#2 Is This MORAL? + My WIFE's Thoughts On The Tinder Project

In this episode, Mark Rosenfeld and Teal Elizabeth discuss the moral and ethical aspects of Mark's project to date as a woman on Tinder. They explore the trust issues and concerns around catfishing and scamming on dating apps. Mark shares his strategy for gracefully letting men down and emphasizes the importance of positive reference experiences in online dating. Teal highlights the value of learning about oneself and others through dating experiences. They conclude by teasing the next episode, where Mark will share his experiences from the first 30 days on Tinder.

Keywords

online dating, Tinder, moral, ethical, trust, catfishing, scamming, positive experiences, self-discovery

Takeaways

Online dating can be challenging due to trust issues and concerns about catfishing and scamming, but with the right techniques and intuition, one can become immune to these risks.
Having positive reference experiences in dating, even if they don't lead to a relationship, can help build confidence and change attitudes towards online dating.
Approaching dating as an opportunity for self-discovery and learning can take the pressure off finding 'the one' and create a more enjoyable experience.
Mark's strategy for gracefully letting men down involves appreciating their efforts, explaining unexpected personal situations, and expressing gratitude for the interaction.
The next episode will cover Mark's experiences from the first 30 days on Tinder and how to stay open and safe while dating online.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Overview of the Project
02:48 Discussing the Morals and Ethics of the Project
08:09 Exploring the Upside and Downside of the Project
13:49 The Importance of Positive Reference Experiences in Online Dating
15:17 Approaching Dating as a Journey of Self-Discovery
19:29 Mark's Strategy for Gracefully Letting Men Down
20:58 Teasing the Next Episode: Mark's Experiences from the First 30 Days on Tinder

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Overview of the Project
• 2:48 Discussing the Morals and Ethics of the Project
• 8:09 Exploring the Upside and Downside of the Project
• 13:49 The Importance of Positive Reference Experiences in Online Dating
• 15:17 Approaching Dating as a Journey of Self-Discovery
• 19:29 Mark's Strategy for Gracefully Letting Men Down
• 20:58 Teasing the Next Episode: Mark's Experiences from the First 30 Days on Tinder

Transcript

[Speaker 1]
G'day and welcome to The Tinder Project, the podcast where a straight Aussie man attempts to survive 365 days dating online as an American woman. I'm your host, Mark Rosenfeld, Australia's dating coach for women. I'm here with my sidekick, self-love coach, Teal Elizabeth, and together we have one mission to make meeting good men fun and easy for you.

Let's give it a go. Can I survive 365 straight days dating as a woman online? What does my wife think of this project?

And is this project moral and ethical? Welcome to The Tinder Project. This is Mark Rosenfeld.

I am joined by feminine energy and self-love coach, Teal Elizabeth. It is fantastic to have you here. Teal, how are you this evening?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I'm doing great, Mark. I'm doing beautiful.

[Speaker 1]
Hey, Teal, I did something. I did a thing.

[Speaker 2]
What did you do? Well, technically I can already tell because I can see you, but tell us.

[Speaker 1]
I got a haircut, man. I got a haircut. 20 years I've had no hair.

20 years.

[Speaker 2]
This is big. This is really big. I mean, I know as a woman, having hair is such a part of our identity as a woman.

Do you feel like as a man, it's such a big part of your identity too? Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Yes, I do. I was so nervous because, you know, I think in truth, I actually grew out my hair as it was something different after high school. I really struggled in high school.

And I think I grew it out in some respects to kind of get away from that identity and feel like a new person, feel like I wasn't that person in high school anymore. And it was interesting how some of that came up just before I got a cut. And I went, oh, this feels like almost, not that I'm going back, but like, oh, I've lived my whole adult life.

This one hair as ridiculous as that sounds. Yeah. 17 to 37.

I've had long hair.

[Speaker 2]
Wow. Do you have to do like a bulk hair conditioning and all the treatment and all that stuff too?

[Speaker 1]
No, I asked for a haircut that was reasonably low maintenance. And so the New York very fashionable gay hairdresser obliged. And he gave me a product that is, I just said, give me your best product.

And he said, take this one. It's shampoo and conditioner in one. So I'm like, wow, I'm back to being a kid again, where I only have to do the whole thing once.

This is great. Anyway, Teal, that's enough hair talk. We don't want to get distracted.

Today's an important day because we're going to be talking about the project. The project is underway. I have launched two profiles.

We're going to talk a little bit about more about what's going on with those next week. I do want to discuss on today's podcast episode, a little bit about what my wife thinks of this project. And you really wanted to talk about the morals and the ethics of the project today.

So shall we dive into these questions right now?

[Speaker 2]
I think so. Absolutely.

[Speaker 1]
Good. So I had this idea for this project basically back in April when I thought, and we sort of talked about this last week. I thought, Hey, I really want to change attitudes around online.

I was already doing some demos for my clients, but I realized I wanted to be even more active with it. And I thought, you know what, what if I was to just be a little bit extreme with it as I tend to do with things and do this every, every freaking day. And of course, one of the dilemmas that came up with that is doing it every day is how do I explain this one to Sam?

What's, what's she going to think of this? And I think I said last week, I'm probably one of the few men that has a bunch of dating apps on his phone. And it's not weird.

It is a little weird that I'm on there as a woman, but nonetheless, I had to explain this to Sam. So I thought, Oh, I wasn't sure what her reaction was going to be. Was it going to be like frustration?

Was it going to be an eye roll? Was it going to be a lot like burst out loud laughing? Was she going to be supportive of this?

Was she going to be horrified that I was doing this? Is she going to worry that I'm closet gay? Like I actually didn't know what she was, where she was going to go with this.

And I said to her, I pulled her aside a couple of weeks ago and I said, Sam, Teal and the listeners really want to know what, what is your honest opinion on this project? I'm planning to do all these days in a row as you, and perhaps as other women on dating apps for the interest of my clients, of course, what's your opinion on this? And she paused for a second and she kind of smirked and she said, you know what?

Go for it. And I looked at her and I went, there's more to say there. What are you not saying there, Sam?

And she said, she put her hand on my shoulder, got real close to me. And she's like, you know what, Mark, if this is what makes you happy, this is what you need to get. I think she said, if this is what you want to get your needs met in life, I support you.

[Speaker 2]
So my husband said the same thing to me. I think I need to go on a really burly man's backpacking trip. And I was like, babe, if that's what you need to be your best self, go for it.

But for you, it's not a man's backpacking trip. It's all along as a woman.

[Speaker 1]
Mine's a little gayer than that, isn't it? Mine's a little less typical. It's not a fishing trip.

It's not a car rally. It's not even a music festival or an event. It's I'm going on Tinder as a woman.

Not just for a week or a month.

[Speaker 2]
I think she, I think it's wonderful that she's supportive, but I do really think we need to really outline what exactly this means, what you're doing, and how this is actually a really good thing and not a creepy thing. Because I will say when you first told me about this and said, hey, do you want to come co-host this with you? I was like, I, this is weird.

I have a lot of questions. So can we talk about that? Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I offended Teal's moral compass and yet she's still here somehow. So that must say something about the quality of the project. So what, okay.

You're speaking on behalf of the listeners, Teal. I'm sure that you're going to be voicing for them. So what are the biggest moral questions you have about this?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. Well, first off, you know, I hear a lot of women talk about just how hard it is to trust on the online, on the online apps. You know, it's like the idea of catfishing is a concern.

The idea of people, you know, scamming is such a big concern. And here, basically when I first heard this, I was like, doesn't that kind of fit in that same category of you catfishing and scamming and all of that. And then the second question was, you know, how are you supposed to follow law as a woman and then actually hook a man in?

And then what are you going to do with them once you got them, assuming that you do? So I'm very curious about that. I'm sure the women are going to want to be knowing about that too.

[Speaker 1]
We had a laugh. We had a laugh. I was talking to a member of my team and she's single and I was showing her some of the project and she said, Hey Mark, is there any chance you can come up with some line that says something to the nature of, Hey, FYI, I'm not this person, but I do have a friend of a friend who's cute, who wants to meet you and is this person.

So can I just connect you with her? And we're all good here. I said to that staff member, it would be a little bit of a stretch, but I'd keep an open mind.

No. So, okay. In terms of catfishing and illegal, not illegal profiles, but dodgy profiles and things.

Look, I totally empathize with anyone listening who's experienced those. They suck. If you've been dragged along by one, it's really not fun.

And I totally get that it can be a horrific experience. I will say that with the right technique, I've never had a client fall to one. It just hasn't happened.

With a few practical techniques and really great listening to your intuition, you basically become immune to scammers, to catfish profiles. They don't hold up when you're using good technique online. And I promise you that if you do that, and if you're really sitting with your intuition and honest about what your gut is saying about who you're talking to, you'll be able to spot all of them either very, very quickly or very quickly.

So I don't have an issue with it because I see, to be completely honest to you, I see just so much more upside than downside to this. I kind of think of it as breaking an egg to make like a million omelets, because I really want to change attitudes. I see so much polarization between men and women.

And I figured that if people have proper training, if people know what to expect, if people know how to get what they want from online, and if people can see that it can actually be an enjoyable experience, not just meeting the guy, but meeting new people, that to me has so much good out there compared to the fact that a very tiny sliver of guys will have to be adjusted here. And I'll show you how I'm doing this. I'll show the listeners how I'm doing this, but I'm also letting these guys down in a way that's not just extremely respectful.

It's a lot better than, to be honest, what they're getting from most other women online who aren't into them. So in the whole category of all the women they're talking to, it's barely even going to sit on the radar. And to be honest, one of the attitudes I promote is you can have a great conversation with someone and it doesn't have to lead to anything.

And that's still a win. So I was on a client's profile as a simple example the other day. We had a great conversation.

It went about four messages, got to know a little bit about someone. And then he said, Hey, by the way, I'm going to be totally honest before I call you. I do want to let you know that I'm polyamorous.

So if you're not okay with that, that's totally cool. And she said, well, look, she kind of made a joke. She's like, I'm kind of more monoamorous leaning myself, but thanks for telling me.

Really appreciate you being so open. And they had such a great vibe that he wanted to be friends. He's like, you're really cool.

Can I just be friends with you? And she had to say, look, I'm not on here for friends. I have a lot of friends, but thanks for the great conversation.

I mean, that was such a positive interaction. Two humans having a great experience connecting without even getting to the phone call stage. That I see a lot of upside in the meeting and the positive meeting that goes way beyond any downside this project could cause.

[Speaker 2]
I do really love your genuine authenticity with this. And this is not just about, you know, teasing men or leading men on and then blowing them off because that's what we don't want. We don't want to add to more of the animosity and frustration online, but doing it in a way that is respectful and loving and showing women that, yeah, you can go out and have great conversations without it even needing to turn into anything.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. And that's what meeting people is about. I talk to clients about that a lot.

I'll give you the exact, the viewers are probably curious about this. Here's the exact script that I will be using for this particular project. Now I will say this with the caveat, but I haven't actually had to use it yet.

I did use it in the warmup months. And I'll tell you guys a little bit about the warmup months next week. I actually did 60 days warmup for this project before I started 365 days just to test everything.

So we got some kind of initial parameters and results and stuff from that. So during the project, I haven't had to use these yet because I've basically been using clients' accounts and just testing different things on clients' accounts in about the first few weeks of the project. But here's basically the strategy.

The goal for clients is always to get on the phone. We'll talk about this a bit in the next episode, but once you're on the phone, you have so much more intuition for someone. You have so much more awareness of someone.

You have such a more vibe for someone. Is the phone perfect? No, you could still get on the phone and end up on a reasonably boring date, but you will solve a ton of your problems just by doing that.

So the goal for clients is phone call. Now, of course, my voice is a little masculine. And as much as I try, I can't do a tea or podcast voice when I talk to these guys.

So it's a little tricky for me to keep up the project once the guys call me and I pick up the phone. So I do not pick up the phone. In the project, what we'll be doing is when the guy calls, we want to reward him for good behavior.

And actually this is a good tip just for anyone, any of the listeners. If you have a guy call you and say, for example, you missed the call or he calls when he says he will, and for some reason you don't connect, make sure you reward that behavior. The more you give positive feedback, not to like, I say this all the time, so it's not offensive to men.

We train each other like dogs. You train a man, like you train a dog. Reward the positive behavior over and over again.

[Speaker 2]
I say the same thing. I say Scooby Snacks, like Scooby Snacks.

[Speaker 1]
Doggy got the newspaper. Good doggy. It was the wrong newspaper, but still a good doggy.

You're in the right direction here. Okay. You don't beat the dog because it got the wrong newspaper, right?

So if a guy calls and for some reason you can't pick up, it's kind of on you then to say, Hey, my bad. I missed your call. Now, if he just calls randomly when you weren't expecting it, it's a little different.

But if you guys have organized a time to call and he calls, then if you miss the call, that's really on you. So what I do is I intentionally miss the call. And then straight after I'll send the guys a text and the text, this is a script for the text.

It says, Hey, thanks so much for calling. Really appreciate that. I'm so sorry to do this, but a very unexpected personal situation has come up, which I need to attend to.

I'll have to rain check on the call for now. I'll text you tomorrow. It doesn't have to be that exact script, but something that shows genuine appreciation and which just explains why you missed the call.

By saying it's an emergency, some kind of emergency, the guy doesn't take it personally. We don't put any bad juju out into the world. And he just says, okay, something has gone on.

This after all is still an internet stranger that I'm calling here. And then because we don't want to ghost, the next day I have a follow-up, which I send, which is basically to the nature of, Hey, unfortunately yesterday, I had some very unexpected news come up. That's basically put me in a place where I don't feel emotionally available to be dating anymore.

I wanted to say, thank you very much for the call. It meant a lot to me that there are guys out there still who want to call a woman and what's the rest of the script guys out there that want to call a woman. And I want to wish you all the best in the future.

Keep it up. Smiley face.

[Speaker 2]
Nicely done, Mark. Nicely done. If you were on the receiving end of that, how would you feel receiving that as a man?

Really good.

[Speaker 1]
Really good. Really good. Because again, if you can have these interactions, which go well and nicely, wherever they end along the process and feel masculine and feel appreciated and feel useful.

Oh, I just gave this woman hope for the dating world. Oh, I just made her feel really good and appreciative. Oh, I just made her feel warm.

Whatever you made her feel in the positive, suddenly we as men go, Oh, I'm useful. Oh, cool. So that's my strategy, Teal.

Does that pass the moral test or did I fail the Teal moral compass? Be honest.

[Speaker 2]
I will give it a pass. I will give it a pass. I think it's very respectful, very kind, very loving.

And ladies, you know, this is obviously you're not using this specific script on men, unless obviously something you really do not want to talk to this guy. This is just Mark's script for him gracefully letting men down, even though they are trying to move things forward. Um, but I think it's, I think it's a really nice, it's a great teaching moment too, that not all, not all connections have to continue on.

If you're really feeling after a few text messages back and forth that your gut is saying, Ooh, I don't even know if I want to get on a call with him. It's really not feeling it. You could use a variation of the script to let him down easy.

You know, I think sometimes women get stuck in this obligation of like, well, I guess I should just keep the conversation going. I guess I should keep out with him. I don't want to be rude and I don't want to ghost him.

Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
I think it's something I talk to clients about a lot, which I'm sure you do as well, which is where do you give it more chances? As in, where do you give another chance? Where do you stay a little bit more open?

Where do you kind of give the benefit of the doubt, but perhaps a second or a third day versus where do you cut it off sooner? Where do you listen to your gut a week? I think a simple thing to keep in mind is in terms of our brains, when we have in the past, or sorry, when we have met a new person and been introduced to a person in a face-to-face context, we tend to be more open with them than if we haven't met someone yet.

So I do find clients, I don't know if you find this too, but I do find clients get just a little bit more picky. And we all do this when we haven't actually connected with someone on the screen, when we haven't met or had a face-to-face interaction, our brains go into overdrive trying to figure them out and stranger often means danger to our evolutionary brain. So you are up against it a little bit in terms of you're more likely to be picky if you haven't talked to the person yet.

At the same time, there's a time and a place to do that. So I do think there's a context to every situation, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on that.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Well, I think I'm really excited to talk about next week's episode too, about what to do when you are actually in those conversations, next phases of talking. But I think in this initial stage, one thing I always interact or I always encourage with my ladies is that every person that you're dating is an opportunity to get to know yourself more in the process.

And what if we just switched the script and stopped putting the focus on, is he the one for me? Is he going to fit my criteria? And instead looked at it as, what do I get to learn from this experience?

What do I get to learn about me from this interaction? What do I get to help this person learn about themselves in this interaction? And I think when we take it from that perspective, it takes one, a lot of the pressure off and two, it keeps us back in that human element of who we really are as that genuine soul and not in our head thinking and stressing about how we need to act.

[Speaker 1]
I love that. And I'd love to hear if you have an example, what is something that a client has said to you that they really took away from an interaction with a non-boyfriend guy? What's something they either learned about themselves or got for themselves just by having that attitude?

[Speaker 2]
I don't have one coming on top of my head from a client, but I do know for my own self, because I was on the online dating apps for a long time. Um, and I was very much in the place in the early days of, you know, who is, who's, who's the guy, where am I going to get, where is this going? Blah, blah, blah.

And something switched in me. And I just remember there was this really sweet, sweet guy. Oh my God.

And that's so many sweet, genuine guys that I just wasn't into with the chemistry and the physical aspect, but we connected so much on an emotional aspect and on intellectual aspect. And it just, it really, for me, it took my takeaway from that was, wow, there are so many genuine quality men out here and maybe I'm not physically attracted to them, but I feel so much more comfortable being in the presence of men. Because up until that point, I wasn't comfortable just hanging out with guys, being around guys.

I would get so nervous and so anxious. And I just started to get really comfortable in my own skin around men and feel like, oh yeah, I can actually have guy friends. This is cool.

Guys are cool. They have different perspectives than women do.

[Speaker 1]
And I think that's a great point to finish on, guys, if you can have positive reference experiences, especially if you're coming in and maybe there's been some negative experiences with men in your past, or you've been hurt in the past. If you can bring that curiosity, what can I learn about myself from this? What can I learn about another human being?

I went on a date once and all she talked about was coriander the whole date. She just had a massive passion for coriander. And it's still one of the most memorable dates I ever had.

It didn't lead to a second date, but it was a great day out. And so if you can look at it, hey, what can I take away from this? Can I have some phone calls with some really decent humans?

And that alone, if you haven't been having decent humans, or in this case, decent men in your life a lot, that is a really, really positive reference experience. Because women sometimes ask me, well, if he's not going to be the one, kind of like what use is he? And I find that that's a very objectifying way to look at people.

And especially if you haven't had good experiences in the past, as Teal says, starting to have more and more positive reference experiences feeds into the belief. And it kind of forces the belief in a sense that, oh, there's good men out there. They're around.

I find a lot of them. They like me. This is my reality.

And from there, it flows into the person that you are destined to be with. But it's very rare that you sort of sniper at the first one you get. While I have seen it happen, it is not the norm and it's not the predictable system that's actually going to lead you to a great guy.

The predictable system here is what Teal's talking about, which is, hey, put yourself out there, find those positive reference experiences, just meeting people, have a great time, smile, learn something. And then from there, hey, suddenly I'm enjoying dating and I'm so much more attractive and vibrant because of it.

[Speaker 2]
Yes. Hallelujah. Amen.

Absolutely.

[Speaker 1]
Teal, thank you for joining me today. It has been a pleasure chatting with you as always.

[Speaker 2]
This is going to be a fun journey to go on. I'm looking forward to it.

[Speaker 1]
Guys, thanks for joining us on the Tinder Project on the second episode today. If you enjoyed the podcast, give us a rating. Jump on Spotify, iTunes.

I'm probably not even up to date with where this is uploaded quite yet, but give us a review wherever you're listening to it. We really appreciate it. If you feel we've earned that yet, we'd love to receive that from you.

And next week, we're going to be talking about what happened in my warmup in my first 30 days on Tinder and how can you be open and safe at the same time while being online. Teal, thank you for joining me.

[Speaker 2]
Until next time. Bye, baby.

[Speaker 1]
Guys, we will see you next week on the Tinder Project.