#21 Bumble's 2025 Dating Trends - A Delightful Train-Wreck!

In this conversation, Mark Rosenfeld and Teal Elisabeth explore a surprising bumble conversation Mark had which should be a reminder some of the "bad" behaviours you see online are not what they might seem on the surface. The conversation then delves into the significance of emotional intelligence and vulnerability in relationships, alongside a review of Bumble's 2025 emerging dating trends. Mark and Elisabeth explore the evolving landscape of these dating trends, focusing on the impact of future uncertainties on relationship choices, the influence of male archetypes, the significance of micro communities in fostering intimacy, and the shift towards smaller gestures of affection in modern dating. They discuss the importance of emotional stability in partners, the need for men to redefine masculinity, and the balance between fun and serious conversations in early dating stages. The dialogue emphasizes the necessity of genuine connection while navigating the complexities of contemporary relationships.

Takeaways

Compassion is essential in understanding online dating dynamics.
Ghosting often has underlying reasons unrelated to personal rejection.
Empathy can transform our perceptions of others' actions.
Communication should be open and filled with feeling words.
Vulnerability in text communication is challenging but important.
Dating trends reflect societal shifts in relationship dynamics.
Men's perspectives can provide valuable insights for women in dating.
Authenticity in dating experiences can foster connection and understanding.
It's crucial to avoid making assumptions about others' behaviors.
The importance of emotional intelligence in navigating relationships. Uncertainty about the future is influencing dating choices.
Emotional stability is increasingly valued in partners.
Conversations about finances and goals are becoming more common in dating.
Stereotypes about masculinity can create false assumptions.
Geeking out on shared interests fosters intimacy.
Smaller gestures of affection are replacing grand romantic gestures.
The rise of micro communities is changing how people connect.
It's important to balance fun and serious discussions in dating.
Memes and playlists are not substitutes for meaningful gestures.
Societal norms around self-expression and appearance are evolving.

Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:30 Parenting Update!
2:26 A Sobering Conversation That Is Cause For Compassion
10:38 Bumbles TOP 6 2025 Dating Trends!
11:36 1. Date With Me - Sharing Your Dating High's & Lows
14:33 2. The Rise Of The Guy Best Friend
16:07 3. Future Proofing - Early Difficult Conversations
22:00 4. Male Casting - Stereotyping Men
24:39 5. On The Same

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:30 Parenting Update!
• 2:26 A Sobering Conversation That Is Cause For Compassion
• 10:38 Bumbles TOP 6 2025 Dating Trends!
• 11:36 1. Date With Me - Sharing Your Dating High's & Lows
• 14:33 2. The Rise Of The Guy Best Friend
• 16:07 3. Future Proofing - Early Difficult Conversations
• 22:00 4. Male Casting - Stereotyping Men
• 24:39 5. On The Same 'Fan' Page
• 28:40 6. Micromance - Small Gesture Love Languages
• 33:13 Give Us A 5* Rating!

Transcript

[Speaker 1]
Reviewing Bumble's 2025 dating trends. What to expect next year. We'll see you right after this.

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.

[Speaker 2]
Teal! Hi, Mark.

[Speaker 1]
You're fine, matey. How are you?

[Speaker 2]
Doing good. Doing good. How are you doing this week?

[Speaker 1]
I love your hair tonight. You're looking, I know you said it's the earrings off camera, but I do think it's the hair.

[Speaker 2]
Well, thank you. Just for you, Mark. Just for you.

[Speaker 1]
I don't think it is just for me. I suspect you've been looking good all day, but you know what? I'll take the compliment.

I'll take it as just for me. Great to have you here, Teal.

[Speaker 2]
Same, same. Did you have a good Thanksgiving?

[Speaker 1]
I had a great Thanksgiving. Yes, I was with Sam's family there. It was Lainey's first Thanksgiving.

Some very cute moments there. She's getting very responsive and giggly and to the point now where she smiles back at you when she kind of sees you, which is just heart melting because she's so, oh, you know, it's so cool when she becomes responsive and I'm really excited for her to, you know, talk and hopefully say dadada before mama and all that good stuff. But yeah, just kind of seeing the different responses that she has.

And actually it was cool because we bought her a sippy cup. Sam actually bought her a sippy cup because we couldn't find one that was getting her enough water. And obviously they don't drink a lot of water as it is, breast milk and their food and stuff, but she wasn't getting enough water.

So Sam bought all these sippy cups and we found one and I was looking at the sippy cup and I thought to myself, that thing is engineered bloody brilliantly. Like they've managed to make it such a bad thing to talk about, but they've managed to make it so the child never sucks up air first of all, which is quite an achievement unto itself. And then they've also made it so that the straw somehow never kinks so that when the child sucks, that the water is always coming through.

So I was like, this has got some engineering in it, this thing. And she is now drinking her water and she learned to use the straw as in to suck through the straw almost immediately. Wow.

Proud moment. Proud demo is very cute. We do getting into our topic today, I have a cause for compassion on Bumble for the week Teal.

And I just wanted to share this little thing with you because I thought it was cool. You know, a big part of this podcast is, hey, let's bring men and women back together. Let's kind of hold that compassion for each other and each other's stories.

And I just thought this was a really interesting little interaction that I just thought I had it. And I said, I want to show Teal this, I want to show the listeners this. So guys, I'm going to bring up a window now.

Now for those listening, I'll describe what's going on. We had a conversation with Joe this week. And Teal, do you want to just confirm you can see my screen?

Yep. Okay, beautiful. So it's Bumble.

So we started the conversation and we simply said, hiya Joe. I can explain more about why we use that opener on another episode. For now, we'll just accept it.

He said, hey there, Samantha. Okay. That was his only response.

This can be a point where a lot of women might get frustrated or a little bit, you know, do a little bit more, but we just followed the rule of better energy, equal effort. So our kind of second message in the chat, our first response was, hi Joe, which is totally off putting to Teal because she hates these word extensions, but we went with it anyway. How do you feel reading this Teal?

[Speaker 2]
Oh, I'm cringing. I'm cringing.

[Speaker 1]
Are you okay?

[Speaker 2]
I would un-not you be like, what an obnoxious dude.

[Speaker 1]
Teal's cringing, but it's okay. Cause we're having fun along the way. And then Joe responded with good morning, um, with a sun emoji and any good plans for today.

So at this point, we're two exchanges in, we've got hiya Joe. Hey there, Samantha. Hi Joe, with a laughing emoji.

Uh, I, you know, having fun at this point, he says, good morning, any plans for today? Boom. We got the first question.

Questions are really important. The ultimate question is, will you marry me? Will you go on a date with me?

Can I get your number? Questions are how a man shows his investment into you. So we've got the very first question here.

Any good plans for today? I don't mind this question. It is, it's basic, but it's open and open questions can be an absolute sort of fertile ground for shining because we can, we can give them such beautiful answers that will make us stand out from the competition.

So we answered his question. We are back using the emojis. I'm trying to respect Teal here and not use too many, but we, uh, we used a few and we did use some feeling words as well.

Teal, we put grateful in there. We put loved seeing it. Uh, we are being a single mom this month as a reminder guys.

So we talked actually in this first text about being with our daughter. It felt so enlivening, felt grateful, so much fun. Look at that Teal, there's like four or five feeling words still in that text.

You're noting this?

[Speaker 2]
I'm, this is basic. Okay. Continue.

[Speaker 1]
Basic, basic, stop it. Okay. Um, anyway, we answered the question and then fired one back at the end.

So pretty standard so far for the, for those listening, you don't need to know the exact contents. You can watch the video if you're really curious. Um, he said, sounds like a fantastic day, kind of responded, answered about his weekend and also asked a second question.

How was your day? So we're getting into some back and forth. This is, um, pretty good at this stage.

I would call this like an eight out of 10. I would have liked to see him respond a little bit more. That would make it a 10, but I'll give him an eight.

He responded and he asked a question. So, okay. So far, so good.

We answered his second question in a similar fashion and then kind of reflected that second question back. So he asked, how was your day? We asked, we answered his question and asked him, how was your day?

So at this point, it's all very standard. Two questions back and forth. The guy's taking the lead.

I'm pretty happy with it. He's pretty responsive. The next exchange was interesting, uh, because he asked what kind of work you do.

Question number three, that's enough. We can transition this now. Particularly that work question can be a little bit of a boring question and can kind of kill the vibe in conversation.

So I'd rather move it to a phone call. So that's what we did. We responded to a little thing he said about the meatloaf.

And then we basically said, uh, we kind of gave a high level answer. Like what I do is a bit complex to explain, especially over text. I'm very grateful for it.

Would you be open to giving me a call? Uh, if so, I can leave you my number. So that's what, that's what we said to him.

Um, and he responded pretty well to that. Um, yeah, he responded pretty well to that. He said, look, it was the meatloaf was yummy.

The weather's kind of crappy app. If you want to text me so I can have your number, here's my number as well. Um, how has your day going so far?

Okay. And then we texted him back and basically answered the question. We sent a bit of a longer text here.

And we basically, I couldn't figure out how to text him. I had a bit of a technical issue. So I said, my phone is being weird.

Um, can you text me? Basically, number exchange is done here. If we look at the dates, you will see Teal, but nothing happened after this.

So it's November 22nd was when we finished the number exchange and then November 25th. Now I was actually about to let this conversation go, but I thought, you know, I'm just going to try something here. I'm going to throw kind of an interesting text at him just as a bit of a follow-up because it things, things, he had not texted us.

Things had not progressed after the number exchange had happened. So we hit, we hit a roadblock and I wasn't sure why, cause the conversation felt pretty good to me. Um, so we sent him the following text.

We said, Hey, Joe, hope you had a great weekend. Just wanted to check in. If you were still looking to call me, I was feeling excited for it, but totally all good.

If not, just let me know. And I can close that loop in my brain. What do you think of that text Teal?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I think that's a great text. I'm interested to talk a little bit about the other texts later, but I'm curious to hear about those.

[Speaker 1]
I feel like I've done something offensive to Teal. I want to have a word to you about those other texts Mark. Um, but this was an interesting one cause I wouldn't usually do this, but I thought, you know, we're doing experiments here.

I'm going to send this kind of a, this text, a bit of a follow-up here to, to check in. Um, and yeah, just kind of see if he's, if he's interested at all. So three days was the gap.

Um, and he sent something back and I thought this was nice and just to kind of a cause for compassion. My assumption was he's ghosting kind of online guy, never going to hear from him again. His response Teal was the following.

He said, Hey, I'm so sorry. It was not a good weekend for me at all. Someone close to me passed away and then my truck was broken into on Saturday night.

I'll text you tonight sometime. And I just wanted to kind of show you that because so often we assume that, okay, this person is ghosting cause they just don't like me. Men are lazy.

Um, people are arrogant. People put in no effort. The dude lost someone close to him.

And then literally his truck got broken into. I'm assuming he's telling the truth. There's there'll be someone out there who says, well, I could be like, let's, let's not go down that path.

Assuming all that is true. And I empathize with him as a followup. I said, Oh my God, I'm so sorry that happened.

Like that really sucks. Hope it's all okay. I think it's just a good example of it's never, you never know.

You just don't know what's going on with people. And sometimes people leave a three day gap and you're like hitting the table. You know, I got ghosted, totally not the case at all.

And how often does that happen where the person doesn't come back and tell them this time we got the information. Oh wow. It was nothing to do with me.

This is what happened. But I think a lot more often it happens without getting that information. And so I just wanted to use today to you as a little bit of a reminder of you never know what's going on with people.

You just don't and don't, don't make it about you. Don't let it throw you off. Anything could have happened to him, potentially something quite bad.

So just kind of assume the best. It's a little bit like they say, if someone drives past you always just assume there's a pregnant woman in the back of the car, you know, it's kind of like you get to choose what you think. So I think Joe's a good example of a lot of times shit does happen to people and it's not about you.

So don't feel bad about it.

[Speaker 2]
I love that takeaway. I think that's a fabulous reminder to all of us to give everyone a little bit more grace and compassion, especially around the holiday time when things can get stressful and people can be on edge and everything feels so urgent. It's like, let's just take some big deep breaths and just relax.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. I mean, losing, he's obviously not an old person. He's in his thirties.

So losing someone close to you is horrible.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. It happens to people who are online dating sometimes. Shall we talk about Bumble dating trends, Teal?

[Speaker 2]
Yes. I want to hear, I want to hear.

[Speaker 1]
I'm excited to show you these. I have to admit, I haven't really read them myself yet. I kind of want to get a live reaction from you.

So I thought actually, do you know what would be fun to do? We could let, let's have Teal rate them. Teal, you can rate the trends and you can rate them as brilliant, possible, or no, let's do reasonable.

Brilliant, reasonable, or what's a negative? What's a fun negative word?

[Speaker 2]
Downright shitty.

[Speaker 1]
Brilliant, reasonable. I'm going to write that down because I'm going to forget that. Brilliant, reasonable, or downright shitty.

All right, here we go.

[Speaker 2]
Let's do this.

[Speaker 1]
I've got six. Do you want me to just read them out or is it, share them on the screen? Should I share them on screen?

[Speaker 2]
Share them on the screen, that'll help me.

[Speaker 1]
You want me to share them on the screen? All right. You're challenging my technological.

Share them on the screen. Let's go. Trend number one.

There's six of these. So let's see what you think. Trend number one, DWM, date with me.

These are Bumble's 25, 2025 dating trends, guys.

[Speaker 2]
So what are the dating trends? Just so we can clarify for the audience here.

[Speaker 1]
I have absolutely no idea. It's something Bumble made up as a yearly marketing article that people find interesting. But I'm assuming they're measuring some stats as they do it.

[Speaker 2]
Okay. Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Got it. So that's all we know. Here's trend number one.

DWM, date with me. From dating GRWMs to post-date debriefs, dating has become our new favorite reality show. Two in five, as in 41% of singles are celebrating more authentic dating content that shares the highs and the lows.

[Speaker 2]
I'm not following this.

[Speaker 1]
I'm not 100% sure what that means. I have the long PDF version, which is probably a blessing and a curse here. Let me see if I can find the DMW one.

I've got the, they have a whole PDF on this too. It's a whole, it's a whole thing. DMW, where is DMW in the PDF?

Okay. 2024 trends.

[Speaker 2]
I've got an orange one.

[Speaker 1]
Oh, there it is. Okay. What does this mean?

So this shift towards more transparent shared dating experiences is having a positive impact with 42% of women feeling less self-conscious and lonely. Seeing others openly discuss these experiences is inspiring healthier relationship goals, helping people spot potential red flags and have big conversations earlier. In fact, one in three singles states that realistic positive dating content leads to optimism about their own lives.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay. So I, I think what they're saying is these types of dating shows, Love is Blind and these other things are normalizing the experiences that people are going out having and it's helping it feel more relatable to them so they can feel better about their own life and dating experiences. Is that right?

Is that what you mean?

[Speaker 1]
I'm going to take your word on it there. I got more confused the more I went with that one. Does that sound, does what you said sound brilliant?

Reasonable or what was it? DS?

[Speaker 2]
Downright shitty.

[Speaker 1]
Downright shitty. How does it translate to you?

[Speaker 2]
I'm going to go with reasonable. Yes.

[Speaker 1]
That's a reasonable trend.

[Speaker 2]
I could see that. You know, if you're out there and you're going in the trenches and feeling like you're having a hard time out there dating, I think it could help. I mean, a lot of these shows are reality shows, but to feel like you're not doing this alone and other people are going through this.

And then when people do find their person, then yeah, it's inspiring and saying, okay.

[Speaker 1]
So it's kind of speaking to dating struggles.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. This is something I'm going through. All right.

That makes sense. So that one's reasonable. We'll give that a pass.

Give that a pass. Dating trend number two, guys that get it. There's an unstoppable new force in dating.

The rise of the guy best friend. Women are now looking to the men in their lives to filter their potential dates with over half of the women relying on their male mates to explain men's dating behavior. What do you think Teal?

Is this brilliant? Is this a reasonable or is this downright shitty?

[Speaker 2]
Oh boy. Oh boy.

[Speaker 1]
I'm really curious what you say on this one.

[Speaker 2]
Well, there's two parts cause I am a coach and so my coaching hat says that's downright shitty. We should not be going to our friends to get advice at all. You need to come to someone.

[Speaker 1]
That's so funny. I thought you were going to go with downright shitty because you would have said you've got to know in your own intuition. Your friends will be biased.

I thought you were going to go that direction. You have a different direction. All right.

So it's half downright shitty. What's the other half?

[Speaker 2]
And the other half, what I would say is reasonable because yeah, sometimes you just don't know what that other person may be coming from. Like you were saying, having that compassion and having a men's perspective can be really helpful. And I think that's why you probably do so well, right?

Women want to know from a man, what are you, what are you guys as a male species? How, what do I need to know from you directly? Um, and tell me how to make this work.

So I think there's some validity to it as well.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So it's half downright shitty, half reasonable.

[Speaker 2]
Yes.

[Speaker 1]
Sounds like a microwave dinner. Sorry between the two. All right.

Dating trend number three. Let's see what we got here. Future proofing is the third dating trend.

Uncertainty about the future is impacting who we are and date a majority of women, 59%. Uh, for the majority of women, this means placing more value on stability, a partner who is emotionally consistent, reliable, and has clear goals.

[Speaker 2]
Rather than what?

[Speaker 1]
Teal, I didn't, I didn't bloody study these trends myself. I'm just reporting them. All right.

More details needed. Hang on. I'll get you more details.

You need more details. All right. In today's world, uncertainty about the future, whether it's finances, jobs, security, housing, or climate change is playing into our love lives.

The overwhelming majority of singles, 95% say their worries about the future are impacting who they date looking ahead. Uh, that's why 59% of women are looking for a partner who has that consistency. We just spoke about looking ahead.

Singles can expect these conversations to be more top of mind from the get go. One in four women are pushing these topics to be discussed earlier than before, leading to candid conversations about budgeting, housing, climate change, and job ambitions.

[Speaker 2]
Sounds like an interview to me, which kind of, yeah, I would say this goes in the reasonable category again, because these are absolutely important things. And yeah, you're looking for a life partner who's going to be, you know, there to share a lot of these values with you and, and be your companion for when shit hits the fan, so to speak, if it does. Um, so I think there's validity to that again, but at the same time, that's not what we necessarily want to lead with because that's not sexy.

It's not attractive necessarily. Unless this other person's also already in the, what do they call it? The preppers, unless they're already a doomsday prepper and you're both doomsday preppers.

I'm sorry. It's going to kill the mojo real quick. If you're like, okay, tell me your plans for global warming, the zombie apocalypse, all these like financial crises that are about to happen.

I need to know your whole portfolio. Like, no, no, we can't lead with that. You know, these are, these are conversations that are important to have, but later down the road.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. That's an interesting one.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. What are your thoughts?

[Speaker 1]
What are my thoughts?

[Speaker 2]
Future-proofing as part of the...

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Like anything can be taken too far, but I am encouraging my clients, um, a little more to bring a few of these questions forward. The attraction piece has to be the majority, but I think it's a little bit like a building.

It's kind of at 80, 20. When you see a building, the whole beautiful part is it's pretty, it's a skyscraper. It's got all the nice views and everything.

Three bedroom bathroom thing with a sky deck. But, but underneath is the foundation, which is full of dirt. No one goes down there, but it does hold the rest of it up.

So I think what you said is really important. We need to have the majority, especially early in dating, be like, let's have fun, positive experiences that actually connect us. But I do think sprinkling in that 20%, I've never heard the term future-proofing before.

It's an interesting term. Yeah. I mean, I do encourage my clients to front load some of these conversations, not to the point where we're sitting down for a first date interview with a client.

If the topic comes to money, maybe you know what your question is on that topic. So you kind of just get there naturally. Yeah.

I do encourage my clients to have these difficult conversations a bit more front loaded in the first, first few months, as opposed to waiting years to potentially have them. Yes. A hundred percent agreed.

A hundred percent agreed.

[Speaker 2]
Not on the first date, maybe.

[Speaker 1]
Not on the first date. Yeah. You can ask, you know, what someone's vision is on the first date.

That's probably as far as I'd push it. First date, you've got to enjoy yourself.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah. The first date, like we talked about, is for enjoying yourself. I think second, third, fourth dates, that's about learning their values and the way they see the world.

And I think that you're going to learn a lot about somebody based on just those things alone. And then you can kind of go into the more of the specific nitty gritties about zombie apocalypse and how they're going to handle it. Do you have any friends who are preppers?

Yes, I do. Do you really? And Spencer went down a prepping kind of fear spiral for a little while there, like last year.

And I was just not about it. I was like, okay, fine. We can go to Costco and stock up for two years worth of food.

And we did. And I was like, okay, it's always better to be safe than sorry. But I just, I couldn't give into the fear around it.

And I think there's, there's validity into being prepared, but I think preppers are, in my perspective, from what I understand in the limiting capacity is that there's a lot of fear that's driving that more than actually just being, you know, realistic.

[Speaker 1]
Did you buy the emergency food from Costco or did you buy the storable food?

[Speaker 2]
We bought storable food, canned everything. I've got canned asparagus, canned beans, protein powder, candles.

[Speaker 1]
I'm not going to lie to you. There was a phase there. I won't say the world event that was occurring at the time.

There was a phase there where I'm like, I'm buying some food. I'm getting some of this stuff for the girls. I don't even care.

[Speaker 2]
No, it's important.

[Speaker 1]
And they profited off of my fear in that moment. Yeah.

[Speaker 2]
I mean.

[Speaker 1]
I won't bet you.

[Speaker 2]
That's cool. All right.

[Speaker 1]
Your husband is a somewhat prepper.

[Speaker 2]
I've pulled him out of that fear though. And now we're in a place of making peace with whatever happened.

[Speaker 1]
I want to get him on the podcast and ask him about this actually. Does she really pull you out of the fear or are you secretly creating a cave downstairs that you haven't told her about so that when the you can be like, Hey babe, you know how you caught me wrong? Well, look at this beautiful structure.

All right. Let's go. We still got a few more trends to get to.

So the next one is something called male casting. This sounds a bit ominous, a little bit sexual even. I'm sure it's not that.

Here's what it is. Men in finance, the return of the hunk, the rise of rodent men. I don't know what rodent men are.

Male archetypes have exploded in pop culture. Oh, it's stereotyping. But are they helpful or a hindrance?

Much like the experience of women, one in four men say these tropes can create false assumptions about their character and intentions. Teal, does that make sense to you or would you like some more information?

[Speaker 2]
What was the three things I was voting on?

[Speaker 1]
Brilliant, reasonable, or downright shitty.

[Speaker 2]
Uh-huh. It's funny. I've been in the middle of all of these mostly.

Gosh, I'm going to have to go with reasonable again. Yeah, reasonable.

[Speaker 1]
We need at least downright shitty by the end of this.

[Speaker 2]
What do you think?

[Speaker 1]
I would say the last one actually, I think the future casting thing is brilliant if you know how to do it and if you don't make it feel like an interview. If I was going to give one brilliant, I would give it to the last one. What do I think of this one?

Let's see. Much like the experience of women, 27% of men believe these tropes can create false assumptions. As we head into 2025, over half of women agree that the conversation on masculinity needs to evolve to allow men to define what positive masculinity looks like individually.

That's a lot to take in. We're going to have discussions about that in the future. I think overall, yes, stereotypes are not very helpful.

I think that especially our brains online, actually this is very relevant to online meeting because our poor overwhelmed brain, you log on to an app. I mean, Sam has two and a half thousand matches right now and we just put her on single mumbo. You log on to an app and your brain is so overwhelmed from the options there that it immediately picks the most superficial things to judge things on.

So stereotypes are one of the top ways. I see clients jump on new clients and they're making all these reads from a single photo. I'm like, you don't know a lot of those things.

How confident are you when we really break it down? Oh, he's socially not confident or he's not a funny guy. They're like five out of 10 confident, three out of 10, seven out of 10.

So there's a lot of doubt. And when you meet someone in person and you actually start a conversation with them, there's so much more clarity than if you stereotype. So yeah, I think the trend of the trend, whatever is the opposite to that one we just said is a good thing that the non-stereotype of men.

And I do think men need to define what positive masculinity means to them because it has been demonized, I think a little bit in the past few years, which would be a good topic for another day.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, I agree. I agree with you a hundred percent on what you shared there.

[Speaker 1]
All right, we've got two more. So let's go. We got on the same fan page is the fifth dating trend.

So here it is, Tia. The rise of micro communities, book clubs and run clubs. I'm thinking CrossFit here is the one that comes to my mind, but many different clubs, fandom, hello, Taylor and Charlie, I don't know what that is, are changing how we date.

Half of Gen Z singles are agreeing that geeking out on something together is a form of intimacy. Is that brilliant, Tia? Is that reasonable?

Or is that downright shitty?

[Speaker 2]
I would say that's, uh, yeah, I would say that's brilliant. I don't want to use it.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, we got a brilliant.

[Speaker 2]
I don't want to say it's brilliant. It's not, it's not mind blowing. It's pretty basic and makes sense to me, but yeah, it's, it's very true.

I wouldn't say it's just reasonable. It's very true and it's brilliant because intimacy is about deepening into something on a heart-based level. And when we are really connected to something that inspires and connects our heart, it creates a level of deeper bond with somebody.

And that's something we want. We want to be able to share those bonds with somebody that we're wanting to build a connection with. So if you have something that's a mutual interest that you are both can geek out on, even if that's Taylor Swift, hopefully it's not Taylor Swift, but then that's going to give you that chance to build more intimacy.

So I would agree.

[Speaker 1]
Are you not a Taylor Swift fan, Tael? Is this going to polarize our audience if you answer this question?

[Speaker 2]
Um, I would say she's not downright shitty, but she's not brilliant. How about that? She's, she's reasonable.

Okay. No, she actually, she is brilliant. She's really stepped.

I actually have a lot of respect for Taylor. She's, she's moved through a lot of like criticism in the public eye and rose.

[Speaker 1]
I think, I mean, I don't follow her work. I don't listen to her songs, but I did see a few things from her concert.

[Speaker 2]
I was like, this is incredible. The woman she has become is very respectable. Her music.

I really, I don't really like as much anymore, but, um, she is, I, I very much value.

[Speaker 1]
Same, same happened on the TV. I was like, yeah, okay. I could do a, do a Taylor Swift song or two.

[Speaker 2]
But are you going to geek out on a fan club with her? Probably not.

[Speaker 1]
No, no, no. Um, but I do think the intimacy thing around this is, I would agree with you. I think that's brilliant.

I think it's a little obvious.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah.

[Speaker 1]
We've sort of geeked out on things similar, but I think this one is saying, well, there's more Facebook groups and internet groups. I will say with one caveat, I think it makes us a little bit less tolerant because we're always around people who geek out on similar things and we're not exposed. We're on all these internet groups with people who are like us and we're not exposed the way we used to be to people who aren't like us.

So I think the negative of this is it makes us less tolerant. And we sort of say, well, someone doesn't have the same exact thing as me. They're out.

[Speaker 2]
Right. Right. That is totally a consequence of it.

It kind of reminds me of the, what we're talking about on the last episode about the dating apps, just for bacon lovers and dog lovers like that.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. Imagine that you're only around bacon lovers. You're only around bacon lovers.

And then you go, well, you don't eat bacon. We can't bond. How can I bond to you?

Why are we even here if you're not going to eat bacon? By the way, Australian bacon, I'm just going to put this out there. I don't care if you hate me.

Australian bacon is so much better than American bacon. Really? So much better.

[Speaker 2]
You think Australian bacon is better than American bacon? A hundred percent.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah. A hundred percent.

[Speaker 2]
It's probably what they feed them. I'm guessing.

[Speaker 1]
It's a different cut of meat. Interesting. I only learned this recently.

Do you know what Taylor ham is? No. Okay.

Well, for any listeners, if you know what Taylor ham is, I'm 85% confident what you would call Taylor ham is Australian bacon. And what you call bacon is an abomination. I don't know what that is, but it's not something we ever eat in Australia.

Okay. Interesting. But Gordon Ramsay loves it, so I can't fully criticize it, but it's definitely not something I was accustomed to.

All right. We got the last trend. Let's get on with this.

Teal, enough talk about bacon lovers. We've got the final trend, which is micromance, which is move over grand gestures. The latest 2025 dating trend states the majority of singles, 86% agree that how we show love and affection now includes smaller behaviors like sending memes, a playlist, or sharing inside jokes.

Downright shitty. I couldn't see Teal's face there because it was on the screen and I was really curious what it looked like. There it is.

My thing was in front of me and Teal went silent. I went, I need to see her face right now. I just don't have access to it.

[Speaker 2]
Well, the face was...

[Speaker 1]
Really? It was a sad face. I don't see that face very often from you.

Why is it downright shitty?

[Speaker 2]
Well, I do think there is some definite value in sending a playlist or sharing an inside joke, but we're talking about grand gestures showing love and affection. I mean, yes, a playlist could be a gesture of love and affection, but a meme? I mean, we're putting memes and playlists at the same level now?