Well, hello there, thank you for joining us today on this daily podcast from Body and Soul Got Healthy Ish of course, I am the host of Felicity Helly Now. It's been five years since the last Body and Soul sex survey or Census, so we thought it was due time we did another. Our team asked more than two thousand Australians between the ages of eighteen and seventy five, all sorts of questions about sexual health, wellness, pleasure, dating,
et cetera, et cetera. We're talking online dating trends today and joining me in the studio is Sarah Bosa. She's an evidence based dating coach and the founder of the dating coaching brand Sideswiped. Now, if you like what you hear from Sarah, are listening to Extra Healthy Ish, where she tells you how to win at online dating and can search for that wherever you get your podcasts Sarah, welcome to Healthy Ish, and we have to let our listeners know that you have worked across the Body of
SO brand. Yes, so nice to have you here in the chair. Happy to be back. Now we're talking obviously about the Body in SOULD twenty twenty four Sex Census Talk us through the main ways people meet their partners nowadays.
So interestingly, a lot of things in dating have changed and also a lot of things haven't. So based on the survey, the most common way to meet your partner is still through family and friends. Next app would be work or the office hopefully. Oh interesting, maybe stealing the situation there, and also interesting considering the COVID years and that we're spending less time in the office. And amazingly,
the next most popular way is dating apps. Nearly half forty three percent of Ozzie's have used dating apps, even Ozzie's seventy five plus, which is a stat I love to hear.
My goodness, Oh that is so nice to hear. Heartwarming. Yeah. Are are they especially dating apps for that age group?
For that?
Do they just use the rest of rest of the bunch?
I think they just adjust their age filters. Who knows, maybe they'll be a Golden Tinder edition.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just talk about about the fifty percent. What was that? I can't remember the actual stat around meeting through family and friends. This is very reassuring for people who are a single, I think because I don't know about you, but often you know I'm obviously married, but often my friends who are single, I think I can never meet anyone where are your friends? So it's up to us to introduce ourselves to People's up to us to introduce our friends to our other friends.
Oh absolutely, I mean there's that classic example of going to a wedding and meeting someone. There's so much love in the room, and you're all surrounded by friends and family, and you're all vetted. I think one big, an amazing thing In some ways that dating apps introduced were people you had otherwise never cross paths with or would never
have connected with. But sometimes when you extend things too far, you lose that sense of connection and for familiarity and you know your friends, you know, knowing who they dated in high school and.
All that sort of stuff. Interestingly, four percent it doesn't say much, but I think it's quite a big deal. Four percent meet via DM. Talk to us about this. How do you go about asking someone out on the DM? Shoot your shot?
I say, I have actually done this all Okay, time tell us or first, it actually starts with your feed. You need a good single social esthetic, So your first six or nine grid posts need to be you living your best single life, get every ex partner off your feed, because you don't want to make it confusing when someone looks at your profile and they try to guess, hang on, are they single or not?
Now I'm very confused.
You don't necessarily need to archive or delete your ex's but you need to bump them down the grid.
So you need photos of you in Europe, you like clinking glasses, you know, on the beach, somewhere in Australia. You just you running whatever is your interest.
Absolutely you living your best single life, and then comes the dam slide.
There are two main.
Styles to do this, and I think that the best way to get your head around this is think of your digital flirting behavior to mimic any of your irl flirting behavior. So let's say you're at a bar the good old days and you're there to meet someone. You can either scan the room clock someone cute, waste no time, confidently walk up to them and say how's your night going? Or Hey, what's that you're drinking? On Instagram? That would translate to a follow and then a dam straight off
the bat with one or two lines, really direct. There's that approach or style.
Does that work?
It can again, it's going to be how you present yourself on your grid.
Yes, okay, the grid matters.
The grid matters, and what sort of existing interest is there? Style two, which I would recommend a bit more. Let's go back to the bar. Metaphorically, you'd scout the room for someone cute. Maybe you'd make eye contact, you'd play with your hair, you'd sense if there's any connection, any engagement, maybe give a cheeky smile. You'd start telling your friends you need to move closer. Maybe you do a strategic trip to the bar ever those days to check if
they're looking. It's a dance and there's warm up. So the way that that would translate to Instagram is first you click follow. Maybe a few days later you like one of their Instagram grid pictures. If they're uploading stories, maybe intermittently you like one one day, you don't the next, and eventually you reply to a story and just gauge if there's any connection there. Again, you want to go in with something brief, one or two lines, not an
essay about how much you're obsessed with them. From their feet and what a day? Yeah, yeah, I like it. Good good advice.
The DM it's an untapped place today and I have a confession to make. Actually, when one of my friends breaks up with someone, I always go through their feet and see if they have deleted the X. It's just a thing I like to do.
It is now an entirely new predicament that you have to think about. I've just broken up with this someone. How do I then have to tend to my digital life?
Yes? I had this years ago.
It was you know, my DM sorry, my profile picture was me and my ex and I knew that my birthday was a few months away and in my head this was.
Facebook days yep.
So it's like people are going to be coming to my wall and writing happy birthday on my wall?
And what do I do about the photo? Yes? Did you change it? A few days before? I did change it. I like it.
But it's also part of the you know, the healing process. You have to let go of those digital momentos.
Yeah, and then block that person so you never definitely, well if it hasn't been a happy ending. Now. There was another stat that I thought was really interesting and well perhaps concerning one in three Aussies feel online dating is unsafe. Talk to us about this.
Yeah, so the survey did show that seventy three percent of Aussies think users aren't necessarily being honest about who they are or what their intentions are. For example, people might pose as single but realistically be in relationships. Just under half of aussi's are also worried about being scammed for money, which is a shame. There was also a lot of recognition in the survey about how dating apps
do put you in more control. You can date on your own terms, at home, even in your pajamas, which is amazing, all of that before meeting in person once you do feel ready.
So how can we feel safe for anyone?
Who?
I mean? We all read the headlines, don't we about the scammers and turning up to locations and being met with not who you think you're going to be met with. How can we feel safe when we date online?
So the apps do want you to connect in a safe and fun way and they are constantly adding safety features. So from the survey, Tinder is the most popular dating app to meet your partner. Recently, they've introduced ID and photo and ID verification, so basically you scan your driver's license or your passport and once that's verified, you get
a little blue tick on your profile. Once you've gone through that process, you can then nominate to only see other users who've done the same, so instantly you feel so much more reassured about what's Seventy three percent of Aussies are worried about that. You know who you're connecting with is who they are. You can also there are amazing features to block and report people if you feel unsafe.
You can block existing contacts in your phone so that you're not seeing your ex's or your bosses, and you can stay in the app for as long as possible because you can both chat and video call through the app. You can also on Tinder share your date plans with your friends and family so they know the name of your match, where you're meeting, and what time and they can check up on you.
Yeah, that's really important, isn't it. Tell your friends, share the share the info, and hopefully you have a good date. Sarah, thank you for coming on, help you shank you friends. If you want more tidbits about online dating or anything else related to our sex census, I will leave a link to it in the show notes. If you enjoyed this chat, tell us rate and review this episode. It was a bit different for us. I know we'll subscribe
to this podcast. Anything else, head to body and sooul dot com dot you follows on socials grob Our print edition which is out in your local Sunday paper and until tomorrow, Stay healthy,