Dating Has Become Materialistic and Miserable

0:00With Share My Trip from Uber, you can send your live trip location to the ones who matter most, like Dan and Hannah who always wait up to make sure their daughter gets back to her college dorm room. Or Tiffany, who's running late as usual, and her friends are tracking her trip to make sure she's actually on her way. Or Sam, who never goes anywhere without her roommate knowing exactly where she is. Some journeys are meant to be shared. Share your ride in real time with Share My Trip on Uber. One more way Uber is putting safety at every turn. Learn more on the Uber app. So did you guys know that 25% of 40-year-olds have never been married, which is a 400% increase since 1980. And the thing is, what's interesting about that, is that people do actually still want to get married. We often look at the numbers, people who are not getting married, putting off marriage, that sort of thing. And you would think that it's because they don't want to get married, that they're completely rejecting the institutional marriage, which you know is the case for some people. But most people do still want to fall in love and get married. But thanks to unrealistic expectations, the illusion of endless options, which is heightened

1:01by dating apps, and people just being flat, out-rude, brats, it's just not happening. And so today we're going to look at the problem. So we're going to try to diagnose some ways to fix it, because y'all this is depressing as hell. Now, before we dive into this story, I want to remind you guys that I'm going on tour this fall. So click the link in the description below, or go to bretcouper.com to see all the different places where I am going this fall. You can click on those and buy tickets. I would love to see your pretty faces out in the crowd. Going on tour is one of my favorite things ever. I love performing live, and I hope you guys have a great time if I'm coming to a city near you. Alright, so before we get into this, just to circle back, Jen's stocky style, what we were saying at the top of the episode, just to put some more numbers to how terrible the dating marriage crisis is. Here are some statistics from another very recent study. So Stephen Moore posted and said that 30 million American men are single up 47 percent since 2000. So I think it's a bigger than a dating problem if threatens our economy, our traditional family structure, and our nation's happiness. America's future depends on strong families. And I know that that is a cliche, but it is true, especially when it goes back to our

2:02nation's happiness. And you're going to see when you look at the problems with dating, why it goes even deeper than just people not being happy because they're not married, they're not happy, which might be one of the reasons why they're not dating and why they're not getting married, and therefore not getting happier. It's just an endless cycle of depression. So let's get into it. So exciting. All right. So now onto my new clients in my latest dating coach endeavor, my secondary career. So first up, we have an unmarried woman who is currently going viral on X for all the wrong reasons. And we're going to diagnose this issue. So let's watch a man dead ass message me on hand saying, let me take you out for a picnic and a sunset walk by the beach. Bitch, I could do that with my friends. I could do that for myself. Take me out on a real date. And then I told him that and he unmatched me and I went professional golf for my fucking ass, brokey. Good for him. Good for him unmatching her because that is the most insane thing I've ever heard.

3:04When I first watched the clip, I was like, I am definitely being pranked. Somebody is pulling my leg. We're going to get to the end of the video. She's going to do some like, you know, the bird hands that women do. She's going to do like this little move and go, yeah, I like clocked that tea. I want him. Like, yes, this is what I want because because objectively that is a good date. I mean, is it, is it this what women want? Like how much more romantic can you get than a picnic and a walk by the beach at sunset? Like, isn't that a trope that is in every single romantic movie? Isn't that like the funny stereotype about women posting that on dating after being like, I love long walks on the beach. This man is giving her a long walk on the beach and she's turning it down because that's something that she could do for herself. Now, first before we get into the other dating problems, this is a massive issue in the Lantie of Dating. Is that people are so hyper individualized and independent that they cannot even consider bringing somebody else into their life because they're so used to just being alone and they're so resentful of what somebody else could or could not offer. Everything is looked at through this materialistic lens. How do you serve me?

4:04What do you bring to the table rather than do I get along with this person? Do we share the same values? Is there a spark? Could we build something good together? And that is one of the many reasons why I think the advice of just pushing off dating, don't date until you're 30 or 35, don't get married until later, is so harmful. Now, I want to be clear here because I do think that not everybody is ready to date or ready to get married. And you should know that about yourself and maybe the person that you are dating. You probably shouldn't get married until you know yourself and your values and you know what you are looking for in a partner. You know what you want. Your life to look like what you are hoping for. You want to have parameters that you can measure up against people and you do want to have a general sense of maturity going into that. So I understand waiting until you think that you've reached that point in your life. But just telling people blindly to push it all off until they've achieved some random materialistic, metric of success, they've made enough money, they've you know traveled to all these places, they've bought the right house and gotten their dream car, they've checked off all these boggages and then oh, and they can settle on and get married.

5:06Okay, well that's I guess fine and it works for some people. But then after all of those years you've become accustomed to being by yourself. You have built an entire life just around you. It's going to be that much harder to let somebody else in. Now, I don't think that the woman in this video is 35 years old. I'm guessing that she's probably my age. Maybe a little bit older, maybe younger. I don't even know. And she already has this mentality of she can do everything herself. So why would she let a man in? It's not about what the guy is offering in terms of materialism or the experience. It's about the connection that you would be having. You should be wanting to go do this thing with him because you were interested in him. Not because he is just offering you something in a black and white way. I mean, it is just so, it is such a flawed way of thinking. And again, I really do think that it goes back to our hyper individualized culture. Anyway, rant aside, now we can continue on. My main question is, then what is it that you want? If you don't want a beautiful romantic evening by sunset, are you just wanting him to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on you that you don't have, but he presumably does have?

6:06At the end of the video, she says professional golf or my ass. So she is, you know, assuming that he has money. She is perceiving his status. She wants to be connected to that status. She wants to be able to benefit from it. And if she's not going to benefit from it, then she has no interest in him as a person. I mean, it is just a hellish, hellish depressing landscape. Like no wonder dating has gotten harder considering that first dates alone have become so grossly materialistic and one-sided and so bitter. I mean, effort and thoughtfulness on a first date. Those two things do not have to come with an expensive price tag. And often actually, because this is just, you know, the funny way that life ends up working out. But I am guessing that some of the best dates that you will ever end up going on. Your favorite memories you'll look back on once you're married or you're dating somebody might be the spontaneous things, might be the cheap and casual dates because it wasn't really about what you were doing or how much money was being spent. But it was because of the time you were spending with the person that you care about. I mean, just as one example, my husband, Alex and I, we love going out to eat. Like, possibly too much. It has been a problem.

7:06We both have our health and our wallets, but we love going out and trying new restaurants. We love meeting friends for dinner. Like, oh, it's just, you know, it is a pillar of our life. And because of that, we have gone to some amazing restaurants of all different stars and statuses. We have had amazing, expensive dates at these restaurants. And yet, aside from our first date, which was just, you know, one of the best nights of my entire life. And was at like a very normal, you know, like cool, far-retabled restaurant in action. Nothing like super fancy, but you know, not McDonald's. Aside from that, which was just so amazing, one of my favorite dates ever was actually very early on in us dating. And we literally went at like seven o'clock and we sat in the Sonic parking lot. And we ate mozzarella sticks from Sonic and we had Sonic blasts. And we just listened to music and we talked for hours. I think we were probably there until 1130 or midnight. And to this day, we both looked back on this. We were like, that was the most amazing, amazing date. And we had so much fun because it wasn't really about what we were doing. Although now it's like, that's kind of a fun thing. And we love still going back to Sonic and reliving that. But it was because of the time we were spending together and the connection that we were sharing. Like if you were genuinely interested in getting to know somebody,

8:11if you are not just looking at dating as some kind of materialistic, transactional endeavor, then it shouldn't really matter how much money they're spending on you. Obviously, you don't want somebody to not care and not be intentional, but again, it doesn't need to be a thousand dollar dinner. It could be a really nice picnic and walk by the beach at sunset because I'm sorry girlfriend, that's actually really, really nice. But apparently, this is a real issue. It is such an issue that these days, a first date at a coffee shop is not good enough. Guys, hold the phones. Coffee is apparently not just unacceptable, but it is actually flat out offensive. Now just take a look at this TikTok. These are some of my other future dating coach clients. We need to talk about the women in this girls' comments section who are disgusted by a coffee shop for a first date, even though the date in question went well. And sign up because of copyrighted music. I'm going to read what she's written on the screen here. Alright, so she says a hinge man just asked me on a date. Let's see if it actually happens. And then she said, two day, three PM. I told him that I'm free on Sunday. Wednesday at 9 PM, he confirmed the date on Sunday, but we don't have a time or place yet.

9:11Friday they didn't talk. And then on Saturday, he asked me where I live and said he would meet me on a popular street in my neighborhood. And then on Sunday morning, 10.30 a.m. confirmed a time to meet at 2 PM. Sunday at 1 PM sent me a coffee shop to meet at. And then there she is, 130 ready to go on the date. And then she films herself walking to the date at 1.45. She is on route Sunday, 4 o'clock walking home from date. It was good. She smiling, she's happy. She posts that. She's saying this was not a horror story, unlike many other dates. But then I took a look at the comments. One person said, girl, coffee date, please know. Another person said, the bar is in hell. And what's interesting to me is that in her original video, the girl looked happy at the end of the date. She's smiling. She ended up going on the date. She said it went well. She posted about it. She didn't say that it was some dating horror story that she was angry. She just posted about her experience dating. But this woman commented, the bar is in hell. And the original creator responded and said, truly, heart-eye emoji. So did you completely change your perspective

10:11about how the date went down or where he took you because of other women in your comment section telling you that that was unacceptable? Like I could understand if the critique was that maybe, you know, it wasn't planned until 30 minutes before. That would make sense. It would have been nice on the day that she actually told him that she was free. He could go, OK, yes, let's do it at this time. Let's go to this coffee shop. That would have made it all a lot less nerve-wracking, probably, and there would be lower stakes because she was happening. I could understand that. But the criticism just being about the coffee shop that that wasn't good enough and that then she comes back and she goes, oh, yeah, the bar is in hell. Now, obviously, this could branch off into a totally different conversation about women pulling other women down to make themselves feel better. And women wanted to be part of the mob. And so therefore, she's now going to turn on the sky, who she had a nice date. She was in a coffee shop for two hours with them. Now she thinks it's terrible because other women are having a conversation, whatever. We're not going to get into that today. That's not the subject matter, but just no. We could go off on that tangent because that happens a lot. Anyway, the point of discussion right now is coffee dates, like what? With going to a coffee shop on a first date, especially, especially if you are meeting through an app.

11:12Like, isn't that a good, low stakes filter? Have we lost all common sense? Like, I understand if you are going on a first date with somebody that you already know. You've been flirting with, that you have some kind of, you know, established foundational relationship with. Maybe a guy from work, that you've been making eyes at, a friend of a friend who's setting you up. Somebody you're already friends with, and you're kind of taking it to the next level. Maybe somebody from your pickleball league, or your run club. Maybe then you jump straight into the dinner date or something that is a bit more high effort or romantic, whatever you're into. But if all you've done is match on hinge and send, you know, six messages back and forth coordinating a date, four days in advance, do you really want to risk, like financially and just in terms of your time and energy? Do you want to risk spending two and a half hours at a dinner table with somebody that you don't even know? What if it's terrible? What if you don't connect whatsoever and now you're stuck going through four courses? Oh my god, yeah, you have to get through. Remberlay, dessert with this person that you might not even like because you've never met them before because you are basing everything off of a swipe and a profile.

12:13It just seems dumb, a coffee date seems totally fine. What is going on in the minds of these women? Now, my favorite comment under that TikTok was this. This girl said, ladies, this is why we are single. He at least didn't cancel or ghost her. He communicated, he said a time and place, he met her. What more do you all want? Well, because I've spent so much time on social media, I know the answer. Unfortunately, and it is abysmal thanks to often very unrealistic expectations and standards set by other women on social media that are really again, just dragging other women down because of the toxicity. Those men who still believe that a coffee shop is a total exit will place for a first date are competing against guys like this. And obviously, the woman in question on the receiving end is going to post this to show other women how much better she is, obviously, because it's always about female hierarchy. So she posts this conversation, which is apparently with somebody that she's been talking to. And the guy writes her and says, good morning, how are you these days? And she says, hey, they're handsome. I'm good. I had a lazy weekend. How and where are you? He said, I'm great.

13:13We're anchored at Bar Harbor in Maine. Would you be interested in going to Greece October 24th through November 1st? LOL? She responds, are you serious? Because yes, of course I am. I'm supposed to have plans this weekend, but I could figure it out for sure. In what world is that normal? Genuinely, sure. It may be in this circumstance. For this specific woman, she has a guy who's on some boat. I don't even know what he's doing. He's offering to take her degrees, I guess, in her world. A coffee shop guy might be competing against this worldly sailor or whatever we're dealing with. But for most people, this is not an option. This is not a normal occurrence in their life. And I would assume that this is also not a normal occurrence in her life, hence why she feels the need to post about it and brag about it to make herself feel good. Just to add a little button on this conversation, the funny thing is, according to social media and what I'm seeing, when women do find a man who is maybe one of these higher network individuals, somebody who is in one of those more desirable fields, they are sometimes not interested in the lack of attention

14:15that that means they will get because shocker, he's so much more focused on making money and doing his job. So one woman posted about this and said, the dating scene is so cooked. This girl just told me that she was seeing a lawyer for four months. He was always either on the phone or a dinner or would cancel the date to work. When she called it out, he said, okay, well, it's either that or we can split the bill. Now, this is something that I see all the time on social media, there will be, there's kind of an entire genre of women on TikTok who post about their lives being married to or dating a man in finance or an associate at a law firm, a doctor who's going through residency or fellowship, whatever it is. And they talk about the sacrifices that they have to make to be with a guy like this. The fact that yeah, he's always going to be working. You know, he might be making a lot of money but they can't go on trips together or spend that quality time because he's going to be on Zoom calls and dealing with clients or at BS to cancel at the last minute. His nights are going to be spent working. So maybe they're getting, you know, wind and dined to dinner. Maybe he's buying them fancy bags, but she's not getting all of the attention because his focus is on doing this job. And that makes sense. Like not understanding this seems so ridiculous.

15:16Like you want a man to wind and dine you and take you on all these fancy dates but you don't want to deal with the lifestyle that comes along with so many of the careers that can't afford it. In this economy, especially like girlfriend, your options apparently to the girl in that tweet, your options are to stay single or find some semi-retired old grandpa who just wants to fund your life. If that's really all your after. Now one woman commented and said, why would anyone settle for a coffee date or any other date indicating the man is cheap or non-committal or playing the field when their other offers include week long trips to Greece? Now first of all, not really sure how often those offers are gonna come around. And again, the appropriateness of the date comes down to nuance. If both of you are on the apps, swiping 6,000 different profiles a day, then yeah, I think you're kind of both playing the field. I think that a non-committal filtering coffee date is totally acceptable and fine. And then just because this is how the normal dance of dating or courtship goes, then if you're already getting to know each other, if you think maybe you don't wanna see other people,

16:17you don't wanna be swiping on 6,000 different profiles every single day, then maybe you go a little bit bigger. Maybe you do something a little more romantic or bigger than a coffee shop, whatever it is. Again, it does not have to be someone thousand dollar dinner at a five star restaurant, but maybe then it's the right time for the picnic and the sunset beach walk as long as the woman that you are taking out isn't a brat that's gonna complain about it on social media, which brings us to the next problem that we have to diagnose because that unfortunately is a big issue, but it's not just women. We're not here to just shame women today because across the board, I see people posting and sharing dating app conversations all the time, whether it's on X or on TikTok, and the one thing that I notice in every single one of these conversations is how combative and rude both people are. It seems like there is no room for trust, there is no room for error or empathy, like take this example. All right, so we just start the screenshot there, there's no other context, so just keep that in mind. But the guy, Texan says, what's your Uber ETA? And she goes, I'm not late, late. And then he said, we said, meet at 715. Then she replies and said, are you there?

17:17Get the table if you can? And he goes, yeah, dot, dot, dot, a please or sorry would be appreciated though. I'm here and I have the table. Then she texts and she goes, whoa. Then she waits three minutes. She says, I was about to get a Uber and would be there at 730, and I said I was running late, but I don't think this is gonna be a fit after that comment. And then he writes back and says, agreed, manners are super important to me. I'll hand the table back. Now, we don't have anything other than the screenshot. I don't know what the other context is here. I don't know what she texted above, hopefully, or she offered it a apology for running late, saying, hey, sorry, traffic was crazy, work held me back, but I'm gonna be there in a few minutes. Regardless of that context, yes, I agree with the guy that matters to very important for both of them. Not just her, like, why are we so mad? And bitter already, like my dogs had better manners than a lot of these people, which is why we only feed them the best, which is Sunday's food for dogs. Now, the bad food industry won't tell you that the real story is in the ingredient panel, not the front of the bag. Sundays made a deliberate choice. Real human grade meat, no fillers, no synthetic vitamin pre mixes, and nothing unpronounceable. When they say it's clean, on the front of the box,

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20:21before you would even met her. Like is there no room for error or human flaws whatsoever, apparently not, because here is another. On hinge, a guy replied to this woman's photo, again, we can't see it, but presumably it is of her in scrubs or in some kind of medical setting and his response to start the conversation was saying, so were you a vet or a nurse? And she replied and said, there are more options than that. Then he replies, well, why don't you give me a couple with a winky emoji he's trying to bring the conversation back, he's flirting with her and she responds immediately and says, here's a hint, it's an immediate red flag when men assume on the nurse. And then he replied and said, I also said vet. I mean, this guy dodged a bullet for sure. Like she's immediately combative right after he asked the first question, even after he tried to save it by being flirty, like that was the perfect opportunity to go, oh yeah, okay, well this is what I do, you could continue on and ignore the fact that starting a conversation on a dating app is uncomfortable and most people don't know what to say. Most people aren't great over-taxed. He probably was not trying to be offensive, that's not an offensive assumption or a question, we don't know what the picture is,

21:21maybe you did look like a nurse, we have no idea. But immediately you're attacking him, making some kind of assumption about him being misogynistic, thinking that women have to be nurses whatever it is. I mean, it's just so exhausting. It costs you genuinely nothing. It costs you nothing, not to snap back and not immediately assume the worst in somebody. But the thing is, I feel like people think that they can, do that that there actually is no room for error, that they have nothing to lose, that they can act that way without risk, because dating apps, just where most people spend their time when they are dating, dating apps have given everybody a false sense of security with how many options they have, which Alivos who by the way, if you're not following her on X, you absolutely should, she has the most common sense, normal dating takes in the entire world, she's the best who go follow her, but she laid it out in a video right here, just watch. I saw another creator talk about this, and I want to absolutely shout this one from the rooftops. Matches on dating apps are not options. Dating apps are designed kind of like casino gambling. It's meant to make you think that your options are absolutely endless, and that the next one that comes up is going to be way better than all the other ones,

22:23that you're never gonna have to compromise on anything, and if there's something that's wrong with somebody in your DMs, that you can find the exact same person or someone equally as good, without that one flaw that you dislike, if you keep just shuffling and keep swiping. And I think this is why a lot of women, especially, think that they have way more options than they actually do, because you kind of see this like casino-like shuffle of cards that you just have endless options, and you can just endlessly keep browsing, and then eventually, one of them is going to be absolutely perfect, and you're never going to have to settle or compromise on absolutely anything. But just because someone also swipes on you does not mean that that's an option. For that matter, it doesn't mean that somebody in that card stack is an option, because half the time they're having you swipe on people who already swiped left on you, they don't necessarily like you back. And the thing is, when compared to the number of guys who are willing to swipe right on you, the number who are willing to sleep with you is also probably pretty high. The number who are willing to go on a date with you is definitely less high, and the number who are willing to be in a serious romantic relationship with you, where you meet the parents, and you're considering moving towards marriage, is a lot, lot lower. These apps are designed to confuse your brain. These apps are designed to convince your brain that everyone in that stack is just an option,

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25:27or call 1-800-44 Botox to learn more. So good, so good, so good. Nordstrom Rack is celebrating 125 years of Nordstrom with 125 of the best deals up to 65% off. In stores and online, we're talking incredible savings on brands you love, like Vince, Sam Edelman, Rack and Bone, all Saints and More. They're only here while supplies last. So shop today. Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first and more. Plus buy online and pick up at your favorite Rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Reminds on anything. It teaches you that being overly picky and having overly discriminating standards pays off in the long run, and that while everyone else might have to compromise, you don't have to. Instead of looking at everyone on a dating app, as an option, either people in the stack or even people in your DMs, think about everyone who has actually offered to be in a long-term relationship with you, or who you knew wanted to be in a long-term relationship with you in the last year. That's what an option looks like. The number is probably fewer. The number that you probably liked back is probably fewer.

26:27But these are the actual people who are on the table for you, and not just going to be a situation ship, not just going to hook up. These are the people who are actually your real options. And if there aren't very many of them, maybe you should be doing a little bit of an audit of your dating life. And I just love everything about the way that Chile bent out, everything from the casino gambling analogy, because obviously we've talked about how dating apps are just designed to keep you on the apps or not actually benefiting from you falling in love and getting off the app. So they want it to be gamified. It makes you think that you have all these options, but it doesn't. And I love that she said, think about who is actually in your real life. Maybe it's somebody that you did meet on an app, but there was the potential for a real relationship. They showed an interest in you and having a relationship. Those are the people that are actually your options. It's not the men that girls are talking about on TikTok. It's not the far away. Prince Charming that you've made up in your mind is going to whisk you off degrees. Think about the people that are in your pool. And the other thing is, if you don't like those options, then figure out how to change them. You can't just sit here and bitch about them and be upset that you don't have the options you're seeing on social media. What are you going to do to try to change your status

27:29and change the community that you're in to have access maybe, if possible, to the options that you do want to see? You do have the ability to change your situation to move upwards, if you want to say it that way, in the dating landscape, but it requires you to do something. Obviously, to change your options. Anyway, going on from that point, the real point that I want to make on the back of Alice video is that your real options, the ones that you were actually seeing in your real life, them being lower than you're perceived online dating options, does not have to be a bad or demoralizing thing. Statistically, it actually might help you. So let's first look at a general study that was done on choice and desire. This was done by researchers at Columbia University and they wrote that their findings starkly challenged the implicit assumption that having more choice is more motivating than having fewer options. And that in one of their examples, people were more likely to purchase exotic jams or gourmet chocolates when offered a limited array of six choices rather than an extensive array of 24 or 30 choices. Moreover, participants actually reported greater subsequent satisfaction with their selections when their original set of options had been restricted

28:30rather than expanded. You might think, okay, Brad, well, this does not relate to me at all. We are not talking about buying chocolates and exotic jams here, which I love it is a very funny thing to study, but okay, I understand. So let's just hone in on it more. In another study from Tilburg University in the Netherlands, research students found that continued access to virtually unlimited potential partners makes people more pessimistic and rejecting. Across three studies, participants immediately started to reject more hypothetical and actual partners from dating online, accumulating on average in a decrease of 27% in chance on acceptance from the first to the last partner option. This was explained by an overall decline in satisfaction with pictures and perceived dating success. For women, the rejection mindset also resulted in a decreasing likelihood of having romantic matches. Our findings suggest that people gradually close off from mating opportunities when online dating. Oh my gosh, pessimistic? No, you wouldn't say. We have not seen that before also. I think that this would explain why so many people are just tapping out why they are not wanting to date at all. You know, obviously there's a million reasons why and people spend all day speculating on this talking

29:31about the gender divide between men and women and the political divide and women are doing this and men are doing this, but what if a significant part of it is as simple as people are just overwhelmed and burned out? That maybe they have not been burned by a specific foe or whatever the patriarchy bros are calling women online or whatever it is, but maybe they have just spent years being overwhelmed with option upon option upon option, being pulled into this gamified, addicting landscape and nothing has happened and now, because they've been rejected by these 6,000 options they're just closed off, they're pessimistic and they are done. And on top of that, maybe the sheer volume of potential possible dates and options is the problem for some people because instead of dating with intention, people are dating with volume, they're just casting a wide net, hoping to see what sticks because that's what you do in 2026. Now that right there is actually an argument that I could understand for being against a coffee date and not wanting to feel like you're just number six and a lineup of girls that a guy is getting coffee with that week, but honestly, you might be, which is why he's doing the coffee date to filter you out

30:32because he's swiping on 10,000 other girls so you can't demand intention and grand romantic gestures when he met you 30 seconds ago on a dating app and he definitely matched with 30 other girls that same day. Like, you can't have your cake and eat it too. That is why a coffee date is a low stakes filter. Now, I do wanna say another argument that I saw against coffee dates was actually one that I saw on Ali's page from a few years ago where a follower of hers sent a DM and said, okay, so re-coffee dates, my issue with them is more that his intentions are unclear. Guys at my old church used coffee date so that they could be vague as to whether it was a date or friends, that way if they weren't interested, they could play it off as friends or just ghost and they're uncreative. A walk in a cute area is free and way more interesting. So this, in and of itself, takes us to a completely new issue, one that is totally understandable and we talk about a lot and that is the fact that people do not know how to date. The standards and rituals that our parents and their parents use are gone and my generation never learned them considering. We grew up online on social media with Snapchat and Instagram DMs Tinder by the time we got into college,

31:33like no wonder, again, we say this all the time, but no wonder dating is so screwed. Now, somebody posted an amazing article about this today on X. I was so excited to see it come across my feed because I thought it just fits so perfectly into this episode that I was putting together and it really combines a lot of my interests as you will see, but the title is, why we still need dating etiquette. Courtship rules might ironically result in more freedom for young people to feel. All right, so the broader argument here that the author is making is that young people at large, we know this often resent traditional societal norms. We are told that they are backwards, oppressive, usually patriarchal and misogynistic is thrown in there, they limit freedom, they're stifling all these different things, but using examples from Jane Austen novels, now you're seeing why I love this, and Little Women by Louise May Alcott, the author says that we are actually very wrong about that. Now, she writes that the awkward young man long predates the dating app. The difference is that earlier societies had established and admittedly elaborate ways of doing something about all of that awkwardness. That is, when nerves took over, when words failed or confidence faltered, there were scripts to follow in actions to take,

32:34a practice bow, an arm offered, a turn about the room, a dinner invitation extended, a dance requested, and so forth. Now, I'm not suggesting that we should bring all of these 19th century rules back. I may be a 19th century scholar by day, but I am not so stuck in the past that I would give up air conditioning or my right to vote, and I find my doctrine and my job quite handy. Instead, I suggest that some of the old rules may have performed useful social work alongside the restrictions that were unequivocally right to discard. Alongside some of the burdensome restrictions they placed on women, the Regency Rules of Courtship also made romantic attentions quite clear, and therefore in this respect, easier to understand. Who is interested in whom? Is this a courtship? Is it beginning to be serious? What happens next? The answers are rarely ambiguous. And even if people did not always uphold the rules, they always knew the rules that they ought to be upholding. Compare that to today. Asking a young single person what exactly constitutes a date today, and you may discover that the answer itself requires quite the negotiation. Does getting coffee count? Apparently not to these women. What about dinner? No one explicitly termed it a date.

33:34If two people have been talking for weeks, then are they dating? Perhaps what we need then is not the restoration of every old rule, but a recovery of our willingness to teach some of the shared expectations at all. We needn't resurrect the chaperone, and I don't plan to arrange every one of my children's dates. Alam is his Bennett in Pride and Prejudice, but it helps when two people know whether they are on a date and how to act accordingly, and I could not agree more. So to sum this up, TLDR, if you get bored when I'm reading long-winded things, what this author is arguing is that these old-fashioned rituals, this old etiquette, it actually allowed people to get outside of their heads and focus their attention outwards on the people that they were courting or dating are interested in, rather than being stressed about every single encounter or step of relationship they were able to rely on muscle memory, in a sense, and social norms that allowed them to do the very dance of dating and courting without the crippling modern anxiety of, do we split the bill? Is this a date? Is coffee a date? Do I pick her up? Do I send an Uber? What if I live in New York, right, don't have a card to pick her up? Do I ghost him? Is she ghosting me?

34:35Is he ghosting me? And even though not all of those specific issues were issues in the past, there was some variation of them. And there was once an answer to all of these concerns and men and women both knew the answers and were able to use them to decode their social situations, but now, fast forward, 2026, it is a messy, rude, egotistical, free-for-all, plus there is the added growing resentment between the sexes that makes it harder for trust and empathy to be offered. I guess the final question is, we always have to ask in these episodes like how do we fix it? It's almost like since every kid goes to school, almost every kid goes off to college, maybe it should be something that is actually taught. And finally enough, there's one professor that has been doing this. Professor Carrie Cronin at Boston College, she is a professor of philosophy. She has done something for more than a decade, I think we're actually like close to 15 years now, for every year around Valentine's Day, she gives an extra credit assignment and extra credit option to her freshman students who go and ask somebody out in person, then go on a date, pay for the date, following her list of strict guidelines of what should constitute a first date. Now what she says, just to summarize some of these rules

35:37are that it must be a real romantic relationship, you could not just invite out one of your friends because you wanna get the extra credit, she has a certain budget limit set for the date, there can be no alcohol, there can be no physical intimacy, and it must be between 60 and 90 minutes long. And she created this entire assignment, this opportunity for extra credit, because she noticed it over time. Her graduating classes of seniors were becoming less and less equipped and interested in dating. In Washington Post piece from a few years ago, this was actually around the time that a documentary was coming out about this entire thing, she was doing, I believe it is called, the Dating Project, if you're interested in watching it, but the author of this piece said that Cronin's Dating Project is an attempt to nudge young people to embrace these foibles, the nervousness of asking somebody out and the rejection that can result. She created the assignment after learning that many of her seniors were about to graduate and had never been on a first date. The author then writes our own Washington Post date, lad bears this out, the column recently set up a 24 year old woman with a 23 year old man who had never been on a dinner date, and they didn't know how to engage in conversation with a stranger. Plus, even in the real world she writes, there are no dating rules anymore. Here we go, this is the exacting of the talking about. Plans are frequently broken or rescheduled,

36:38dating apps create so many options that people are often treated as if they are disposable. The person who asks somebody out doesn't necessarily pick up the check anymore, all of which are why students are so intrigued and clueless about how to go about this assignment. Cronin has received all sorts of pushback to her dating project from super Catholics, from super feminists, and from students who would rather focus on getting a job than getting a date. Her defense is, quote, not everybody is called to have a romantic relationship, not everybody is called to marriage, but everyone is called to relationships. That is what it means to be a human. And that is what she is trying to foster. She tells students that this is mostly not about meeting your soulmate, it is mostly about social courage, and challenging yourself to be a little counter-cultural to do something that you know you wanna do, and to just be okay with being a little bit awkward, a little bit vulnerable, and asking a little bit of yourself. And honestly, that really is the first step. Because dating, and honestly, every relationship in your life, whether it is familial or romantic or friendship, workplace relationship, whatever it is, those relationships are a series of vulnerable steps, and they are often incredibly challenging,

37:39and especially dating is very human in nature. And so if you strip all of that back, if you try to digitize it and ask real people to fit into these extreme standards and filters that you've set because of your perceived options in the world, or you're jaded this about the world around you, you will never be successful. And actually engaging in some of these more traditional rituals will only help you, because it should make the dance of dating clear so that there is less room for misunderstanding and less room for hurt when you are trying to be vulnerable. It should, through those boundaries, make things more clear and more free and comfortable. Unfortunately, though, all of this is so much easier said than done, like we are so far gone from the days of your, if I wanna use some 19th century language, you know, the days of those traditions and rituals, people are already done. They're already swearing off dating, they are jaded, and you, unfortunately, if you are dating, or if you're just walking around in the world, you might come across some of them, and that is going to suck, because they are gonna be rude, and they are gonna be jaded. And what you need to do in that situation is acknowledge that that is, unfortunately, an immature brat, and move on. One interaction with them is not the end of the world, and most importantly, it is not the end

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