um so yes there are there are free subscription models, but you get more features if you pay. And, and you do that on a site, again, that couch of their marketing is finding your long term partner. And then all

you're getting are, are people who are who either just want naked pictures, or stay in the virtual space forever when you've been trying to elicit an in-person meeting or they just they they say all the right things because they've been in this space for a while um and they're and they've become adept and you meet in person and maybe you um you go home after like on the after one of the dates you sleep together and then you never hear from them again it can all be very overwhelming but that's again like why you need to really figure out what your expectations are especially with the platforms that you decide to set yourself up on yeah so that that goes better into the what I was going to do than the next thing so let's do that instead okay okay because I was going to go

back to something else um and that's that's the other thing I always tell people is you got to do your homework on the platforms you're signing up for uh especially if you're coming if this is your first time doing online dating like take your time and look around you know you can be on multiple sites if you want but it can be overwhelming um and and try to get a sense of what the purpose of the site is and and do you need to pay for the options that are out there and what does that get you excuse me what does that get you um but there are some sites that are designed more for hookups there are some sites that are designed more for potential long-term relationships there are some sites that are um designed for older folks there are some sites that are designed for younger folks

there are some sites that are designed for people who have a similar religious background there are so many different sites so i always tell people like it's important to kind of do your homework and see what it is and does this platform match because i had i was working with some older some older men who had who were going back into dating after losing partners to either death or divorce and they were like jumping right back on the sites that they had been on 15 years ago and they were i would never tell someone you're too old but they were too old they weren't the target audience for the for the site anymore so they weren't getting matches and and it was feeling really uncomfortable and but because it wasn't the right site for them and so my thing is if you're going to do if you've

never done it before or you haven't done in a really long time that it's changed it you know So a lot of the names are the same. You still see like eHarmony and Match and things like that. And you may be familiar with those, but those might not be the right ones for you anymore. So there is a responsibility for folks. I think there's a responsibility for folks who are getting online to really look at like, what are the platforms and does it look like this is what I want? Yeah. And I think another aspect to that is what are their safety protocols for your privacy and for when you don't feel safe interacting with one of the other members? What are some of those protections that they have built in is another consideration. yeah so really just being a savvy consumer but it's hard to think about being a consumer of a product when you're looking for when you're the product yeah and and when you're looking i hate to be like oh and you're looking for love but when you're looking for a connection it's it can be really easy to be very optimistic and and it you still should do your homework and that's one of the ways that one of i think the reasons why it can feel

like it's just all scams because you're putting yourself in a very vulnerable position to a multitude of strangers and um and you you do have to for a lot of people who are on there in earnest to find that connection that can be disheartening when you've probably worked through a lot of insecurities or uncertainty or overwhelm or anxiety you finally get on there and then it takes a minute for you to find those those key connections that make it feel worth it right and you may not find them and that's true yeah and sometimes it's as simple as like tweaking a search criteria like maybe you have a search criteria with a very narrow age range so you're not really meeting a people maybe if you just bump that age range one one year out like that

could change it or if you have like a mileage set changing it by like a mile but it can start to feel really overwhelming um i do want to talk about the other because we kind of got off of it um one of the other changes that i'm hearing from folks along that deception because we i've been talking about bots do you mind if i kind of wander back there i don't mind can i wander please meander if you want i don't i don't think about me and lollygagging wander with intent that's more my style um wander with purpose so one of the things that i'm hearing a lot of and and it was funny because i had a friend who was all like i'm doing it going back in a dating world I'm like good luck um and I got a I got a text from her like I feel like it was like three hours

later I don't remember the time frame this was wild and she's like what the hell is E&M is it like a band and I'm like are you thinking of OMD and I totally just dated myself with that reference um I was like it's not a band it's she she legit she's like is it emo and I'm like it's not emo either like yeah um and and so for those of you who are not familiar enm is the term for ethical non-monogamy and she was like it's she's like it feels like every other person on here is enm and i'm like are you on an enm site because there are sites that are maybe a little more friendly to it and she's like yeah no she was one i'm not going to name it she was with one of the major ones that does not necessarily market to an enm market and so we did a little bit of like this is

what enm is and like um and as it was she did actually wind up meeting someone who was legitimately in an enm relation an ethically non-monogamous relationship and she actually met the partner as well um it didn't work just personalities and things like that but she was very unprepared for that um and so for her it really was like a what is this new thing but then when I'm hearing from other folks is it's a lot of like people like oh yeah I'm totally into E&M and my partner knows about this and absolutely they're open to it and it turns out it's not I mean it's no different than saying you're single when you're not single in my mind it's the same level of dishonesty um and so I don't I don't know if you wanted to chime on chime in on this you know no there's

nothing I don't have anything to add to that I think I started to notice that um that frequency as well of you know E&M people or open couples on there looking for their unicorns or what have you yeah well and one of the things that I tell people when they see that is that you know this may be very different from monogamy and like that's the other thing sorry I'm going to come back to this read read people's bios like read people's bios i understand it's like a photo environment and it feels like catalog shopping and we just keep like you know swiping one way the other or xing or up or down i don't know which way these things go anymore but but read read the bio and if someone says in their bio that they are ethically non-monogamous take them at

their word because they're putting it out there for you to read um which also translates to keep in mind what you're writing in your bio like some you're right most people don't read and i love i love when people like will send me i get a lot of screenshots from my friends who are like look at this one um they'll be like does anyone actually read these that's a legitimate question i i think for a lot of people they're just sitting somewhere swiping and they're not really reading or they're maybe only reading stopping to read when they're interested but but i think there's i think that if someone puts their stuff in their bio about whatever it may be have kids want kids don't want kids vaccinated not vaccinated sober not sober smoker whatever i mean there's a thousand

things that they ask questions about take the time to read it and then don't be like surprised when what they say was accurate because if they're telling you that they're ethically non-monogamous or that they're in an open relationship or they're not serious about commitment that's not going to change just because they met you right um so i think there is a responsibility for folks to read their bio um but now i completely forgot where i was going so you let me meander too far i wander too far oh so that's right education so so i had to my friends who were kind of running into this and they're like what the hell is this and first i explain what it is and they're like is it good or bad i'm like it's not either yes it is a lifestyle

choice that is different from monogamy and you have the right to say this is not okay for me there are values about relationships may be very different from your values their communication skills may be way better than your communication skills because we do see that in those in those types of relationships um but it is okay to pass on someone or disconnect from them unmatch on i don't even know what words we're using anymore um it is it is okay to do it if their values don't line up with yours and values about monogamy are important to some folks. So it's okay. It's okay. I'm giving you permission that if those values about dating and relationships do not line up with yours, it is okay not to match with those folks. Same as if like you don't ever

want kids and they're like, I want 10 children. And you're like, I want none, but it's just a value difference. And that's okay. And I just, I want to echo the, listen to what people are telling you if you are someone who's exploring one relationship construct and you're engaging and investing time with someone who is very open up front and says i want this other construct recognize that it's okay it's not it's not that you don't think they're unattractive that they're not attractive or that they're not a good person it just it you're setting yourself up for for a type of roller coaster that maybe you don't want in your life yes yeah but it's a choice yes and i and i i think it's one of those things like

the people i don't know why people think people aren't serious when they put that in their bio like if you're writing those words down i'm or checking the box or whatever drop down menu whatever it is like i'm hoping that they were paying attention to what they did and so you're not going to talk them out of it or into it or whatever maybe um so yeah pay attention well and that's a whole other maybe that's a whole other episode is if you're engaging with them knowing that there's a difference and you have a mindset of trying to convince them otherwise maybe don't do that to that person's life yeah you know don't do that to your life yeah and even if it's not about ethical non-monogamy even if it's just about i'm i'm not ready right kids or i'm just out to

have fun like i'd like to meet people and see where it goes but i am not ready to get into a serious relationship and someone says i am looking for a serious monogamous relationship you are not on the same page and that's okay it doesn't mean you're a bad person or they're they're they're a bad person they're just not the right person for you that is all that means yeah but it's easy to kind of wrap that up in rejection especially when the disconnect happens with no explanation and you don't always owe the person an explanation sometimes no explanation providing no explanation is a matter of safety yes yes and so i i feel especially from a lot of the women i know who are and i do know men who are on dating apps um especially for a lot of the women i know on dating

apps are always like well i should explain i'm like you don't have to explain you don't you don't owe them that explanation um maybe don't call them names on the way out the door unless they deserve it but like you can simply unmatch people do it all the time well and i think the offering the explanation or feeling compelled to give an explanation um beyond this just isn't a match opens the door we know we know humans like to be bold when they are behind a keyboard and can get pretty nasty and potentially dangerous so the less said other than no thank you it's not a match or simply an unmatch or yeah and if you had an interaction in person that made you really uncomfortable and you had to exit in a in a way from that in-person interaction it is also okay

to just unmatch and not say you don't have to say anything especially if you feel like your safety might be compromised if you continue to engage yeah and actually with most of the most of the major sites right now when you unmatch the like there is an option of saying or reporting it like you can just unmatch and go about your merry day but there's also an option to report it and you can report that they made you feel uncomfortable they asked for money or whatever whatever it was so there are options whether or not anything happens to that person who knows um but that is an option yeah i feel like there was one more thing i wanted to say and i forgot to write it down because i was pointing with my hand it's your pin i was i was talking with my hands again

ah yes oh that was it um the the one of the things that i to try to be optimistic which is not really in my nature but i'm gonna give it a go just because i feel like i need that's my role today um online dating when you're in a new environment or like you've met all your friends friends like there's just no more people that your friends can introduce you to or you're new to an area it can be a great way just to meet people and whether they turn into long-term partners or just friends or just open up your social network and it can be a great way of kind of getting to meet people it can be a great way of kind of expanding those boundaries I know for some people who are exploring their orientation or their identity can be a way of meeting people

without having to do it in public which could come with a risk right now um but not right now there's always been a risk um so i i feel like there can be some positives to this um but i will also say there's a little bit of an online dating backlash happening right now we're seeing more and more people going to planned events in person to try to kind of reconnect on that personal level um so we are we are seeing more and more people trying to actually meet offline but online dating is not going anywhere. And I just think, I think with the idea of is it worth it? It's really about is it worth it to you? Like, what are your expectations? And are your expectations? You know, are you okay with the process? Yeah. And I think I think just starting with answering that

question, what is your worth it? Like, what, what is your worth it? Is it that you are expanding your social circle? Is it because that is that and a lot of the platforms, the especially the legacy platforms now have an option for that for just friends meeting up i'm you know so so start with that if you're considering um signing up or if you are in the midst of it and determining trying to determine whether you want to continue take take like five ten minutes and think about what worth it would mean for you continuing or signing up so that you have those that kind of check-in place with yourself as you continue to navigate it or navigate it for the first time in a long time or the first time ever yeah i think that's a good place to wrap it up i do want to

say though like really quickly because i know we've said this before and we put in the description so many of the shows that we're doing now are based off what we're having conversations about offline or in reaction um to to to the episode so if something got sparked for you in this conversation or you're like, I need you to talk more about safety or I need you to talk more about whatever it may be, you know, we'll have in the description away for you to send in your comments or your thoughts. So please always feel free to use that. Yes. All right. So is it worth it? Well, it depends. I feel like that's always the answer to our episodes with these kinds of questions. Depends. Here I was thinking I brought you over to my side.

It depends on what you're worth it is. We do want to thank you for joining us on Unzipping Taboos, candid conversations about sex with Dr. Sue and Charlie. We hope today's episode sparked some new thoughts. We'll open up conversations worth having. And remember that your curiosity is the key to breaking down barriers and embracing a healthier understanding of sex and relationships. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, leave a review,

and share it with somebody who might need to hear this or just share it even if they don't need to hear it. And if you've got a question or a topic you want us to dive into or any component of any episode you've heard that you want us to dive into a little bit deeper, as Dr. Sue said, reach out to us via the link in the episode description. We want to give a very special shout out to Ali O'Brien for our incredible theme music.

Thank you so much, Ali. And until next time, keep the conversation going, keep unzipping those taboos, and everyone, take care.