Alec Dives into "The Dating Market"

and funny. But the one that really caught my attention was something they wrote together in February called the Dating Market is getting Worse. Their analysis coincided with an observation I've been making for years. When people let concepts like market value and supply and demand guide their love life, they end up with the wrong person or with no

one at all. My interview with Fetters and Tiffany was first scheduled for the week in March when the world came to a screeching halt, so we were forced to resort to zoom. Hence the audio quirks throughout this episode. But none of those quirks are Ashley's fault. She saw to that I do want people to know Ashley, who is this really super smart writer, is in a closet and it's so plainly a closet. It's just it's so clearly down different kinds of women's clothes draping down around her.

I hope the sound is worth it. I hope the acoustics are are as good as I've heard. Once everyone got settled in their home studios, we got down to business. Caitlin situated the dating market problem in a broader national context. In our American capitalist context, we are trying to think

that markets are inherently fair. So if you start thinking about dating as a as a marketplace, um, I think that leads you to kind of dangerous thoughts about, well, the market is not being fair to me, this is what I deserve from others, like and then you start to blame people when things aren't aren't going the way that you'd like it to do. Is that something that you saw that during your research and your writing of

these articles. Sure, yeah, I think you see it in really extreme ways on like sub credits, where there are you know, men who think the government should assign them a girlfriend. That's like the extremist end. But I think you see it. Like in a lot of conversations about the conversations I have with my friends about dating, we would definitely say like, oh, it's not fair that you are like you can't find someone of your caliber, or like, it's not fair that this guy who is not on

your level is treating you poorly. Like I think we definitely use that language without even thinking about it. When I got married the first time, I was at a pretty good place in my career, and I thought, well, I'm the captain of the football team, who's the head cheerleader here on the campus. That's who I should be married to, like, and they're going to kind of market value world of it. I thought, well, there's a woman I need to be with. I need to be with

that kind of woman. My question for you, Ashley is the same. Do you think that thinking about dating as a marketplace is ill advised? I do. Um, I think I've got, you know, another couple of reasons. I can mention that that built on top of what Caitlin said, Um, you know, for starters, when you're shopping for something at a in a literal market, shopping for a material good. I mean to put it very plainly, you don't have

to consider how that material good feels about you. So for starters, it's a little bit of an incomplete way to think of it. Also, it's sort of assumed that if you're literally shopping for something, you know, address or a pair of headphones or something, you will stop shopping once you have it. And dating is different obviously, like you might meet someone that you like but then keep going on dates, or you might have multiple people that you sort of keep in our rotation and never you know,

pick one and pare down the others. Right. Um. So it like if it works anywhere the market metaphor works better for marriage that does for dating, because that's at least assumed in most people's mind to be a one to one and you know, more permanent transaction or more

permanent match. Um. But I think the biggest flaw in understanding dating to be kind of a shopping or a market or an economic transaction, um is that, you know, thinking of humans as materials as material goods fails to account for like the fact that what you want, what you really want, might not be at all what you're

looking for. I think you kind of you know you you mentioned this, um, you know there's this concept that like the dating coach Logan Uri, who I talked to for um this story that KITL and I wrote together, Um, she calls it relations shopping, which I think is what you were mentioning a little bit right. You you you start to think like, oh, here's the parameters of what I want.

Here are my preferences, so I'm only going to look within these margins, And of course that sort of fails to account for the fact that humans are like chaotic, interrational, and what we want is influenced by how we see ourselves, and how we see ourselves is influenced just as much by how we were brought up as what our morning

was like. So you know, thinking of um, of dating as a transact in or something that you shopped for a partner or something you shopped for really, um, it really just fails to account for the chaos and kind of the magic of finding a partner. You talk about how dating outside of your social network began at the end of the nineteenth century, where people are going to places specifically to meet other people beyond arranged marriages and

beyond your hometown or what have you. And I'm wondering have social apps have these dating apps proven that that's a good thing? And I always laugh when someone would show me these apps that it would say I want someone within twenty miles fifty miles of my zip code. I always found that very humorous, and I'm wondering, but is it working? I have found that, Um, you know, lots of people I've talked to have said, you know, this person lived in my neighborhood and we never would

have met. This person lived one town over, and we never would have met if it weren't for Tinder, if it weren't for Bumble, if it weren't for you know, all these myriad of dating apps that we have at our fingertips. Now, UM, I mean I think you know, there's there's a well a well publicized, well traad argument that the endlessness of options is paralyzing in itself, and

that's its own problem, I think. But UM, I do think that there are you know, tangible cases and like observable cases where you know, people met met partners and met you know, the love of their lives that they would not have found, um if they'd only been looking in their own immediate obvious social circle. Yeah, we're far enough along at this point where there's pretty good survey data and people say that they have started relationships, have

started marriages because of dating apps. I think this the stigma has been largely removed to meeting on dating apps as well. Like um Pete Buddha Judge has that he met his husband un hinge in his New York Times wedding announcement, so like it's pretty much accepted at this point that people do meet that way. And I guess, just in my personal experience, most of my real sationships have started because of dating apps um and with people that I would never have met in another way. Uh. Now, Caitlin,

you're the oldest of four sisters. Correct, yes, And when you grew up did your parents remain together your entire childhood? Oh? Yeah, they're still together. My mom still has crushed feelings. Now you now, with that in mind, did your mother or father or both offer you any advice about dating and your love life? And well, my parents met in high school when they were fifteen, So I think most of my adulthood has been spent being frustrated with them that

they have like no relevant experiences to share whatsoever. Every time I had a bad breakup, I was like, you, guys don't understand, this has never happened to you, don't talk to me. UM. I mean they try though, sure they try. And you have three sisters, where do you fall in line in that order? I'm the oldest. What kind of advice have you and your siblings given each other about dating? My youngest sister is eighteen, so she

doesn't factor in that much, UM yet. But um, the other two are one and and they're they're much better at dating than I am. So if anything, I feel like they give me advice. What do you attribute that to? Um, I'm just like a bookish personality. UM, I was very judgmental of boys in college. I thought they were very stupid and like not worth engaging with. I would say my sisters are more compassionate, empathetic individuals, so they just

have an easier time connecting with people. For you, Ashley, When people using these apps swipe right, what's usually among the first criteria? Is it purely physical? That's a great question. What I will say is like, I I think it's it's very tailored to individual people. I know some people are on their purely looking at what does this person look like? And that then making you know, decisions swipe

left or swipe right based on just that. Um. I know other people are kind of like, oh, i'd like to know, you know, how much education this person has. I'd like to know, you know, what religion this person practices. I'd like to know how tall this person is? Is a really big one. It's a really big one, I think for both genders. But um, yeah, I mean I'm five eleven, and so when I was you know, in the brief time that I was ever using apps, that was a big priority of mine was how tall is

this person? Um? But I think you know, that's one thing that that app developers have noticed too. And then so I think you know, when you're looking at individual apps, you'll see that they've answered that question of like how

much do people want to know about each other? Um, you know, when they're just swiping in different ways, I think you'll find, you know, Tinder is kind of the the bare minimum of like, Okay, here's everybody in your radius who you know, and there's a here's a picture that's kind of the first thing you see about them, and you know, here's their name in their age, and you know, there's not much more than that, Whereas you know, if you look at something like coffee meats, bagel or

hinge nowadays, like they'll they'll have many more props for like how would you answer this question? Or like what's your favorite x y z um. So, I think you know people are looking for different dating experiences, and I think you know, to the credit of app developers, they have um have met those needs or met those desires. I had a friend who was older, and he said these dating apps minimize serendipity and fate in people's lives.

He said, people today are never going to be staring into each other's eyes, having a cheap Italian meal with a candle jammed into a bottle of Mattuse rose and getting to know each other in real time, and you're discovering even though that person might not be your fantasy, you get to know them and you become really attracted to them. He said. The thing he hated most of all was GPS, because getting lost might be the greatest

thing that ever happened to you. Um, I would say first of all that I think dating apps still do allow for a lot of serendipity and definitely still out for romance because you know, Um, just like the odds of being on the app at the same time as someone else, and then I think are pretty slim. And then a lot like most of the dates that I've gone on have been sort of impulsive, like let's go get a drink tonight, um, and most of them are bad. Yeah, like them are terrible. But then once have you ever

walked out? Oh? Yeah? Actually, just a couple of months ago, I went on a date with somebody who asked me how many people I had had sex with, like pretty much ten minutes after we sat down. So I left that date. Um, you talk about me? I mean, do you still think? I'm asking? Do you still use these apps? Now? Are you still on these apps? Now? Well? I actually just deleted the apps a few weeks ago because I met somebody on Tinder, like in March, right before the pandemic.

But I met him on Tinder, so so so you literally felt I guess the question is, did you feel that once I met whatever his name is, it's time I can just retire my apps now? Sure? Yeah, I think the pandemic really pushed up the timeline for that. Normally I wouldn't delete the apps until there was like an official conversation about exclusivity. But during the pandemic, you

know that conversation becomes a little irrelevant. Um, you know you already have to be like, well, if you're coming over here in my house, you better not be going over into other people's houses too. That was Caitlin Tiffany alongside co author Ashley Fetters, discussing their Atlantic magazine article the Dating Market is Getting Worse. Two other super smart women with a lot to say about modern love or Erica Jong and her daughter Molly Jong Fast, speaking here

about her mom's second marriage. We knew that you couldn't be married and fool around. You couldn't be married. And secrets to their marriage. They have different bathrooms, right, They each of their own bath and they're tired. They're too tired to do new curtains and bookshelves. The reason why we got married rather than lived together was because he said to me, if we just lived together, one day, we'll have a fight and you'll say I'm leaving or I will we have a bad record. If we get married,

we know we're going to make it work. For my full conversation with Erica Jong and Molly Jong Fast text Jong's to seven zero one. That's j O n g s to seven zero one, and we'll send you a link. If you're looking on iTunes, you'll get the interview packaged with Lorne Michael's that's quite a two fer more with Ashley and Caitlin in a moment, I'm at like Baldwin and this is here's the thing. It surprised me the degree to which Ashley Fetters and Caitlin Tiffany defended online

dating as we spoke, given their frequent written critiques. So I asked Caitlin to focus for a moment on the pitfalls. Because there are so many profiles to go through, you can sort of start sorting people into broad categories pretty quickly, which is just the way your brain works, like it needs to come up with a sorting heuristic otherwise you're

going to be completely overwhelmed. So after you know, years of being on Tinder, I definitely felt like I was getting jaded and not really um treating people as people all the time, just being like, well, okay, um that I used to feel bad about leaving a date early if I got there and I immediately knew I wasn't attracted to someone I would still sit and try to talk to them for at least an hour, and because

I didn't want to hurt their feelings. But in the last year, for sure, I would down my glass of wine in fifteen minutes then be like, Okay, I'm not really feeling this, like have a good night by which I feel like it is kind of I don't know, it's my prerogative to do, but it's also not super kind. Um. I would say that is the downfall up dating apps is that it becomes too efficient. No, Ashley, what about you? What do you think the I mean, there are strengths

to it, which obviously, what do you think of the drawbacks? M? Yeah, totally. Well, I I'm a little bit older than Caitlin. I'm thirty, and I am old enough to remember, you know, the time before dating apps, and I remember what it was like to just not go on a date for a while and not be able to find anybody to go

on a date with. And um, you know, I think you know, I remember, you know, going on a date and being like, Wow, I'm not that wild about this guy, but maybe I'll go on another date, you know, maybe I'll stick it out and see you of things that you know, it's a spark, materialize this, and I would, you know, give things a longer time to prove me wrong initially, you know, I give things some time to blossom if they were going to. Whereas I feel like,

did that, what did that work? Did you did you give people a chance and it turned out that that was a smart move? It's not really, But I'm in a long term relationship with someone that I feel like I pretty much knew instantly that uh that so I am now yeah, yeah, so I have to say that approach did not really served me the way I intended

it to. But yeah, no, I think I think dating ap to really solved a scarcity problem, but they created a problem of like, you know, endless options right where you're you're, you know, on a first date with someone. It's not going perfectly, so you might be more inclined to say, like next and you're trading up. If you're trading up, you are, yeah, and it makes you feel like, you know, if this person is not the one, then the one is probably the next person you're going to

go out with. Whereas, you know, when there was a scarcity of dates that made you sort of sit down and give a longer period of consideration. Do you think actually that these apps are the interruption of a natural process, that the path towards finding somebody is something that involves a serious expenditure of time. Is it an interruption? I

don't think so actually. Um. I think what's important to remember about dating apps is that all they do is connect humans to each other, right, and whether those humans are compatible or not compatible, or interested in each other

or not. Um. I think those facts will be the same whether you meet over a dating app or not, right, And so you know, it's it's so important to remember that there's a human element here and once you're once you have matched on the app, and the app you know, puts you in touch and then you can say, like, hey, let's meet face to face. Like it reverts right back to the old formula I think of dating and of um,

you know, partner searching. Right, it's your your back at your back at like kind of the old school um, the old school question of like is this the person I want or not? Um? So I think, you know, I think it gives it an interesting different prelude, like you might encounter this person in a different way, or might you know, encounter this person who is outside the range of people you might have otherwise met without a

dating app. But I think once you once you're in that stage of like I am on a date with a person I met, most things look the same. You know, when I met my wife, Laria, and I met her in a in a restaurant and she walked by and I said some preposterously stupid line to get her to sit down with me. The sense I got of her, you know, there was a warmth and a generosity to her and a humanity to her that just came off

of her very very quickly. I mean, do you think if you saw your wife's picture on a dating app, do you think you'd swipe right on her? And do you think you'd still feel that same energy that you felt when you met up with there? Well, I don't know about the energy question. I I don't know. She was this gorgeous woman. I mean, she was my feminine ideal, you know, in terms of what she looked like. But I'm not quite sure that I would have let that

govern me. The one story I will tell you was when I did make a connection to somebody on the dating app, when I was single, and I had masked who I was. What I stumbled into was this absolutely hilarious scenario. The woman said to me, I want you to know I'm married. And she lived in southern California, and she said, but I want you to know my

husband is gay. Uh. And my husband uh, he we were friends and we got married and we've been together and he was always fighting that he was gay, and finally he's decided to live his life as a gay man. We're and we're still friends and we have a child together. We have a son. And she said, so you come down to my house. My husband's a huge fan of yours. He loves you. We think you're great. Like not at all what I had dreamed dating would lead me to, you know. It was like you wind up getting an

entree in people's lives. And if you don't mind my asking, did you meet your current partner on a nap? I didn't know the people who didn't meet on that, but we met in two thousand and sixteen at a birthday party. How tall is he's about six foot three. My daughter, my older daughter, Ireland, had these boyfriends. She did. She's six too, that's and she would date these guys. You know, they would walk ahead of me, and the guy kind of came up to her shoulder, you know what I mean.

And I thought, I wonder how long this is gonna last when you know, and the guy she's with now is like six four, and I go, this is the first real shot she's got. Yeah. Yeah, there's a thing that happens where, you know, if you're the tallest people at a party, you know, you make I contact over everyone else's head, and you know, I want to swerve here towards the COVID thing. Are these dating apps now exploding in the age of the virus? Usage is up? Um?

I think you know it's that's probably a function of people being stuck at home kind of board 'm not sure what else to do with their time. Um. And you know, it's a familiar activity that you might lead somewhere. It might lead you to a fun, flirtatious conversation. UM. So I can see why, you know, even though people can't meet up, they might still be UM browsing. But I'd love to know what Caitlin says about that. Yeah, Like major dating apps have been adding new features that

are specifically for pandemic dating. So like, yeah, like Tinder has video chat an app now which I can only imagine what kind of moderation challenge that is. Um But most of the major dating apps have have added video calls directly in the app so that you don't have to like schedule a separate FaceTime call or whatever else. And I think Bumble as well has like a badge you can add to your profile that basically says like

I'm open to mote dates. And you know, I've also been reading anecdotal stuff and there was an essay in the Paris Review about um like sexting with people out of dating apps. So I think if it's up there in the in the Paris Review, and then it's pretty common.

What a perfect resource for that observation. The Paris Review George Plimpton is going to give us the update on how people are video sexting, which brings me to another question I had, which is that a friend of mine who shall remain nameless, told me he became aware of a video sexting gathering where ultimately a hundred and fifty men were all servicing themselves live in real time in the auto erotic tradition, and fifty of them at the same time, and I'm wondering, are we on the verge

because of the pandemic of flat out sexuality played out in dating apps. Caitlyn oh me, Um, Well, while I can't really imagine myself personally stumbling into like a hundred and fifty person virtual orgy, and I think that will probably remain like a you know, like a special occasion, once in a while type thing. Um, I do actually think the pandemic maybe is making people more frank about

their sexuality and about like their desire for intimacy. I've seen a lot of people on Twitter and Instagram who I follow professionally who are being pretty frank about like, you know, this sucks. It sucks that nobody's having sex, Like they just say that. I saw like a woman that I interviewed for a story, Um a while back, she tweeted yesterday like, am I toold to post a picture of my butt on Instagram? Like? People are just going for it? Which I think is kind of fun.

You know, I don't, I mean, I'm for it. I think what Caitlin said is is spot on. You know, people are being much more frank about how lonely they are. People are being more frank about you how much they would like to be having sex when they're not um and I think you know, on the other on the other end of that, like the pandemic has really normalized a lot of virtual interactions that weren't part of our daily lives before. But I don't know that I necessarily

see a lasting overlap between those two. Like, if you think about a one and fifty person orgy taking place over zoom, it's like all of the fun parts of an orgy are absent from that transaction, right, Like, I would imagine the real life counterpart to that is much

more satisfying than the zoom version, you know. I I'll be honest here, I'm not in the in the habit of going to orgies, but I would imagine that part of the the appeal is the closeness and the touch and the smell, right, and you lose all those things you busted me there. I just wasn't the same as the real orgies I've been to. Mean, a hundred and fifty guys in a room together, now that's thrilling, but

online it's not the same. I mean, I think Caitlin and I have talked about this before, just kind of on our own time. We both have seen a lot of people on Twitter and on Instagram and social media, UM, just talking about how much they can't wait to go to a bar, can't wait to go to a wedding, can't wait to hug their friends, can't wait to, like you said, you know, go to a party in the Bronx even though they live in Brooklyn. UM, you know, go out of their way to attend a birthday party

for someone that they might not otherwise make the effort for. UM. I think you're absolutely right that we are going to see a larger social effort than what we've seen in you know, years past. UM. I was reminded by Adam by producer these apps are used by people in college, and I thought, how weird because you're at college there to meet people and to congregate with them and to interact with them, and they're right down the hallway in a dorm. You know, why do you think so many

people in college are using dating apps. Tinder came out in I believe, so I was in college, but it was still considered like a weird thing to do at the time, So I didn't really know anybody who was using a dating app when I was in college, but my younger sister, Um, definitely, who's in college now, definitely uses them, I think because it removes a lot of the awkwardness of having to, you know, approach someone that you're friends with, who's in your friend group and be like,

maybe I want to be romantic with you, because that is really like fraud, especially in college when all of your friend circles overlap. But isn't that what everyone was doing prior to these apps? Yeah, for sure. But I think also, I mean when I was in college, I was just afraid of everyone, so that's why I barely

dated it all in college. So dating apps might have made things easier for me, especially since I went to such a large school like um, I think there was like four thousand kids in my class, so it would have been probably beneficial. I mean, I probably would have met people outside my social circle. Um. What would you say, Caitlin? Is your advice a caution, some kind of suggestion you have for people when they use apps? What? What's What's something they should try to keep in mind or avoid

all together? My advice is not to rack up matches, just to rack up matches once you get to a number like seven eight, maybe you should send messages and start conversations and play all of those matches out before you go back and look for more um, just because otherwise people become like completely interchangeable baseball cards to you and Ashley, UM, I would say, just go on a date before you lose the momentum of you know, we've talked for a week on this on this app, and

now we don't really know what happens next. I think just go for it. If it's someone that you're talking to that you like, meet them in person. I want to thank you both. Ashley. I'm assuming your boyfriend is in the pantry hiding among the pasta. I gave him the apartment. I'm in the closet, so you know, he owes me one no time, but listen, stay safe and thank you both for your time. I appreciate him. Thanks all. This was great. Yeah, thank you for having us. It's fun.

Ashley Feathers and Caitlin Tiffany, co authors of the Dating Market is getting worse on the Atlantic dot com. At the time of our conversation, both women were staff writers at The Atlantic, but pandemic era adds sales and the end of live events had taken their toll at that devenorable institution. Ashley was among the victims whom the magazine praised as exceptional and beloved even as it let them go. It was Ashley's second stint at the magazine, where she

had started her career eight years ago. That's right, Yeah, my first my first job out of college was actually at The Atlantic. Was coming back to the Atlantic. Always the plan is that what you wanted? Um, you know, I turned out to have too much of a plan in terms of, you know, what I want my whole career to look like. I don't want to be disappointed at the end of all of this. But um, I would say, it really felt like a homecoming to come

back to The Atlantic. Um, you know, it had grown a lot since I was there last, but I had to so it really felt like a welcome return. If you're looking to hire a brilliant writer, check out at Ashley Fetters on Twitter. That's f E T T E R. S. Caitlin, who covers technology as well as love and romance, remains on the staff. I'm Ale Baldwin and this is Here's the thing.