The Sex Expert Breaks Down Modern Dating

What this episode is about

The discussion explores the impact of the pandemic on modern dating dynamics, highlighting a study that found one in four singles living with non-romantic roommates began sexual relationships during lockdowns due to factors like boredom and companionship. It also touches on the broader themes of attraction and relationship satisfaction, drawing parallels between forced proximity and arrangements like arranged marriages.

Key takeaways

• Pandemic boredom turned roommates into romantic partners—sometimes safety and companionship create unexpected sparks.
• Cognitive overload in dating apps leads us to brush aside perfectly decent matches for trivial reasons.
• Want love? Forget the 300,000 options; we’re wired for smaller pools and deeper connections.
• Arranged marriages defy the myth: families often allow choice, blending tradition with personal agency.
• In the dating jungle of endless profiles, our brains evolved for selectivity are now stuck in analysis paralysis.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dax Shepard (Host) · 4 min speaking
• Dr. Helen Fisher (Guest) · 6 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 3:00: arranged marriage, internet, Match, dating apps
2. 3:00 – 6:00: dating apps, Paradox of Choice, cognitive overload, foraging
3. 6:00 – 9:00: relationship science, Self-actualization, Singles in America, Singles in America
4. 9:00 – 10:10: Singles in America, Singles in America, United States (states)

Notable quotes from "The Sex Expert Breaks Down Modern Dating"

• Being in your face on the pandemic piece, just one more piece on that. What we found we do a big study called Singles in America with Match every year. And what we found in…

  about Match · at 0:22

• Arranged marriage. I think that kind of gives us some insights on that there has been some work that couples in arranged marriage long term can have just as high relationship…

  about arranged marriage · at 1:28

• Right. And now we have this like decision fatigue and anxiety and there's too many options and then you add the internet into that. Now I can see every girl from every town at all times.

  about internet · at 2:31

• And one of the challenges we know is sometimes some psychologists call it cognitive overload, some call it paradox of choice. There's different ways that researchers have talked about it, but the challenge is you go on the app and.

  about Paradox of Choice · at 3:47

• Can't turn the lever to say we're we have to start we have to start making some decisions. And we know this from studies on foraging, how animals look for food in a food patch.…

  about foraging · at 4:43

• I think we really have to do things and say, I'm going to start a conversation today. I'm going to swipe x number of people.

  about dating apps · at 5:44

• And we forget the golden rule of relationship science. The grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side.

  about relationship science · at 7:15

• We're just starting to collect some new data. it's not in the book. It's some new data that we're collecting on this idea of kind of se self-actualization.

  about Self-actualization · at 8:14

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Leonardo DiCaprio — Person · Referenced example (illustrative analogy) · 1 mention · first at 5:14
  Referenced as an extreme example of someone with "unlimited options," illustrating how abundance can prevent commitment and decision-making.
  Yeah. And not being mean resources in ter I mean he has resources himself but unlimited options.

Books & papers

• Singles in America — Book · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at 0:25
  Mentioned as a source of data and insights on singles' behaviors.
  Being in your face on the pandemic piece, just one more piece on that. What we found we do a big study called Singles in America with Match every year. And what we found in…

Companies & orgs

• Match — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at 0:25
  Partner in conducting the Singles in America study, mentioned as a key player in dating industry.
• Singles in America — Company · Referenced work · 3 mentions · first at 0:25
  Mentioned as a source of data and insights on singles' behaviors.
  Being in your face on the pandemic piece, just one more piece on that. What we found we do a big study called Singles in America with Match every year. And what we found in…

Products & tech

• dating apps — Product · Core mechanism / case study · 3 mentions · first at 2:50
  Used as the main example of how modern mate choice creates cognitive overload, decision fatigue, and "paradox of choice" dynamics that affect relationship satisfaction.
• internet — Product · Enabling infrastructure / driver of scale · 2 mentions · first at 2:35
  Framed as the technology that expands the perceived dating pool to an effectively unlimited set of options, intensifying anxiety and decision fatigue.

Concepts & topics

• arranged marriage — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at 1:26
  Discussed as a counterpoint to modern dating challenges, highlighting long-term satisfaction in arranged marriages.
• relationship science — Concept · Framework · 2 mentions · first at 7:15
  Introduced as a field of study to understand modern dating behaviors and satisfaction.
• Paradox of Choice — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 3:50
  Discussed as a psychological challenge in modern dating due to overwhelming options.
• Self-actualization — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at 8:18
  Discussed as a modern focus that may hinder relationship formation.
• Decision Fatigue — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 2:31
  Discussed as a psychological challenge in modern dating due to overwhelming options.
  Right. And now we have this like decision fatigue and anxiety and there's too many options and then you add the internet into that. Now I can see every girl from every town at all times.
• cognitive overload — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at 3:48
  Discussed as a psychological challenge in modern dating due to overwhelming options.
  Of choice. There's different ways that researchers have talked about it, but the challenge is you go on the app and you start swiping and looking for partners and there's so…
• foraging — Concept · Framework · 1 mention · first at 4:48
  Used as an analogy to explain decision-making in dating.

Places & events

• United States (states) — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at 9:43
  Mentioned as the location where the Singles in America study is conducted.
  More people are waiting and waiting. So, we're delaying relationships. We have over 100 million singles in the United States today. So, we've got over a third of the adult population. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people are very.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 So when you're out in the real world, you're a observing your single buddy who just had a wild night and he's telling you about it. All these things that you get pulled off of the table, I think helps you focus on, you know, why you give up all that stuff.

0:15 Yeah. Is you're not it's not even in your face as much. Yeah. Yeah. And like what's going on in the world? Well, and thinking speaking of being in your face on the pandemic piece, just one more piece on that. What we found we do a big study called Singles in America with Match every year. And what we found in that is survey of 5,000 singles. One in four who had um non-romantic roommates started a sexual relationship with them during the pandemic.

0:38 One in a pretty high number, right? A border of people where And it's boredom. It's safety. It's

0:43 companionship. Yeah. Companionship. You're out of options. Yeah. At least you're in your little pod. Um but it also was a moment that I think for a lot of people, we were looking around and seeing things we didn't see before. And it could be that you're trapped in the house and you have this roommate and say, "I really enjoy living with you."

0:59 Yeah. And there's all these things I like about I've never thought of you as a romantic or a sexual partner, but

1:05 now that we're trapped here, it's kind of the answer to, you know, we used to debate about this. If you're on an island,

1:12 I was thinking the exact same thing. If you're on an island and there's one other person there, Dax is always saying like you will fall in love with them. Like that's it doesn't matter who they are, you'll fall in love with them. I didn't I'm like no I don't think necessarily but maybe

1:26 we could turn to some of the work on arranged marriage. I think that kind of gives us some insights on that that there has been some work that couples in arranged marriage long term can have just as high relationship satisfaction and sexual satisfaction

1:39 even if you're kind of the only two on the island or the only two that your families decide you can marry.

1:44 Now the big myth about arranged marriage in the anthropological literature is most people can reject it. So there is this sort of sense that I mean I think that's why some of the reality shows of arranged marriages the challenge

1:56 is in the real world people could say hey mom and dad I don't I'm not marrying that guy.

2:01 Yes. And typically families do they want to do what's best for you and there's some flexibility there.

2:06 Yeah. My parents have a like half arranged marriage in that same way where it was like two family members saying hey I have this brother. Oh I have this daughter. Let's get them together.

2:20 We'd like to see this happen, but Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. We'd love to see it happen, but it's I think it's more that than what people think.

2:26 Exactly. Yeah. 300,000 years ago, there was 100 other people to choose from. Yeah.

2:31 Right. And now we have this like decision fatigue and anxiety and there's too many options and then you add the internet into that. Now I can see every girl from every town at all times.

2:41 How do I know it's the best? There's been a lot of studies trying to understand how people are making sense of all this data in our dating lives. So more people meet on dating apps and websites than through any other venue. So if we ask Americans, we've asked them for the last 15 years in an annual survey um where did you meet your most recent first date? And the internet and apps is the most common way more than church and school and family and friends and a bar. I think last time I looked it was four or six% met in a bar whereas you know over

3:10 30% are meeting from apps and websites. So there there's still fundamentally how people are are connecting today. There's all the but you go on at exactly like Dax is saying you go on and there's so many options and what happens is the human brain didn't evolve our mating mechanisms didn't evolve in that context to have that much data and there's different kinds of data. So our ancestors not only would they have a smaller pool to choose from you knew family networks.

3:36 You had reputational Yeah. Yeah. like the true social network, the ancestral social network, and you had all this other information. So, we're dealing with different information in today's environment.

3:47 And one of the challenges we know is sometimes some psychologists call it cognitive overload, some call it paradox of choice. There's different ways that researchers have talked about it, but the challenge is you go on the app and you start swiping and looking for partners and there's so many. And what happens is even if you start a chat with someone, you're kind of quick to move on to the next one because you say, "Well, I didn't like your, you know, use two exclamation points. Who does that?"

4:11 Yeah, it wasn't perfect right out of the So, we're we're sort of discounting perfectly reasonable partners because we have a sense of an unlimited resource. And then we're playing these sort of psychological games of saying like, "Oh, he has a picture of the puppy. I'll like him. It's caretaking." We found in one of our studies that people are looking at teeth as a way to assess your health

4:30 um and wellbeing because they're kind of picking little things from photos so that you know or hair shine and hair I'm sure.

4:36 So we're trying to pick information but when we think we have so many options and particularly it's this idea when we think it's unlimited the brain just can't turn the lever to say we're we have to start um we have to start making some decisions. And we know this from studies on foraging, how animals look for food in a food patch. And if they have a sense that the patch is ending, that they could see the end of the, you know, the bush of where there's fruit. And then they might early on just look for the best thing, but then they start making some decisions. They realize it's running out. When you have a real sense of an unlimited resource when the brain can't say, "We're running out." You never switch to start to this making decision mode.

5:14 This is Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah. He's got unlimited resources. It's not his fault.

5:21 Yeah. And not being mean resources in ter I mean he has resources himself but unlimited options options.

5:26 Yeah. Virtually every option. Yeah. Yeah. Three and a half billion. So we struggle. So the challenge for so many of us is like we have to grab the brain and and just say okay I'm going to make a choice. So we have to do things if we want to have more fun and more satisfaction with how we use these apps. I think we really have to do things and say, "I'm going to start a conversation today. I'm going to swipe x number of people."

5:49 You need a game plan. If you think it's just going to present itself to you, it's not.

5:52 Yeah. Because the apps are really um introducing sites. They're not necessarily going to say, "Here's your person who you're going to have a wonderful relationship with." There's too much dynamic that happens in the real world. And there's timeliness. It could introduce you to someone and say, "Well, you're great, but you're about to move to Paris for three years. I don't know if this is going to work." That's the real world for people. There's all these these timeliness factors. There's geography. There's family. There's careers.

6:14 So all of that stuff happens that the apps can't pick up, but they can introduce you to, they can connect with people that you maybe can have a relationship with.

6:22 Yeah. But then you have to kind of make this decision. One of my favorite studies gave people it was um an experimental design looking at um app app dating, online dating and they gave people profiles and the one group saw a smaller number than the other. I think the larger group saw 24 profiles and then the other group I think saw six. And when they followed up with the participants in this experimental study, the people who saw fewer profiles were happier.

6:49 Those that had more were in this was the grass greener on the other side idea. This idea that well there there was someone else I thought was attractive and maybe I should have talked to some of those others. That's just in an experimental design where you have all things considered a relatively small number of more options.

7:08 But we get stuck in this idea that Maybe there's someone else out there that I should have interacted.

7:14 Interesting. And we forget the golden rule of relationship science. The grass isn't necessarily greener on the other side. The grass is greener where you water it.

7:21 And that's the rule for relationship. What a beautiful sentence. And for a date, invest in that date. If you go on a date with someone, don't think about the hundred other options you have on your app. Get to know the person. Have a conversation. Ask about their childhood, about their lives, about their experiences. Invest in human connection. Um, it's why one of the things we've been looking at in some of our studies are second dates and how important they are. I'm a huge advocate of second. Everyone's nervous on a first date. Go on a second date, you know, unless your foot really says, "Uh-uh, go." I mean, really try to invest. Water the grass.

7:53 Yeah. I was just going to say, I think of the knee-jerk reaction to that scenario is that it's like there's some greed driving it, but I I would imagine there's just as much of this like loss bias we have.

8:04 Yeah. I don't know. It's like I deserve this great thing. It's like what if I picked something that was less like it's it's this weird loss bias thing.

8:14 We're just starting to collect some new data. Um it's not in the book. It's some new data that we're collecting on this idea of kind of se self-actualization. And one of the things I think we're seeing uh exactly is is is tied to this. More and more people are saying I need to be perfect to enter a relation. I need to bring this perfect self to the relationship. You have to be perfect in the relationship. I'm going to be perfect. You're going to be perfect. The relationship's going to be perfect. So, we focus so much on working on ourselves. And as a biologist, now all my all the therapists out there are going to say, "Yes, it's important." Not all of them, but I actually think we're working too much on ourselves. And this we're focusing so much on this idea. No, sometimes there's real issues. Sometimes people are dealing with depression, addictions exhaustion.

8:58 They should clean those up. Yeah. Clean those up. Yeah. But this idea that we need to work through all of our traumas or our our our wants and our needs before we engage in relationships.

9:09 Yeah. We got to come in perfect. Yeah. That you have to enter a relationship perfect. The relationship should be the vessel with which we make mistakes which we explore the world. We try new things with someone else with the safety and comfort and partnership of another person. This idea that you have to enter a relationship and say I know fully who I am. I want you to know fully who you are. How boring.

9:29 Yeah. Yeah, I was just going to say how boring. And where are you guys going together? Nowhere. There's nothing to be improved upon. I can't learn anything from you cuz I'm perfect and you're perfect. You're not going to learn anything from me.

9:38 Yeah. And the more we wait, so more and more people are waiting and waiting and waiting. So, we're delaying relationships. We have over 100 million singles in the United States today. So, we've got over a third of the adult population. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Some people are very

9:50 happy% in the book, you say. Yeah. Yeah. So, we have a a lot of people who are happy single and enjoying singlehood, but so many that we study and hear from are struggling with sort of moving in and out of relationships. Well, if you're waiting for everything to be perfect, that's a losing game. It's not gonna happen.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "The Sex Expert Breaks Down Modern Dating"?

Dax Shepard (Host), Dr. Helen Fisher (Guest).

What is "The Sex Expert Breaks Down Modern Dating" about?

The discussion explores the impact of the pandemic on modern dating dynamics, highlighting a study that found one in four singles living with non-romantic roommates began sexual relationships during lockdowns due to factors like boredom and companionship. It also touches on the broader themes of attraction and relationship satisfaction, drawing parallels between forced proximity and arrangements…

What is mentioned in this Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard episode?

14 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including dating apps, arranged marriage, Match, internet, relationship science, Paradox of Choice. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Sex Expert Breaks Down Modern Dating"?

The episode runs 10 min; the transcript is about 2,260 words in 42 timestamped sections.

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