Are Dating Apps Now Underrated?

All right, Matthew Hussie, how you doing?

I'm good, Steve. I'm excited about this episode today.

There he is.

This new episode.

World famous dating coach there, Matthew Hussie. and we got him all to ourselves.

New York Times bestselling author, I'm speaking to Stephen Hussie. Welcome.

Co-author with you, my friend. So, you know, Matt, it's no secret that things have been a little bit different over the last year. People have been locked away. And you know what they've been doing, apparently, is they've been dating apping a lot. I think dating apps have had their decade of growth, but obviously the pandemic really turned it up to 11. It was even more people kind of conceded and said, you know what, maybe this whole online dating thing that I've resisted since the internet, I need to have a little go of. And I saw a, An interesting article that talked about some research that came out that said people who find love through dating apps have stronger long-term intentions. Now, obviously, you take every study with a pinch of salt. They took a sample of about 3,000 people and they asked where they met their current partner, their intentions, their relationship satisfaction. But basically, the people who met their partner through a dating app, what they showed is those people showed no significant difference in their marital intentions, their desire for children, or their intentions to have children. Even in fact, those who met their partner on a dating app had stronger intent to move in with their partner that they had met online. And the women on the dating apps had more of a desire for children. And so basically what they were saying, and even life satisfaction and sort of partner satisfaction was higher slightly in people who did dating apps. So the thing they're basically saying is there's a lot of bad, you know, sort of air around dating apps, especially ones like Tinder, where people go, these are for hookups, people on them are never serious, and it's a kind of inferior form of dating. And what I thought is interesting is there are definitely drawbacks to only doing online dating. There are problems. It can be addictive. It can be time wasting. But I do think it questions that myth a bit that I'm not going to use them because everyone just wants to hook up on them. No one wants anything real.

Right. Well, firstly, I want to know who commissioned this study. Because I'm 99% sure it's one of the dating apps.

Here we go. Old data head Matthew Hassie coming in.

I mean, honestly though, if you're a match.com or eHarmony or any of these, Tinder, you want to commission a study that says people are more intentional on dating apps about Relationships. But let's just take, let's for a moment, let's take it at face value and say this study is true. I suppose some, here's, here's my thing with dating apps. If you're on a dating app, you might be looking to hook up, you might be looking for a relationship. But, and I've, you know me, Steve, for years I have said, that dating apps are potentially a real problem and that it's gonna be, it's like all the, in some ways, all the worst elements of a bar, but a much bigger bar for people, for everyone to hit on each other. And you do, of course, have all of the people that don't have real intentions or even good intentions mixed in with the people that do. But the one thing that I think people sometimes forget is that the people that have good intentions are also there. They're not, you know, there is someone, if you are looking for love, if you're looking for something serious, there is someone like you out there who's also looking for something serious, who is no longer a fan of going out to bars as a way of meeting people or cannot right now, and is therefore looking for an easy way. to meet someone. Those people are also on apps. So the question then becomes not how do I avoid the apps because no one on there wants anything serious. That to me is an emotional reaction to dating apps based on having some bad experiences, perhaps many. I think it's about saying how do I distinguish between the people on dating apps who are being intentional and the ones who are not? Because I do think there is a different energy about people who are being intentional. I do think there is a greater curiosity amongst those who are being intentional and are truly evaluating someone for a relationship. They will tend to ask more questions. They'll tend to be more curious about you as a person. They'll tend to want to graduate to a phone call or a way of getting to know you better.

Yeah.

Because that's actually what they're looking for. And if someone is very short in their answers, doesn't try to get to know you at all, has zero interest in graduating to a phone call or a FaceTime or an in-person date, then it becomes self-evident that they're not necessarily looking for anything serious, that they are just looking for validation.

Yeah, and this is part of a thing, isn't it? The drawback, like you're saying, of online dating is in a way you let more people into your mental psyche that you wouldn't in a bar. You wouldn't have everyone in the bar simultaneously hit on you and make you offers. And then you go, oh, let's see if this one's... You would be more discerning in all kinds of ways where you'd look at how they look, their body language, how you felt about them. Whereas on the dating app, you kind of are getting smothered with every kind of type. So it does- There's also the potential.

For a lot of bad behavior that- I mean, bad behavior certainly does occur in a bar, but there are certain really bad behaviors that don't occur. You know, someone doesn't just pull down their pants in a bar.

And if they do, they are quickly ejected from the venue.

Right, exactly. Yeah.

Well, that's the thing. And that's why I think it complicates things. I'm not here to go, well, dating apps are the king and don't worry about anything else. I would always tell people you're totally missing out if in normal times you are not going out and meeting people as well. I do just think, like what the author of this study said, which I think makes a fair point, is that there is a kind of moral panic about the social impact of these new technologies. And I think that she just wanted to kind of challenge it and put them to the test. And, you know, they did caveat it by saying, like, this was done in, like, in, like, Switzerland, where there's a bit more of a cultural emphasis on long-term relationships. So you kind of have to, like, okay, are there cultural things at play where some people are more, Less looking for hookups in certain cultures.

I thought that was going to be a comment on how neutral the study was. Don't worry. In case you're wondering, the study was done in Switzerland.

There's no bias.

No foul play here. There is no bias. It's very much factually accurate.

No, which is why one has to be careful about taking too much from these studies. But I know lots of friends. I've been to a marriage of people who've met on the dating app. I have a friend who's just had a baby with someone he met on a dating app, is really happy. So it's just, I'm just kind of like, like to show that other side of things to not make people so averse to the fact that they might start a profile and talk to people.

Well, it's just people that we have very emotional reactions to things based on experiences, and we have to be careful because ultimately we do have to remember we are still dealing with people. the people, there's not dating app demons on the other end. It's a person somewhere that you are talking to. So although they may encourage more detached responses, although the sort of hair of anonymity that people have, even though you know their name and their face and so on, the more detached anonymity someone has makes it more likely that someone can easily ghost you or just decide to stop talking to you. It is still, you're still dealing with people on the other side. It's like, who would meet someone through Instagram? Well, lots of people actually meet through Instagram. A lot of people meet in the DMs of Instagram. It's still just a person. It's still just another place to meet someone. The key is whatever room you're going into to meet someone, whether it's Instagram, Tinder, Hinge, Bumble, a bar. The key is the energy you bring to the room. What's the energy you bring to the dynamic and what is it communicating to the people you're talking to? And don't worry if it scares off a lot of the wrong people. Don't worry if a lot of people, you know, are like, get on the phone. No, I'm not interested in doing that. Don't worry about those people because they're already showing themselves not to be that. I'm not saying literally within three messages, you should say, what's your number? Let's get on a phone call. But if you've been talking to someone for a week and there's still no whiff of like, you're actually having a lot of texting back and forth and there's no whiff of like anything progressing to even just like a voice note or something. You know what I mean? Like any progression. I always just think, how do people respond to a little more progression? And I do, by the way, I do think one of the problems on dating apps is that it's a game of chicken where everyone is trying to like, you know, it's like who can try less instead of thinking, let me do, not let me try harder, but let me, see, I think people confuse showing more with trying harder and they're not the same thing. Showing more, if I, Steve, if we're texting and I leave you a voice note, It can take the same amount of time as writing a text, except when you hear my voice, you feel more connected to me and you feel like I'm in the room with you for a brief second. It's not trying harder, but it is showing more. I'm painting myself in three dimensions now. And I think that people, I'm not telling people to try harder, but to show more. It takes me the same amount of time to write out a text that tells you nothing about me as it does to tell you something about somewhere I am and something that's going, you know, that's on my mind or an experience I'm having with my brother or my sister or my best friend right now or whatever. It takes the same amount of time and effort to show a little more, but one of them makes you feel like you're more connected to me and creates the opportunity for you to show more of yourself because I give you a license to show more of yourself when I show more of myself. one of them keeps us where we are because I'm communicating with you, but I'm saying nothing.

Yeah. And when you get those tiny, like, you know, boring, flat, one line answers, you think, like, I don't see a human being here. There's not a person here I can get any sense of or get excited about.

Steve, the amount of time I've had people show me their messages and they're like, why is it not progressing? And I'm like, you,'re not saying anything.

Right.

There's no, there's no like, you're not doing anything to build a connection here. You're not saying, and by the way, they aren't either, but I'd rather review a little more of myself and my personality and see if people come with me than hold back and never show any of myself and say, well, they didn't draw it out of me, so they're not serious. I'd rather learn someone's not serious because I actually dare to show a little more of myself and I realize they're not willing to do the same in return. I'd rather people find out someone's not serious serious that way than by holding back and being like, no one's drawing my personality out of me. No one's inviting me to speak more. Steve, can you imagine if we got on YouTube and waited for people to show up and just, well, I'll tell you more about myself when you leave more comments. You imagine getting on a live and being like, well, I'm not going to say a lot about my, I'm not going to reveal a lot about myself to you on these lives until, you know, you guys ask about me. It's like, that's not, we, that's not how value works.

Yeah. And it's something like that. Sorry, go on.

We have revealed ourselves over time, proactively. Yeah. And there are some people that don't care and that's fine. I'm not, I'm trying to invest in people that don't care. If it were a one-on-one friendship and I kept, and I was showing more about myself and that person didn't show any interest or curiosity or didn't return with things about themselves, then I wouldn't keep investing in that situation. But I'm not going to hold back on showing me and all of my color because I'm worried that, well, I just don't want to show too much. It's not about trying harder, it's about showing more.

For sure, totally agree with that. And I think people don't because they get scared of rejection or they think, well, what if it doesn't come back? And that, if there's a disadvantage to dating apps, it can be that it can hit your self-esteem because it can feel like getting rejected a lot more. And that is a kind of negative of them. And you kind of have to take that part and accept that's part of what that game is. But then you've kind of got to you've got to do something to put yourself out a bit. You have to put a bit of skin in the game. Like, not literally. You have to put a bit of something on the line, just even if you're like a bit of a message that shows something. Say, I love that you really love X. That's so cool. Tell me about, you know, this is what I'm really passionate about. Just something like that gives you a bit of bit more of color that someone could be like, oh, there's There's flesh and blood here. There's something, that person's more than the person who said hi. You know, the first message sounds like just hi. It's like, yeah, here we go.

William Zinser in the book on writing, well, said he is always looking for the, when he's critiquing other writers, when he's reading their stuff in articles, you know, he sees a paragraph or two of grandiosity and them trying to sound intelligent and witty and whatever else. trying to be a great writer. And then there's a moment where he'll read a line in paragraph three where a writer says, I'll never forget the day when I... and he said at that point he says to himself, aha, a person. That's the moment on a dating app when you're writing to people, you have to create that moment as soon as possible. Forget the grandstanding, forget all of the like trying to be impressive and trying to be like this, you know, that's what people do on Instagram, right? Here's my cars, here's my watches, here's my money, here's my this, here's my that, whatever. That's not what makes a connection.

No.

It's the moment where someone, we write something and someone says, aha, a person. The moment where someone says, what are you up to? And you say, I'm building IKEA furniture with my niece and she just keeps throwing it all over the place. And I'm now sitting here exhausted. You know, aha, a person, a person with a niece, a person with a relationship that's important to them in their lives. A person who has emotions, a person. That's what we're looking for. That's what builds connection. Impressing isn't the same as connecting.

Dropping, dropping bombs here, Matthew. I see.

Thank you, Steve.

Well, you people are persons to us, and why don't you be a person and email us at podcast@matthewhassi.com? Let us know what you think, your experience on dating apps. Do you think they're overrated?

I've got a question, Steve.

Oh, here we go. Yeah, please.

People should email in one detail of their lives that they feel like could actually humanize them more and make them more three-dimensional in the eyes of people that they've either just met or are dating that they don't bring out when they're trying to be a bit too cool. What's one element of their lives that they're like, if I said that, you know that maybe it's a relationship, this is someone you care about in your life. Maybe it's a geeky hobby you're into. Maybe it's. It's something that you, one of your passions in life or what's something that humanizes you? It could even be something silly, like some, some quirk you have or whatever, but what's something that would humanize you if you actually said it, but you always hold it back because you're too busy being nervous about how you come across. Because when we're a little looser, that's when we start to get more attractive is like loosen up, like relax those shoulders, start like, You know, how many people, Steve, in the middle of a live, get up and go to the bathroom?

Well, you do.

Right. I didn't overthink it. You just go and, and, you know, you could say it's boring. Oh, it's boring. But some people are like, and it probably is boring.

Could say it.

But it's given us this moment, hasn't it? This moment right now that we're having. It's given us this moment. It's a human moment that's given us another moment. And you don't get that when everyone's all stiff. What do people do on social media? They get on a live and they're all stiff. They start talking with a different voice. They start being a different person than they are with their best friend. And then they wonder why, oh lives are so difficult or whatever. Be who you are with your best friend. Relax those shoulders, loosen up. Say the silly thing. so anyway, what was the question? The question was, what little detail about yourself could you start actually using more to humanize yourself instead of playing it too cool for school? Email us where, Steve?

@Podcast@Matthewhassi.Com Do send us in your emails, we love getting them and hey, we also have the virtual retreat coming up very fast in March. You can join us at m.hvirtualretreat.com. and that is at the 19th to the 21st of March, our second ever virtual retreat.

Do you mind if I just take a moment to talk about the virtual retreat, Steve?

Please, please, sir.

I, we have, well, I don't know what the date is today. I think it's what, how many weeks out is our virtual retreat? like two, three? Three weeks and roughly three weeks and a day from now, we have the biggest event that I put on. If you're like, you know what, I've been watching you, Matt, and I like your vibe, I like your team, I like the way you say things. And I don't just want to apply everything you say to my dating life. I want to apply it to everything in my life. I want to become a healthier person with better habits. I want to look after my body better. I want to transform my finances. I feel like I am stuck in a place in my life where I'm doing the same thing over and over again. And even though my life isn't, quote, bad by other people's standards, it is not bringing me the joy that I want. I'm not doing something that really fulfills me. I'm not spending my days doing something I'm passionate about. Maybe in your life, despite all you've achieved, you don't feel as confident as you'd like to be. You thought you'd be more confident or more happy by now, and you just don't feel like you're where you want to be emotionally. Emotionally, your relationship with yourself is still not where you want it to be. Or maybe you feel like there are deeper things holding you back from what you want in life. That it's not just a matter of knowing what to do, you can know what to do and yet somehow you're still in your own way. The retreat is something I have been running for, what, 13 years now, something like that. And we've been running it twice a year. And every time it's been live, it's been a big program that we have live with everyone coming to the destination. And for the first time, In the last year, we ran it as a virtual event with people joining from all over the world, from their homes. And it was a tremendous success. We didn't lose anything. It was so special. We still created this immersive, wonderful three-day coaching experience that you don't even have to skip work for or you skip one day because it's Friday to Sunday. And we literally, it was a life-changing event for the people involved. So if you are somebody that has been on the sidelines of watching our videos, but you want to do something bigger with us, I swear to you, you can come to me on day three of the retreat and tell me if you don't agree, you can send me a message and tell me, but I swear to you this is the best thing that we do and I've worked on it for over a decade and it changes the lives of the people that come. And we don't say it out there enough. We mention it a lot, but it's impossible for me to communicate how much I care about this program and how much it changes lives. And just to clarify, and Steve, you can edit this down for the podcast. I'm saying it for you guys on the live right now. But so many people come to us and they're like, what do you talk about, about people's love lives for three days? I'm like, this isn't about your love life. This is about your life. This is about creating the life you want. I don't care about your love life to the extent that it doesn't matter to me whether you're in a relationship or not. I really don't care. Let it be said right now. I do not care if you're in a relationship or not. It is not interesting to me. What's interesting to me is if you're happy. What's interesting to me is if you feel like you are living life at the level you want. If you feel like you're squeezing every drop out of every day, that you're enjoying things, that you feel like, and by the way, I don't mean being happy all the time. I'm not happy all the time. I suffer. I have my problems. I'm not happy all the time. Don't come to my retreat to learn how to be blissfully happy all the time because I cannot teach you that. I don't know how to do that. But I live a really fantastic life with the people I love and I'm managing to do a lot of different things and juggle a lot of different things. And I have learned many, many tools over the years. This isn't all from me. I've read a lot, I've studied a lot, I've trained with a lot of different people. And I bring you all of the tools that I've learned over the years to live an extraordinary life. as you define it, not as I define it. And so over the three days, that's what I'm going to be doing with you is literally downloading everything I know, whether you want to build a business like mine and, and, and be the rock star of your industry, whether you want to just be a healthier, happier person, whether you want to transform your confidence, because it's still not where you want it to be. I'm going to help you live a great life and have a blue, a practical blueprint for that, you know, everything I do, it's not spiritual woo woo up in the clouds, just talking metaphorically or in the abstract is practical. Like my dating advice, my life advice, I give the same way I give dating advice. It's ultra, ultra practical. So that's what I'm going to be doing over these three days. And like our live in-person retreat, there's a lot of surprises coming. And I can tell you right now, you may be sitting here thinking, I'll come to the virtual retreat. later on, I swear to you, you will miss things if you come to a different virtual retreat because there are things happening on this virtual retreat that are very, very special. So the link to go and get it is mHVirtuAlretreat.com if you go to mHVirtuAlretreat.com, you're going to find out all about that. and I just, I really hope you join us. It's only, the reason I'm going so hard on this is because it's literally, we only have it twice this year. And I know that there are things happening on the first one. There'll be amazing things happening on the second one, but I know there are things happening on the first one that are amazing that are not happening again. So don't delay it. It's not something you can do a week later. It's an event. It's not a recorded webinar. It's not a recorded session. It's a live event with us. for three days. So that's it. Sorry, Steve, that's, you can cut that down for the podcast if you want to, but I just, we have to, every retreat, there's always someone who messages us a day after it going, had I known about this, I would have come. And I feel like we didn't do enough, a good enough job of making sure people knew about it. So now you know.

Well, thank you, sir. And please just bloody come because they are. They're cracking and we're gonna have fun.

That's more. A more epigrammatical way of saying it, Steve. We should put that on the page. Retreats. The MH Retreat is cracking.

It's cracking the New York Times. well, thank you so much, everyone, for joining us as ever. We are the brothers, hussy, and we'll see you all real soon.

Catch you later, everyone. Thank you for having us. I see the blog sites. Whoopie whoop. Got a new wife. Shorty got a new boo. Yeah, love. Beautiful. I'm looking for love.