Did Millennials Ruin Dating for Gen Z? A Podcast Debate on Apps, "Explorationships," and Opting Out
Matthew Hussey
The episode opens with a half-joking confession: millennials ruined dating. They built the dating apps "we all know and hate," normalized fast-food-style swiping and constant texting, and now some of them host podcasts about healthy love. One host compares it to the makers of OxyContin opening rehab clinics. Stephen objects that he didn't create a dating app. The joke sets up the real question: is Gen Z approaching romance differently from millennials, and if so, is that a healthy correction or a new kind of avoidance? The hosts, Matthew Hussey, Stephen Hussey and Audrey Hussey, are sympathetic to Gen Z's frustration. They are skeptical of some of the explanations offered for it.
Questioning the "Deprioritizing Romance" Narrative
Stephen brings research suggesting Gen Z is "at the tip of the spear" of a shift away from romantic relationships. On this account, finding a partner is no longer a primary goal. Young people are instead prioritizing mental well-being, career dreams and friendships.
One host interrupts to ask whether this can be taken at face value. If Gen Z were saying that dating culture is toxic and they would rather put their energy into real-life interaction, that would have "real legitimacy." But so much of Gen Z's life happens on their feeds. Stepping back from dating to "focus on mental health," then turning to the phone, isn't really focusing on mental health.
The same host adds that Gen Z has good reason to reject the culture. Millennials grew up without the apps and watched them arrive in adulthood. Gen Z has always had them. The host counts more than dedicated dating apps here: Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and anywhere else people can interact.
Before the Apps: MSN Messenger and Three-Way Calls
Stephen asks what the first dating app was. The hosts agree it was more or less MSN Messenger, along with chat rooms. You would find the online handle of someone you fancied from school, maybe through a group chat. One host remembers talking all night on MSN with a crush and then being too shy to do more than say "All right" at school the next day. Another admits to changing their display name to cryptic lyrics during hard times so people would ask what was wrong.
Stephen recalls discovering three-way calling on a landline. The call gave you cover: three people were chatting, but you were really only there for one of them. In hindsight, Stephen suspects the friend on the call was thinking the same thing. Both boys believed they were having a moment with the same girl, who was enjoying the attention from both.
The point of the reminiscing is that Gen Z had none of these in-between stages. They had dating apps and social media from the start.
Novelty for Millennials, Skepticism for Gen Z
The hosts suggest that growing up with the apps may make Gen Z more skeptical of them. Gen Z knows "this game inside out." For millennials, the apps were a novelty: you could meet someone in your pajamas without leaving home. To show Gen Z what that felt like, one host suggests watching a 60-year-old leave a 40-year marriage and open a dating app for the first time. Everything seems fresh and unbelievable.
Millennials also remember the time before the apps, and the hosts caution Gen Z against romanticizing it. Some Gen Z users on forums talk about the "heyday" of meeting people in real life. In practice, it meant going out, spotting someone across a room, walking over and starting a conversation.
The hosts disagree briefly about who found it harder. One says it was easy for women because men did the approaching. Another argues it may have been harder for women in some ways. Women were conditioned not to make the first move, and Bumble later gave them a way to do so. Someone replies that women are still conditioned not to make the move. The first host agrees but says there has been some progress. The conclusion is that the old system was "kind of horrible for men and women." Women waited passively to be chosen, or believed they had to. Men felt they had to keep approaching strangers and knew the awkward walk back across the room after being rejected.
Why Gen Z May Be Giving Up
Even so, the hosts think Gen Z may be giving up in a way millennials didn't. Their explanation is that the early app culture was different. People still came from a world where they wanted to invest in each other and understood the value of a connection. In the hosts' view, that has eroded, and today's apps suffer from a lack of intentionality. This has led to something close to a rejection of dating among Gen Z.
Stephen cites several figures. A survey by a dating app he names as Flur, while admitting he isn't sure what it is, found that 70% of Gen Zers find dating apps "lame." Only 6% want the apps to stay as they are, and four in ten said they were tired of endless swiping. A Hinge 2024 report found that many Gen Z daters list fear of rejection and fear of being "cringe" among their top concerns.
Relationship Anarchy, "Explorationships," and an Allergy to Vulnerability
Stephen then describes trends reported in think pieces. He asks Gen Z viewers to say whether these descriptions are accurate.
Gen Z is said to be more likely to end up in situationships. Some embrace "relationship anarchy," which means declining to chase "Disney fairy tale love" and nurturing all their connections instead. A deep soul connection might be with a roommate or a friend as easily as a romantic partner.
Another term is "explorationships": no labels at first, just seeing what happens. Stephen places it between pure avoidance, where nobody discusses the relationship, and love bombing. The idea is to explore the connection without pressure to define it. Another host notes that "players have been selling that for years." Stephen agrees but says there is now a word for it that makes it seem acceptable.
Stephen's reading is that all of this is hedging. People don't want to be rejected, look cringe or be too vulnerable. He describes "a kind of allergy to vulnerability" and a reluctance to make romance a big thing when so much could lead to disappointment.
A host connects this to an earlier episode about millennials and older people leaving dating altogether because they're tired of dealing with it. Many women commented on how peaceful that felt. The Gen Z version is different: they aren't necessarily leaving dating, they're leaving behind any expectations within it.
Is This Really a Generational Difference, or an Age Thing?
One host wonders how much of this is simply about age. In their twenties, this host was far more worried about seeming too intense, too keen or uncool than about not finding love. Later, the time pressure becomes real. At 25, 26 or 27, and even at 28 or 29, you don't need to bring the same intentionality. The host suggests the pattern may be cyclical.
The same host remembers rejecting the apps in their twenties out of shame, because it felt embarrassing to be seen looking for love online. With age, that bravado faded. The apps became just another way to meet someone in pursuit of a goal that mattered. The host believes many people in their twenties are still in the phase where the priority is not being rejected or embarrassed, and they carefully manage how they come across.
Stephen adds that younger people tend to fixate on the process. They want the meet-cute of reaching for the same cup of coffee, or a relationship that feels like a '90s sitcom such as Friends. With age, the question shifts from how it starts to what it will feel like to be with the person and whether you can build a life together. The hosts agree this looks like an age effect.
Human Nature and the Imbalance of "Let's See Where It Goes"
One host argues that the explorationship idea is somewhat "abstracted from human nature." People did not stop being territorial or jealous in the last 15 years. Anyone who likes someone probably starts hoping, within about five minutes, that the other person won't date anyone else.
The host describes a common imbalance. Two people can both say "let's see where it goes" for opposite reasons. One wants to keep their options open. The other doesn't want to lose the person and thinks that phrase is the right thing to say. The host grants that some people take things slowly because they are confident and still deciding whether they like the other person. But once you know you like someone, hearing that they're dating someone else will probably hurt.
Another host replies that it depends on what you're prioritizing. If your north star is appearing cool, avoiding rejection and seeming in control, you can talk yourself into embracing explorationships, even adopting the other person's excuse as your own. A third point follows: this requires staying disconnected. You have to work at not connecting with the person. The host who raised the age question finds this a key insight. Twenty-somethings often date while disconnected, more tied to ego and self-image than to the value and urgency of meeting someone. If people don't find what they want within the time frame they're comfortable with, they start dropping those rigid specifics and actually connecting, because it has become a priority.
Performative Dating on Social Media
Stephen describes a TikTok trend of people showing off their dates, meaning the experience rather than the person. The message is "look how wined and dined I am" and "look at the princess treatment." In one video, a woman in London told viewers not to believe the bad press about "finance bros." Her first date with one was at what Stephen describes as a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Mayfair. The man ordered champagne for her without asking, and later a soufflé.
Stephen's objection is that this proves nothing. Nobody ever claimed finance bros don't spend money. Another host compares it to filming a VIP table in a club as five bottles of champagne with sparklers arrive, and then praising the men's generosity. The hosts wonder whether such posts are sincere or just bids for likes.
One host says photographing a first date would be strange. Another suggests that a man who spends that much wants to be seen doing it, so her filming and posting it fulfills his ambitions. The hosts joke that this is another way millennials ruined dating: their reality TV, such as Jersey Shore and Love Island, taught people to turn dates into reality shows. The serious point is that extravagant first dates can become a performance of desirability and "great standards" without meaning much.
A Schism in Gen Z Dating, and the Real Problem With the Apps
Stephen sees what looks like a split within Gen Z. He again asks Gen Z viewers to say whether it's true. One side leans toward open explorationships, no labels and a stated focus on mental health. The other rebels against modern dating by going more traditional: slow dating, no dating around, no casual sex, a more conservative approach. Stephen reads both as rejections of whatever the "millennial thing" represents, even if it's unclear what that is. Meanwhile, he says, many millennials he knows are settling down and becoming more intentional, simply wanting someone to be with.
One host then argues that criticism of dating apps is "entirely legitimate" in every generation. In this host's view, the incentives are wrong. The apps aim to maximize swipes and sign-ups, users are encouraged to keep swiping, and the experience is designed to be addictive and "dopamine fueled." As a result, attention spans for dating collapse. Even while you're with someone, your phone buzzes with other matches. The host argues the system is not built for two intentional people who want a relationship to find each other.
Repeating a metaphor from a recent video, the host describes the apps as putting people who want real relationships in a mixer with people who only want to hook up, shaking it, and celebrating the few relationships that form by chance. That process also produces "an enormous amount of pain and mismatched intentions," toxicity and bad behavior.
Announcing Sync
This critique leads into the hosts' own project. For about nine months, they say, they have been building Sync, which they call their "audacious attempt" to give daters what they deserve. They stress that it is not a dating app but a matchmaking app, described as "the world's most intelligent matchmaker in your pocket," powered by AI.
As they describe it, Sync is voice-first. It asks users questions and aims to learn their preferences and compatibility better than users consciously know them. The distinction they draw is between what we want and what we actually need. It would get to know every user equally well, aiming for "deep compatibility," and screen for people who are serious and intentional about relationships.
They emphasize that the project is at an early stage. It is launching first to a small group in New York City as a test city. The hosts expect things to need fixing and plan to experiment with early users. The plan is to get it right there and then expand to more cities. It is currently free, and people in the test group are grandfathered into free use. People elsewhere can join the waitlist, since the intention is to roll it out everywhere.
Matthew says he has been offered board seats on dating apps, or chances to co-create or co-found them, about once every three months for ten years. He turned them all down because it never felt congruent to join something he didn't fully believe in. The appeal of Sync, he says, is building something from the ground up that has the potential to be better.
"Freedom Doesn't Always Feel Like Peace"
The hosts then discuss a top YouTube comment from their episode on why women are giving up on men in 2025. A single man wrote that people in relationships often say they envy his lifestyle. Being single has perks, he wrote, but it can be very lonely: "Freedom doesn't always feel like peace. Sometimes it feels like emptiness." He added that he doesn't want to live this way forever and believes being in a relationship is happier.
Matthew calls the comment honest and vulnerable. He contrasts it with a wave of online content glorifying single life, such as posts about a third vacation of the month while friends with kids haven't left the house in weeks. He expected heated debate in the comments on such posts. Instead he found roughly 90% single people celebrating their choice and disparaging family life. He takes this as a sign of algorithmic echo chambers where people glorify whatever path they've chosen or been forced down.
He says he understands the impulse. Wherever he is in life, he looks for role models who make his current path feel exciting. On his retreat, he calls these "emotional buttons." When he was single, his reference point was Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy. He cites the scene in the first film where the character wakes up after a hookup, has no responsibilities and dances his way to the next adventure to "Come and Get Your Love." Audrey confirms that Matthew came out of the film declaring, "I'm Star-Lord."
Matthew distinguishes between using such touchstones to appreciate the good in your situation and insisting that every other path is awful. The second, he argues, creates false dichotomies. He links this to pushback the hosts received on the episode about people leaving dating for the sake of peace. They had said relationships are beautiful and that giving up on that whole area of life may be a little sad. He clarifies that choosing it because it genuinely makes you happier and more peaceful can be empowering. His concern is black-and-white thinking in every direction: "I'm fine with situationships forever," "I'm out of dating altogether," and "being single is the worst thing on earth" are all versions of the same trap.
A Listener's Feminist Critique
The hosts read an email from a listener, Christina, about episode 313, "Nearly 50% of women will be single by 2035." She agreed with their explanations for rising singleness, such as social media turning people into "dopamine seeking machines" and growing alienation. But she felt the discussion lacked a strong feminist perspective. She was surprised that Audrey was surprised by women saying single life sounded peaceful. Many women stay single, she wrote, because they don't want to "mother immature men." She described the emotional workload in straight relationships as enormous: managing feelings, keeping the connection alive and caring for someone who often hasn't learned to do that himself. Even with "good men," she said, effort often fades once they're comfortable. In her experience, many men mainly want a partner to help them regulate emotionally. She cited studies suggesting men get happier when they marry while women get happier staying single, and argued that straight relationships as usually structured heavily advantage men. She added that men rarely seek relationship advice, which she saw reflected in the podcast's listener base. She also said she had worried the expanded podcast format might feel like a couple flaunting their relationship, but now loved the group dynamic.
One host responds to the claim about men. There is an enormous amount of relationship content for men, the host says, pointing to the millions of views Jordan Peterson gets when he discusses dating or marriage. The podcast also receives many emails and comments from men. The advice may be packaged differently, and goals may sometimes differ, but many men look for this kind of help.
Another host considers Christina's points important and finds the pushback somewhat ironic. Over the years, the podcast has spent a disproportionate amount of time arguing on behalf of that perspective: nobody should feel they need a relationship, and there is nothing wrong with staying single. It has never been a show that simply evangelizes relationships.
The host's central point is that whatever you choose should come from the right place. If you've decided dating is too complicated, you feel fulfilled in other areas and you can genuinely live without it, that's fine. If you're pretending not to want it because you don't believe you can get it in the form you want, the host thinks that is a shame, because it stops you from putting yourself out there. The risk is realizing 10 or 20 years later that you told yourself you didn't want something you actually did, or the reverse. The host says the point all along was honesty about what you want and why you are or aren't pursuing it. The others add that they applaud any woman who finds contentment in her friends, career and life without dating, and that not everyone wants to be in a relationship.
When the Desire Comes Back
A final caveat comes from one host. Many people who find peace in not dating know that a desire for children may later hit them much harder than it does now. Some decide to have children on their own, which this host also applauds. But some "bury their heads in the sand" about a feeling that, in this host's view, does come.
Children aside, the host argues that the desire for romantic connection often doesn't go away, whatever we tell ourselves about being content. When it returns, the question is how the calculation looks then. Does staying out still seem like peace? Or does it start to look brave to venture out again with openness, "hopefully with higher standards and a better radar for people" than five or ten years earlier? The host leaves this as a question rather than a prescription.
Steve Sleeves: Real or Fake Gen Z Dating Terms?
The episode ends with Stephen's recurring segment, "Steve Sleeves." Stephen introduces a word game, first called "Love Lexicon" and then "Flirtle," which the others note is not much like Wordle. Stephen reads Gen Z dating terms, some real and some invented, and the others guess.
According to Stephen, the real terms were:
- Banksying: a partner who has decided to leave makes a quiet retreat instead of saying so.
- Kittenfishing: a milder catfishing that stretches the truth in a profile without using fake photos.
- Monkey barring: letting go of one person only after grabbing the next. The hosts recall using this term in their twenties.
- Sneaky link: a secret casual hookup.
- Soft launch: showing a partner in Instagram stories without a full reveal.
- Shreking: lowering your standards in the hope of finally being treated well. The hosts call this one very mean.
Stephen's inventions were "toastering" (keeping someone warm without ever heating things up into a relationship), "IHOP-ing" (being taken after a sleepover to the basic breakfast spot where he clearly takes every date), "airplaning" (talking about trips together that never get booked), "chairing" (keeping someone around as comfortable "emotional furniture") and "pancaking" (a romantic night on a thin, spongy mattress followed by pancakes at IHOP). While discussing "chairing," the hosts mention that the real term is "cushioning," which means keeping someone around as a backup while in a relationship. One host argued that IHOP-ing could be romantic, since taking a date to your local greasy spoon feels personal. Another rejected "pancaking" on the grounds that nobody would tell friends "he's pancaking me." The hosts sign off by joking that listeners should email them with the subject line "Pancaking."
Well guys, it's official. We screwed it up.
What?
Dating. Us millennials, our lot. We are responsible for toxic dating culture. We are responsible for the fast food style dating that happens these days, for the obsession with texting and swiping and not being able to meet in the real world. Because our generation are the ones who created the dating apps that we all know and hate.
I didn't create a dating app.
And now, Stephen, millennials have the gall to create podcasts talking about healthy love. It's as if—you know what that's like? The Sacklers who created, what's the one? OxyContin.
Yeah.
It's like if they started a whole bunch of rehab clinics.
What podcast have you been watching?
What do you mean?
Sacklers, OxyContin.
Well, you know.
Dope is a really...
Thing. You invent dating apps. You create a whole bunch of just completely abject dating and toxic situationships and addiction to our phones, and then you have the gall to talk about what healthy love looks like. How dare we?
So, let's talk about it. Well, Stephen, part of the inspiration for this episode was you being quite keen to talk about some of the research out there about the way Gen Z is approaching dating differently from the millennials.
Yeah, there was quite a few things on where the trend line is going and Gen Z being at the tip of the spear, so to speak. There's some research on how Gen Z are deprioritizing romantic relationships. The idea that finding a romantic partner isn't a primary goal. Instead, they're prioritizing mental well-being and dreams for their career, their other friendships. Gen Z are more—
Wait, can we just pause on that for a moment? Because that's interesting to me, if true, but can we take that at face value? The idea that Gen Z are not dating because they're focusing on their mental health.
Because that seems a little bit potentially disingenuous to me. So much of Gen Z lives on their feed. I would understand that if it was like, we're done with dating because dating is so toxic. Instead, what we're going to focus on is real life interaction with other people. That would have real legitimacy. But I'm wondering if the idea that I'm focusing on my mental health instead, and then what I turn to is my phone, that's not focusing on your mental health instead.
So I just want to challenge that because I'm all for if Gen Z are genuinely saying, this culture, I'm not signing up for it anymore. And I think, by the way, Gen Z have really good reason to do that because Gen Z, unlike the millennials, did not grow up without the apps and then in adulthood essentially start seeing the invention of all of these things that changed their lives for better or worse. Gen Z have always had the apps, as far as dating apps go.
And when I'm talking about dating apps, I'm not just talking about actual dating apps that have declared themselves to be so. I'm talking about Instagram. I'm talking about TikTok. I'm talking about everywhere where you can interact—Snapchat—with another human being.
Do you know what the first dating app ever was? Do you know it?
Oh, are you going to say—
MSN Messenger?
Oh yeah.
Kind of.
Yeah, it was.
Right. And the chat rooms.
But you couldn't find—could you just find people on MSN Messenger?
You could add people.
No. Or someone would put you in a group chat. There'd be someone from school you fancy. Then you go, "Oh, I found your online handle. How's it going?"
MSN, what was it called? MSN. I don't know. Anyway, I used to love MSN Messenger.
Spent a lot of time on there.
Same. Was it just me or did you guys used to change your name to cryptic lyrics?
Oh no.
You were going through a hard time so that people were like, "What's wrong?" And you were like, "It's fine."
No, I didn't. I did know people who did that.
Yeah, I was one of those people.
No, I would talk to someone that I fancied. We'd be talking all night on MSN Messenger, but then I'd be shy at school the next day and be like, "All right."
Yeah. Just pretend they don't exist.
Do you remember discovering that on a landline you could do a three-way call?
I do remember that.
I remember that being a big deal where you'd sit on a three-way call, but one person on there would be someone you fancied and the other one would just be a mate or their mate or something. And it was easier to pretend, like you had the cover of the fact that three of you were all talking on the phone, but really you were only on the phone for one person on that call.
I didn't do that, but that sounds like I missed out on a trick there.
It was fun. But now that I think about it, I think my mate was thinking the same thing. So we both thought that we were having a moment with the one girl on the call.
And she was just loving the attention from both. She was existing in Twilight.
Yeah.
So Gen Z had none of those things.
Gen Z always had dating apps. And so I understand Gen Z being like, I am—
And social media.
Over this. Yeah. They've always had them.
I'm over this. This is awful. They're so much closer to them. And in that way, Gen Z, in a strange way, they have a lot more skepticism of them in many ways. I think they see through them much more easily because they're like, "We know this game inside out. We've grown up with it." Whereas millennials, I think there's a lot more. There was a novelty to millennials having dating apps because millennials were like, "Oh my God, this is unbelievable. I can just meet someone in my pajamas sitting at home."
If you want to know what it was like, Gen Z, if you're watching this and you want to know what it was like for millennials to have these things, watch a 60-year-old come out of a 40-year marriage today and go on the apps for the first time. And they're like, "This is unbelievable. Look at all—this is crazy." And it's all new. It's all fresh. It's all novel. That's what it was for millennials.
And millennials remember a time when they had to just go and meet in person, where they had to go to a bar and try and chat someone up and do that whole thing. And I think that I've read on certain forums where Gen Z is talking about the heyday of before the apps, when you met people in real life. And if you were there in that heyday, you know that it was not that easy.
No.
You had to go out, see someone across the room in a social environment and walk over there and talk to them.
It was easy for women. It was hard for men because men would be the ones to do that and women wouldn't.
But it wasn't easy for women. It was hard for women because women—I would argue actually it was in some ways harder for women because Bumble came along, for example, and gave women a way to make a move.
It's true.
Right? Women before were conditioned to believe they shouldn't be making the move. So—
Women are still conditioned to believe they shouldn't make the move.
Right. But less. We've made some progress on that kind of continuum. But if you look at what women were doing then, it was like, be at this very passive state of waiting for someone to come over to you and talk to you. It was kind of horrible for men and women. Women had to just wait and be chosen, or at least they thought. Men felt like they had to constantly be going over and approaching strangers, which was tricky at best. Most men have done it at some point, especially from that generation, and know the awkward situation of getting completely rejected and having to just stroll back to the part of the room that you came from because it didn't work out.
It was hard. So, I think one thing I want to say to Gen Z out there is that I think sometimes we look back on what the heyday must have been like, and it was hard.
But there's a lot, and I think that, Stephen, you've pulled some really interesting data around this. There's a lot of data that's suggestive that Gen Z are kind of giving up in a way that actually I don't think the millennials were giving up because I do think it was hard. You're right. But I think that the culture, even when the apps first started out, the culture on the apps were kind of different because people were still used to a world where they wanted to invest in each other, where they still kind of understood the value of a connection. Whereas I do think that has been eroded over time and people really struggle on the apps today because of the lack of intentionality that exists on there. And I think that what that's led to is some really interesting kind of almost rejection of dating from Gen Z, right?
Yeah. So, there was a survey by—I don't know what it is, but there was a dating app called Flur that found that 70% of Gen Zers find dating apps to be lame and only 6% of them want them to stay the way they are. Four in 10 claimed they were tired of the endless swiping, and a Hinge 2024 report said that many Gen Z daters cite fear of rejection and being cringe amongst their top concerns.
And there is this kind of hedging. So there's a lot of think pieces about how, and again the Gen Z audience can speak to this whether this is true, but Gen Z have been more likely to find themselves in situationships.
Some are embracing what they call relationship anarchy, where they're saying, "You know what? I don't want to have this prioritizing trying to find Disney fairy tale love. I want to just nurture all my connections I have, and maybe I have a great soul connection with my roommate. Maybe I have it with a friend. Maybe I have it with someone else I know." And it's a kind of deprioritizing of romance.
Other articles say they're embracing, again there's all these weird terms, one is explorationships, which is like, let's not put any labels on it right away. Let's just see what happens. So it's not like, what would you call it? It's not like pure avoidance where you don't talk about it. It's not like love bombing. Kind of this in-between where you go, let's just explore the connection but not have any pressure to put labels on it. Let's just go and—
And players have been selling that for years.
I know, I was going to say.
This is like the dream.
That's true. But I think there's supposed to be more of a word for it now and it's okay.
What I get from a lot of this is there's a lot of hedging. There's a lot of, "I don't want to be rejected. I don't want to be cringe. I don't want to be too vulnerable." And there's a kind of allergy to vulnerability. And there's a kind of feeling of, "I don't want to make romance this big thing because there's so much that might not work or disappointment involved."
It's interesting because in a recent episode we did, we talked about how there are a lot of people, millennials and older, who are kind of checking out of dating altogether because they're just tired of the nonsense that they face when they try to date. And that got a lot of comments, that episode. And there were a lot of women especially who talked about the peace that they feel in opting out of dating altogether and just not having to deal with it. This is an interesting kind of different twist that you're talking about with Gen Z, where it's, "I'm not opting out of dating necessarily. I'm just opting out of having any expectations within dating."
You know what I think, though? I wonder how much of this is age specific because, I don't know about you guys, when I was in my 20s, I was far more concerned about making sure that I didn't come across as too intense, not cool, not cringe, not too keen, than I was preoccupied with the idea of not finding love.
But I think as you get older, millennials, boomers, you go out in dating, whether you're going back out in dating or you're just looking for love, and you kind of go, "Well, I've got a bit of a time constraint here. I do have to try and actually really look for somebody, and I don't have all the time in the world. I'm not 25. I'm not 26. I'm not 27." Even 28, 29 are kind of times where you don't need to bring that same intentionality to dating. And I wonder how much of it is actually just a cyclical thing.
Because the other thing that I think is quite interesting is I think so many people in their 20s, and I was one of those people, almost rejected the apps because they felt shame at the idea of being on the apps. Like, "I don't want to be someone who's looking for love on the apps because that's embarrassing." And then as you get older, you're like, "I don't care about being someone who's looking for love on the apps. It's just another means of meeting someone, and that's a goal for me and that's a priority." And you drop that bravado a little bit.
But I do think there's a lot of people and people in their 20s who are still very much in that space of, "The priority is that I don't get rejected. I don't feel embarrassed. I don't come across in this way. And I'm just heavily producing the way that I'm coming across to the opposite sex."
Yeah. I think there's so much, the younger you are, you seem to be a bit more hung up on process, like romanticizing how it should go. Like, "I want us to reach for the same cup of coffee, and then we look at each other and smile, and I want it to feel like a '90s sitcom, like Friends or something." There's all this nostalgia romance, how it wants to feel, instead of, yeah, but how's it going to feel when you're with them? And there is a kind of straightforwardness as you get older where it's like, "I don't really care the how. The how is not actually important. It's actually finding the person who I can build a life with." I do think in a way that feels like an age thing, doesn't it?
Yeah, definitely. I also think the idea that younger people are exploring explorationships, there's something to me a bit abstracted from human nature in that because we didn't evolve out of being territorial beings in the space of the last 15 years. We didn't evolve to the point where now we don't get jealous. And anyone who's ever liked someone at some point, probably within the first five minutes, starts thinking, "I really hope they don't date anyone else. I hope they just date me." I can't imagine that went away because there's human nature—
Yeah.
To that. And the moment you start dating someone you like, I don't care what you say about, "We're just seeing where it goes." There's always some kind of imbalance there that happens where one person is very much open. One person is going, "Let's see where it goes," because they want to keep their options open. And the other person is saying, "Let's see where it goes," because they don't want to lose the other person. And they feel like that's the right thing to say to not lose the other person.
I'm not saying there aren't some people who don't mind taking it slow because they're confident and they're just trying to figure out whether they like this person or not. But at the point where you know you like someone, that's the point at which when you hear they're dating someone else, you're probably going to get hurt.
But it depends what you're prioritizing, right? Because if you're prioritizing being cool, not getting rejected, coming across as the one who's in control, and that's your north star, and that's the most important thing to you, then I see a world where you can absolutely brainwash yourself into thinking, "I am all for this exploration thing," because actually—
I'm really relaxed and I'm also looking. It's kind of, you almost appropriate the other person's excuse.
Well, but that requires you to stay somewhat disconnected, right? You have to actively focus on not connecting to that person and this situation because the moment—
That's really interesting. I think what you just said is really, really interesting because I think that is what happens so often in dating, especially when you're dating in your 20s, is you are disconnected because you're not necessarily connected to the value and the need and the urgency of meeting somebody. And so you are more connected to your ego and how you come across and how does this person make me look and all of the things, and what's my kind of exterior that I'm projecting outwards to the world. I think you are more connected to that than all the other things. And I do think that's something that, if you don't find what you're looking for within the time frame that you're comfortable in, you then start to drop.
You start to lose some of those specifics on what you think you must have.
And then you start to actually connect because you have to, because it becomes a priority. I think there's a lot to that. There's also this trend I've seen on TikTok where a lot of people are showing off their dates now, and almost the image is, look at me. Look at how wined and dined I'm being. Look at how well this person's giving me princess treatment.
Oh, I thought you meant their dates as in the person. You mean they're—
Showing off, this is the date, and there's a kind of whole glamour to showing off. I saw one and a woman was saying, "Don't believe the bad press about finance bros. This was my first date with this guy in London." And it shows them going to a two-Michelin-star Mayfair restaurant. She talks about how we just got here. He said, "She'll have the champagne," without even asking me. "She'll have the champagne." She's like, "Oh my God." And it was showing all this stuff. It was like, "He ordered the soufflé for us," but it was just like, this is an insane first date, and this is—
Who ever said, when was the press about finance bros ever that they don't splash out?
Oh, I think the press is they're not good dudes, but I'm like, this doesn't show anything. This just shows this guy is doing an insane level.
But that exactly tracks about the finance guys.
Well, it's just a pure, let me throw this cash around and impress you. And it doesn't mean anything if a finance bro goes to some fancy place on the street.
It's the equivalent of seeing a finance bro in a VIP table in a club, and five bottles of champagne with sparklers in them come over, and someone taking a video of that and going, "Don't believe the press about the finance bros. They're really generous with champagne." You're at a VIP table. You're on a date where someone's splashing out to impress you.
That's hard. I see that stuff and I'm like, are these people even serious? Is this just someone trying to get likes? Do they really believe this?
But also, who is taking pictures of their date on their first date? I would find that very weird if we were on a first date and you were just taking pictures of the date. Isn't that weird?
Yeah. Yeah.
I think that's weird.
No, that's what the finance bro wanted. If you spend that much money on a date, you're the person who wants to be seen spending that much money on a date. That's how you're getting validated. So if she gets out her phone and starts filming it and then puts it on TikTok, all your ambitions have come true. You've been validated in all of the ways that you hoped to be by spending that much money. It's another way that the millennials have ruined dating, is that our reality TV shows have made people make reality TV shows of their dates to show off on social media.
Jersey Shore.
Love Island.
Love Island.
Yeah.
That's you guys and me.
That's you guys.
Yeah. So I do think there can be this performative aspect to it. It can be a, look at all the people who are trying to woo me sort of thing. Look how great standards I have, but what does that all mean? What does that all cash out as if you're just going on these extravagant first dates? It's kind of like, yeah, it's fun. It's a fun thing to do. But I don't know.
I actually feel there's this weird schism, and again, I want Gen Z people to comment to say if this is true, but there's this much more open explorationship, no labels, being for myself, just want to prioritize my mental health kind of trend. And then there's some people so rebelling against all of the modern dating stuff that they're trying to go a lot more traditional, like slow dating. I don't want to date around. I don't want any casual sex. I want to be a lot more conservative in my dating life. And I see that as also a thing. But both of them I see as some kind of rejection of whatever they think the millennial thing represents.
It's some kind of, I don't want that. I don't know what it is, but I don't want that. Whereas I think a lot of millennials actually now are settling down into a bit more of a stable—I don't know. A lot of the millennials I know have started to go, "Oh, I'd just like someone to be with now," and a bit more intentional.
The reality is, whatever generation you're in, the criticisms of dating apps are entirely legitimate. The way that they are set up, the incentives that are in place are all wrong. Dating apps are about getting as many swipes as possible. They're about getting as many signups as possible. The people on them are incentivized to keep swiping. The whole process is made highly addictive. It is made highly dopamine-fueled. So it's no wonder that our attention spans for dating are just not there. Our ability to actually spend time with someone, get connected to someone, is not there. Because the whole time you're with someone, your phone is buzzing with other matches or other possibilities.
The whole system right now is not set up for two people who actually want a relationship to find each other, especially two intentional people. I said in the video we did on Sunday, it's like a bunch of people who want real relationships are put in a mixer with a whole bunch of people who just want to hook up, and then we shake the whole thing up and we're happy at the end of that process that by sheer randomness, a few relationships occur. And they do. But what also occurs is an enormous amount of pain and mismatched intentions and toxicity and bad behavior.
And the reason is, I had a lot of people comment on our Sunday video with real excitement that we're coming out with what we're coming out with, because it feels for a lot of people like this is absolutely beyond necessary. It's been necessary for a long time.
What are we coming out with?
We have, for the last nine months—and for anyone who watched our video on Sunday or listened to our podcast that came out on Monday—
Yeah.
You know this. We have been working in the background on something called Sync, which is our audacious attempt to create something that people actually deserve who are out there dating. So it is not a dating app. So if you're sick of dating apps, this is not that. It is a matchmaking app. And more specifically, it's the world's most intelligent matchmaker in your pocket. And it can be that because it is powered by AI.
So it asks you questions. This is a voice-first app. And Sync is going to talk to you and get to know you better than you know yourself. It's going to get to know your preferences for a person better than you even know your preferences. It's going to get to know who you're compatible with better than you even consciously know who you're compatible with, because there is a big difference between simply what we want and what we actually need. And it's going to be getting to know the other person just as well as it knows you. So what this allows for is deep compatibility.
And that's what we all need in dating right now. And this is an app that will screen for people who are serious about relationships, for people who are being intentional, and we're massively excited about the potential for this.
It's so nice to be able to finally talk about it. We've been working on this for so many months, and finally, we're actually talking about it with the world. And the really, really cool thing, guys, is that we're releasing it for the first time, but because it's very, very new and we're still in its infancy stages, we're only releasing it to a small group of people in New York City.
Yeah. So we are doing it in that test city. And the people that are in that test city are going to be the first people to really be part of this. They're going to be part of the very earliest stage of it, and we're going to be testing it together and experimenting with it together. There'll be things to fix with it along the way. But the idea is we get it right in that city and then we roll it out to more cities. We have a waitlist for anyone who's in that city. You can find the waitlist in the description for the episode, whether you're on YouTube or on a podcasting platform.
And it's totally free to sign up.
Yeah, right now Sync is free. So if you're in that test group, you're grandfathered in to using this for free right now. And also, if you're not in that city, you can still join the waitlist from anywhere in the world because the idea is to roll this out everywhere. It's just that you won't be in the test city unless you're there.
So this is immensely exciting to be doing something like this. We've never done anything like this before. I intentionally—I must have been offered the position of being on the board of dating apps or co-creating dating apps, co-founding dating apps, once every three months for the last 10 years. We have had so many offers to do that, and we never got involved with any of them because it never felt right. It didn't feel congruent for me to get involved with something that I just didn't fully believe in. And it's fun to actually have created something from the ground up that has the potential to be better and to give people what they really deserve. So stay tuned for what's coming with Sync.
We had an interesting comment on YouTube, didn't we? I think, David, you read it out to us.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that this addresses both sides of this feeling of giving up in a really vulnerable, cool way. So on our last episode, or not our last episode, but "Why Women Are Giving Up on Men in 2025," one of our top comments was, "As a single man, people who are in relationships often tell me how much they envy my lifestyle, being that I have no wife, kids, and no responsibilities. Being single does have its perks, but at the same time, it can be very lonely in the long run. Freedom doesn't always feel like peace. Sometimes it feels like emptiness, and you crave that connection with someone. This really is not how I wish to live for the rest of my life, and it would be nice to have somebody to come home to and enjoy my freedom with. I truly think that being in a relationship is a much happier feeling than being single."
It's really honest and it's really vulnerable, that comment, because there's—I don't know if you've seen—there's this whole wave of content now online from people who are basically glorifying their free single life. It'll be like, me on my third vacation of the month while my friends with kids haven't left the house in the last four weeks. And then the comments are just wall-to-wall with people going, "Same here, never had kids, and my single friends can't believe how much freedom I have and how great my life is. They're regretting it now." Or my friends who have kids, and so on. There's so much of that.
And it's so fascinating because there's all these little echo chambers that I realize, because sometimes when I get those things, I'm expecting to go to the comments and see really heated debate between people, where it's people who are really happy and fulfilled in relationships or with families going, "What are you talking about? It's the best," and then other people who are single going, "No, being single is the best." But instead it's just 90% other single people who are celebrating this and demonizing the life of having kids and a family. And you realize there are all these little pockets in the algorithm where it becomes a representation of our desire to glorify whatever path we've either chosen or been forced down, depending on the nature of your life.
And I get it because I've joked before on the podcast, wherever I am in life, I'm always looking for who are my role models that make this path feel exciting to me. And my role models change depending on where my life is. And I'm always looking for what I would talk about on the retreat as emotional buttons. What's my emotional button for being—if I've just been heartbroken, I would be like, what's my emotional button right now? What's my person or my role model right now for the moment I'm in to try to almost take this and turn it into something really positive or amplify the good in it? And when I was single, I always had Star-Lord from Guardians of the Galaxy as my reference point for why I'm so happy.
I remember Matt telling me that after he watched Guardians of the Galaxy, he was like, "I'm Star-Lord."
There's a moment where he wakes up in the first Guardians where he wakes up on his ship, and there's just a woman in a room somewhere, and he's hooked up and he's got no responsibility. He just walks outside the ship and just starts dancing his way to whatever next adventure he's having. And I would be like, "Yeah, I'm Star-Lord." Look at him. He's got no responsibility. He's so happy.
Blake, come and get your love.
That song was an emotional button for me for that very reason because it connected me. I was like, this is so exciting to be like Star-Lord in life. And so I really get it when people do this. But there's a difference, I think, between having those things that really connect us in a positive way to the beauty of our situation and asserting constantly that every other path is awful in some way or that my path is the only way, in a kind of denial of the other things that I could be experiencing in life. And it creates these kind of false dichotomies where it's either one or the other.
And I think that's what I hear a little bit when I hear someone saying—because look, we got some flak the other week when we did that episode about people who were saying, "I'm out of dating. I'm more peaceful without it," and so on, because we were talking about how relationships are a really beautiful thing, and there's something potentially a little bit sad about just being like, "I'm not interested anymore in this whole section of life." And that was never us talking about it actually being sad. I think there's something incredibly empowering about choosing this because it makes me happier and it makes me more peaceful.
But for a lot of people, whether it's saying, "I'm just fine with situationships. That's fine. I'm gonna be happy doing this forever." Or whether it's saying, "I'm going to peace out of dating altogether because I don't want to do it anymore." Or whether it's the other thing where it's being single is the worst thing on earth and I just, unless—
I'm in a relationship, I'm not happy. They all fall prey to this very black-and-white thinking about life.
Hello everyone. Audrey and I are in full minimalism mode in our house right now, getting ready for a baby to arrive. We are getting rid of things that don't spark joy. We are bringing in things that do spark joy. Marie Kondo. And one of those things we brought into our home that does spark joy are the blankets from Cozy Earth. Audrey has practically been living in their bubble cuddle blanket. Say that three times. And we have even got the Cozy Earth baby blanket to prepare for little Chadwick.
This just in. We are not going with Chadwick. Both are soft, elegant, and fit perfectly with the minimalist vibe we are creating in our home. What I love most about Cozy Earth is that their products aren't just beautiful. They are functional, high-quality, and designed to last. If you are looking for something to simplify your space and invest in things that spark joy for you, Cozy Earth is a great way to go. Head to cozyearth.com and use the code Love Life for 20% off. Now, back to the episode.
We got an email on that particular episode, which was titled—this is episode 313—"Nearly 50% of Women Will Be Single by 2035," from Christina, who said, "I've been a fan for a long time. Thank you for everything I've learned from the podcast. In relation to episode 313, I do agree with everything you said about why more people are single, social media turning us into dopamine-seeking machines, how we're more alienated, and so on. That said, I felt the conversation was missing a strong feminist perspective. I was surprised to hear Audrey was surprised at women who said that it sounds peaceful being single by 2035. To me, that reaction makes perfect sense. The truth is that many women stay single because we don't want to mother immature men." Completely fair.
"The emotional workload in straight relationships is enormous: having to manage feelings, keep connection alive, and take care of someone who often hasn't been taught to do that for himself. Even with 'good men' who are intentional or make an effort, it's common for that effort to fade once they're comfortable. And in my experience, a lot of men mainly look for a partner to help them regulate emotionally. That's why studies show men get happier when they marry, but women get happier when they stay single. Straight relationships, the way they're usually structured, heavily advantage men, and men rarely seek out relationship advice to begin with. They're taught it isn't their job, which is already obvious from your listener base."
I actually want to push back on that a little bit because there's an enormous amount of content out there for men looking for love advice. Look no further than how many millions of views Jordan Peterson has anytime he talks about dating.
And or marriage. And even our listener fan base, a lot of them are men.
Yes.
We get a lot of emails from men. We get a lot of comments from men.
The advice might be structured differently, and you could make an argument for the goals being different sometimes between men and women. But there's certainly an enormous amount of men looking for advice online for themselves.
"When the podcast first expanded beyond Matthew, I was worried it might feel like you were shoving a great relationship in our faces, but now I think it's even better. I love the group dynamic, Audrey's insights and voice, and I absolutely adore Steve."
Hell yeah.
"Also, it's really refreshing to hear men discuss a topic like relationships and doing it so intelligently like you guys do." Thank you. And that's from Christina.
I think Christina makes some really, really important points. I think the irony of that episode is that we actually have spent, over the years, a disproportionate amount of time fighting on behalf of that feminist perspective and saying that people shouldn't feel the need to be in a relationship, and that there is nothing wrong with being single or staying single. This has never been a podcast that is constantly just evangelizing about relationships. So it's almost funny to me that we got some of these comments from people pushing back on them feeling that we didn't do that enough in that episode.
I think also just the overall point that I think is so important to make here in this episode, in the other episode that was just referenced, is I actually do understand this idea of it being peaceful for all of the reasons that Christina has mentioned. But I think the important point is whatever you decide to do, make sure it's coming from the right place. If you decided you don't want to date because frankly it's too complicated for you and you feel genuinely fulfilled in all these other areas, and it's just something that you have decided you can absolutely live without, then fine, that's fine. But if you are lying to yourself and pretending that this isn't something you want because you don't think that you can get it in the form that you want it, I do think that that's a shame because I think then you're not putting yourself out there and allowing yourself to actually meet the kind of relationship that you want.
So I think whether it be Gen Z, millennials, men, women, whoever it is, whatever you actually truly want deep down in your heart, you should go after that. You shouldn't worry about anything else. And that should be your guiding star because otherwise you will end up in a place, whether it's 10 years from now, 20 years from now, where you actually go, "I was telling myself I didn't want this, but now I don't have it and I do want it," or vice versa. And I think that's the point we were trying to get across all along. It's not that you have to be in a relationship. It's that you have to be very honest with yourself about what you want and why you are doing or not doing what you're doing.
And I applaud any woman who is saying, "This just isn't offering me anything that is compelling, and I have my friends. I have my life. I have purpose in my career. I love my life. I don't need this. It's not worth it to me." If you find contentment in that, I applaud that.
And not everybody wants to be in a relationship, and that's fine.
No. The thing that I think sneaks up on us is that even if—and by the way, there's a whole conversation to be had about that in the context of wanting children, because there are many people who say, "I've found relative peace by not dating right now," but they know at some point that desire to want children is going to visit them much more strongly than it does today. And at that point, it leaves them in a much more difficult place. Or they've decided, "I'm happy to do this on my own," which many women do these days, and to me, that's to be applauded too. But I think some people bury their heads in the sand that that feeling is going to come to them later, and it does.
But that aside, there are many people who find that the desire to be connected to somebody romantically won't go away so easily. We can say to ourselves, "I'm happy. I'm content. I'm peaceful. I don't need this." But for a lot of people, that part of them doesn't just go away. The desire to connect doesn't just go away. And when it does come back, I suppose the question is, what does the calculation look like then? Does it still look like more peace to not engage with that area of life at all? Or does it start to look like a brave move to say, "I'm still going to venture out with a sense of openness because this actually is something that I feel an urge towards at this point in my life, albeit hopefully with higher standards and a better radar for people than maybe I would have gone out with 10 years ago or 5 years ago."
Well, it's that time again that everyone's been waiting for. It's Steve Sleeves. Don't be ber. You know that we can't live without another episode of Steve Sleeves.
Welcome back to Steve Sleeves, everyone. We today are going to play a word game. I'm calling it Love Lexicon.
Okay.
Or Flirtle Wordle.
Flirt or word.
Sorry.
It's not very much like Wordle.
It has two names.
That's how we roll.
It has to be one or the other. You can't start by saying it's this name or this name.
Well, we're going to play Love Lexicon.
Okay.
No, I liked Flirtle Wordle.
This is the problem. It's not like Wordle. So I'm going to give you some Gen Z dating terms. Some of them are real, some of them I have made up.
I like this one already.
So you're going to have to tell me if they're real or not.
Okay.
Banksying, named after the street artist Banksy, is when one partner's already decided to leave, but instead of saying it, they start doing a quiet retreat.
Ooh, I think that's real. Instead of leaving, they just do a quiet retreat from the relationship.
Yeah.
I thought it was going to be like you come and just write on their wall unannounced without permission. Why? How does that relate to Banksy?
Because he always makes a sneaky exit and no one knows who he is.
That's not every graffiti artist ever.
When you don't realize it, the art's gone. He takes it away.
So go on. Is it true or not?
Yeah. Go on then. That is real.
Yeah.
Okay.
Go us.
Toastering. Keeping someone warm but never turning things up high enough to cook into a real relationship.
That's not real.
That's you. That's got you all over it.
Toastering.
That is fake.
Kittenfishing. Like catfishing, but you just tell a little bit of an exaggeration about yourself. You just stretch the truth a little bit. You're not doing a fake profile picture, but you're lying a bit in the profile.
That's fake.
Yeah, that's fake.
Fake news.
That is real.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Kittenfishing.
IHOPping. He takes you out to a basic breakfast place near his home that he clearly brings all his dates after a sleepover.
Real.
Wait, just any old breakfast place?
Very basic greasy spoon breakfast place. And it's quite clear that he brings all his morning-afters there.
Go on then. Real. I made that up.
Oh, I knew it. I knew it. Why did I say real? Obviously IHOPping.
Okay.
It sounds good though. That should be one.
I feel like—
That might catch on.
I feel like IHOP—but I feel like that would be quite a personal thing for me to share, my local greasy spoon place. I feel like that's actually a sign that I'm really into you.
IHOPping is actually quite romantic.
Yeah.
Okay. Monkey barring. Moving from person to person, only letting go of the old one when you've moved on to the next.
That is real, and we used to use it when we were in our 20s.
Yeah, that one's been around a while.
Sneaky link. A casual hookup that you keep secret and don't tell anyone.
Sneaky link. That sounds real.
It's a casual hookup. You don't tell anyone you're hooking up with this person.
Sneaky link.
Okay. Yeah. Real.
You say fake.
I think fake.
That is real.
Oh, damn it.
It's quite good, that one.
Airplaning. When someone makes plans for all kinds of trips in their head and talks about them, but never actually books one with you.
That's so annoying.
Airplaning.
They're always talking about potential trips in the future. "We're going to go there. I'm going to take you here." I think fake.
I think you made that up because I feel like there's definitely a better term for that.
No offense.
No offense.
I made that up.
Soft launch. You show your partner in your Instagram stories without a full reveal of them. You don't say you're in a relationship, but you soft launch it on your Instagram stories.
I reckon that's real.
I reckon that's real.
That is real.
Chairing. Keeping someone around for emotional furniture. They're comfy but not very exciting.
Oh, that's quite depressing. It's horrible.
Chairing. So you just keep them around because they're comfortable.
Yeah.
And then wouldn't it be like sofa?
I reckon that's real because I reckon you would have come up with a different name for that one.
That one is fake.
There is cushioning. Yeah, I was going to say chairs aren't—
When you're already in a relationship, but keep someone around just in case.
Oh.
Oh, sneaky.
No, sneaky link would be if you're actually hooking up with them.
Shreking. Lowering your standards so you'll finally be treated right by someone.
That one's real.
That one's real. Yeah.
It's also very mean.
It is really mean.
Pancaking. He invites you to his place for a romantic night, but has a thin, spongy mattress that makes your back hurt in the morning.
That's not real. That is not real.
And then no way.
And then takes you to IHOP in the morning for pancakes.
Because pancaking suggests it's something you do to someone.
Yeah, you panced it. You could pancake me.
No one would go—
Because he winded you and then he took you back to a bad thing.
People wouldn't go home to their friends and say, "He's pancaking me." That is real with you. I'm with you.
That one is not real.
All right. Well, thanks for playing Steve Sleeves, everyone.
Please email us, anyone out there who wants to let us know what this podcast meant to you. podcast@matthewhussey.com.
Subject line—
Pancaking.
No, the Wordle one. What was it?
No, it's got to be pancaking. Surely pancaking. You're not going to beat that.
Subject line, pancaking. Have you ever been pancaked? Let us know. podcast@matthewhussey.com. We'll see you next time.
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