P.S
Like girls, boys openly express their desire for genuine connections with others, including with boys. They reveal the human capacity for mutual understanding, care, and empathy and demonstrate remarkably astute abilities to read the human world. Yet as they reach middle to late adolescence and as expectations of manhood intensify, they begin to... See more
changing face of masculinity
I’m always thinking about that Raúl Zurita quote that people put on Tumblr: Toda declaración de amor es urgente porque vamos a morir [every declaration of love is urgent because we’re going to die]. In real life, obviously, you cannot declare love to just anyone. You have to go with the flow, wait on other people’s time, accept their ambivalence,... See more
The seeds of intimacy are time and repetition. We choose each other again and again, and so create a community of two.
Esther Perel • Mating in Captivity
Which brings me to my next point: the incentive should always be meeting in real life. Matching, exchanging numbers, texting is great, but the end goal of the app should push the meet. It’s strange that apps haven’t done this.
David Titarenco • RFC: Let’s Disrupt Dating Apps
the rise of supper/running/vinyl listening clubs - all meant to become that third space for serendipitous connection
think about book club in New York!
Looking for love sounds more like chasing the high of an extreme sport, trust falling with someone you don’t really know like that. It demands exacting reciprocity, extreme vulnerability. It brings out people’s basest and most primal instincts and a frightening desire to merge into someone else. When the girlies on TikTok talk about dating, they... See more
The more people who buy a product, the further the product’s message spreads, the more money the company makes, the more they can invest in their projects. It's a virtuous cycle of creation and consumption. By making scale—the number of people who use or see the creation—an explicit part of the art’s statement, they naturally marry the business’s... See more
Evan Armstrong • The Art of Scaling Taste
making scale the process not the work
Increasingly, consumers (Gen Z’s especially) are seemingly ditching Bumble, Hinge, and Tinder in favor of apps that better cater to their preferences and behaviors. In the last 18 months or so, a new paradigm of dating apps has emerged, many of which draw upon growing behaviors around gaming, live and short-form video (Curtn, Lolly, Snack, Filter... See more
Jay Drain Jr • Consumer Social is Eating the World
shift away from looks-based — optimising for FEELINGS
The problem today’s daters face is that the mass adoption of online dating apps has not only eroded incentives to switch from explore to exploit mode, it has made exploration itself boring and dysfunctional.
Shreeda Segan • Dangerous Dating Protocols Web
where’s the fun in dating now? it’s just stressful now
Falling in love seems to happen mostly either by a process of osmosis or simple familiarity (and a lot of waiting) or by setting intentions of seriousness and weeding out partners who don’t share them. Sometimes, it happens randomly. Sparks fly. You’re reminded why there’s so much poetry, so much music, so many stories, so many cautionary tales... See more
modern love dictated by reality, rather than cultivated through serendipity