(playful orchestral music)
(techno music)
- I'm into female-bodied humans that are smarter than I am
but don't make me feel stupid.
People who like to run and jump and climb trees
and they get that reference.
I like people that are funny and that think that I'm funny.
That's unfortunately a really big part
of how I get along with somebody is if you laugh
at my stupid jokes.
- I think at this point in my life,
what I'm looking for out of a relationship
is something real and something with
a sense of team.
Dating is super fun but without that substance behind it,
without that like, sense of togetherness.
It is just dating, it's not a relationship to me.
And I'm ready for that solid relationship in my life.
(upbeat techno music)
(hands slap together)
(grunts)
Your name is Mike.
And this is your story.
You're 33 years old.
For work, you're a teacher.
And your cultural background
is just general white European nonsense.
- (claps) My name is Dan.
I am 31 years old.
I am a bartender.
And my ethnic heritage is
absolutely general European nonsense.
- Well, okay, one! - One!
- I feel great about that! (laughs)
- But a very visible one.
Your name is Dorothy.
And this is your story.
You're 28 years old.
You are a chef.
And your cultural or ethnic background is Eastern European.
- That's fascinating!
My name is Lena! (laughs)
I am 36 years old.
I work in the coffee industry, actually I make lattes.
And
I'm Italian.
- So nothin'.
- But Dorothy is a great name.
- You know, I saw plaid and I just went straight to Kansas.
- Oh yeah.
- Is the coffee industry thing why you perked up
when chef was said because it was close
but not close enough, do you cook?
- (laughs) I don't, I heat things up.
- Got it.
- And I pray to baby Trader Joe everyday.
(laughter)
But I wondered why you thought chef
because that's very specific.
- 'Cause you strike me as a creative.
And I just think it'd be interesting to meet a person
that focuses on food art.
- I do latte art. - Okay.
Yeah, you're one of the people that doodles like
a poke ball in my latte?
- Well, yes, sometimes it's just like,
"What does it mean to you?"
You know, it's more of a modern latte.
Still art. - As long as it's caffeinated,
I don't care if it looks nice.
- Yeah, death before decaf.
- (laughs) Can I write that down?
Can we keep that?
- My relationship history is a little bit rocky.
I got married when I was 21 and I got divorced
when I was
I don't know, 26, 27, and entered the dating world
kind of for the first time at that point.
And from there I've had a string of
you know, lots of online dates,
a few several month relationships,
and at this point, I'm pretty burned out.
- So I'm 31, which is an age.
I wanna meet a person that can be--
Well, first of all, autonomous adult!
Just a person that is their own thing,
that does their own stuff,
but still likes the idea of building a team.
So I'm talking in the long form,
so like you know, I'm looking for my life,
I'm looking for an actual partner.
I'm looking for a person that I can start
to plan a life with.
(quizzical techno music)
Your favorite emoji is this one?
(laughs)
I drew it, if anybody cares.
Never mind.
You are friends with your mom on Facebook
because you're not a sociopath.
For you the worst thing about social media
is the compulsive behavior
that it generates in other people?
- Interesting!
- So how'd I do?
- You did pretty damn good. - Okay!
- That middle finger emoji, it's the best!
- It's very effective.
- It says so many things! (laughter)
It can be an affectionate, yeah, mm-hm.
An affectionate fuck you.
- I am not friends with my mom
on social media-- - No?
- 'Cause she is not on social media.
- Better.
- But she does Google me from time to time,
which I need to tell her to stop doing. (laughs)
- Are you the first result when you get Googled?
- I'm not, which is problematic because
there's a porn star
(laughs) actually. - No!
- Yeah.
So my mom's like, "Uhm, honey, what is going on?"
- "How's your career going, babe?"
- For me, the worst thing about social media
is that pressure of (slapping sound)
yeah, yeah, wake up to a screen, go to bed with a screen.
And if you're not around your screens,
you get shamed.
- That's weird. - It's real weird.
It's real weird to me.
- Cool. - That's it.
Alright. - Tell me about myself.
- (chuckles) So your favorite emoji is the smiley poop.
(laughs) And you are friends
with your mom on Facebook, but for you the worst thing
about social media is having to censor yourself
since you're friends with your mom.
- Yeah, well done.
Yeah, really well done.
So my favorite emoji is the poop emoji only because
Patrick Stewart is playing the poop emoji in the Emoji Movie
and I've been seeing that advertised recently.
Plug for the Emoji Movie!
I am friends with my mom on Facebook,
she's on Facebook, both of my parents are.
And in fact, whenever they think I've done
something questionable on Facebook,
they send me a really like,
like, very polite little note on Facebook to say like,
"Hey, we saw this and we--
"Maybe you wanna reconsider changing it to this, or maybe
"you wanna edit this." - They're concerned
about your brand. - They really are.
They really wanna take care of me.
Sweet. - That is sweet.
- That's very sweet.
Worst thing about social media behavior,
what did you say?
- Oh, that you have to censor yourself
because your mom's on there.
- Uh, yeah.
But
I said to myself for just the sake of everybody
because I don't believe that it's
a place for honest discourse
so I don't try to be like you know,
"The fullest expression of myself on Facebook."
I just acknowledge that that's the place
to talk about stuff that I think
everybody can talk about safely
but it's still a place where you need
to be polite. - Definitely.
- You know? - Yeah.
- So that's probably the thing that's the worst part
about social media is that it lets people feel like
they're allowed to be rude.
You know, a little more flippantly
than they would otherwise be.
- Yeah, 'cause they just post it and then walk away.
There's no consequences.
- I remember hearing a conversation,
I think it was on the radio about how bullying online
is a lot easier for kids,
because they don't see the other person's face change,
they don't see the physical cues of emotional suffering.
- Yeah, and they get to be whoever they want.
- Which is great.
You know, it's this venue for self expression
but what if they wanna be someone mean and cruel and unfair?
It's the brave, new world.
Oh, God.
- Growing up, I was raised by my mom
and
single parent, single child household, I'm an only child.
And
my mom
had no rules whatsoever. (laughs)
You know, I think was probably the envy
of a lot of my friends because I didn't have any rules
but I just needed some structure.
I always loved going to other people's houses
where there was like dinnertime and silverware.
Like, getting in trouble for things.
I thought that was great.
- Both my parents were almost 40 when I was born
so they kinda had their shit under wraps,
you know, they knew what they were doin',
they knew who they were and what they wanted to get done.
So they just let their kid do whatever he wanted to do.
So I spent the first
16 years of my life being a huge book nerd,
and then I found the arts, and I found expression,
and I found socialization
and I started making a lot of friends.
And they've been encouraging of everything
that I wanna do basically
since I could say I wanted to do something.
(playful music)
Your greatest fear about married life
is the betrayed expectations
that comes with meeting somebody,
committing to them and then something else happens.
Your biggest strengths that you would bring to a marriage,
you're ambitious, you have support, you have vision,
and you take pride in your family and where you come from.
So I think you would bring that to your family.
And it's kinda dicey to talk about your feelings,
and intimate aspects of your married life with your friends
but
you know, you take a risk,
it can go well or it can not go so well.
- My greatest fear about married life, yes!
Totally betrayed expectations.
Totally, like, what if I'm wrong?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
Then what?
- Till death? - Yeah, oh gosh.
That's a lot. (laughs)
And biggest strengths I would bring to a marriage,
you had another good one and I totally forget.
- Ambition, support, vision, pride in your family,
and like tribe. - Yeah, tribe.
I have a huge sense of tribe. - Cool.
- And
that is so important to me.
Like in a marriage, bringing someone else into that tribe?
That's huge.
- Do you have a big family?
- I don't. - No?
- I don't, I'm an only child.
- Hey, me too! - Yeah!
- We go!
- Yeah, something's wrong with us.
(laughter)
- We're the oldest, the middle
and the youngest. - We got all the complexes!
- Dear God.
Everything's fine, guys!
- And yeah, I do think it's a little bit dicey
to talk about personal problems to your friends
about your spouse because it's like,
I've had so many friends where all they do is complain
about their partner.
And then every time that partner is around,
you're like,
"I know so many things about you
"and you might be horrible and now we have to pretend
"like nothing's going on."
- "Or you might not be horrible
"but because this other person's
"a really compelling storyteller,
"I'm now like skewed."
- You're greatest fear about married life
is that your spouse dies.
The biggest strengths that you would bring to a marriage
is you're a good listener,
and it's okay to talk to other people
about intimate aspects of your married life.
- Greatest fear about married life is my partner dying,
woof!
Yeah.
Like it's either the conversation about the marriage itself
and the concept of marriage working,
and that's like betrayed expectations.
But then if the marriage really works
and you've got this person and you feel
like you really found them,
and then they're gone?
- By no one's wrongdoing?
Yeah. - Yeah, yeah.
- And that's the far less cynical fear.
You know, that's the legitimate, "I love this person,
"I need this person, and they've been taken away from me
"for reasons I can't control."
That's the fear you don't wanna think about.
It's a lot easier to think, "Oh, well the relationship
"will just fall apart."
- "Oh, she'll cheat on me, it'll be fine!"
- She'll cheat on me
or they'll rob a bank or something like that,
only I'll get conjugal visit once a month.
Later. (laughter)
Biggest strength in that I--
What did you say, you said listening.
- Yeah. - Yeah,
I would like to believe that I'm a good listener.
What did you say your name was again?
I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Yeah, who are you, where am I?
And then you said
that it is okay to talk, yeah.
Yeah, you have to vet the friend.
You can't be like-- - Ooh, good point.
- You can't like just broadcast that stuff
all over the place.
But if you've got, as an only child,
you have to adopt family. - Yes.
- So if you've got that long term friend
that's been there through a lot of the nonsense,
knows your rogue's gallery,
knows what your dating life has been
from early enough that they can sort of say,
"Okay, well I remember when you were with so and so.
"And so and so is like this and you're doing this."
Perspective is really helpful.
- Not on Twitter.
- Not on Twitter. - And not Mom.
- And not Mom.
- Oh, God no. - Mom's been through enough.
- No, yeah. (laughter)
And Mom has opinions without us bringing (laughs)
more to the table!
- "I liked her!"
"Okay, Mom, that's great, I'm really glad.
"That's why you're not meeting most of them."
- Oh, no, that's the last step.
- Yeah, we should be writing these down.
These are good rules.
Rules for the internet.
(regal techno music)
(slapping sound)
- Hah! - Huh!
- Thank you!
Ladies first.
- All that? (chuckles)
When I first met you,
I decided I would date you.
And after talking to you, I still would.
- When I first talked to you,
I decided that I would date you,
and after talking to you, I still would.
- Go us! (laughs) - Yay!
High five!
How do we--?
Where do I--?
- We shuffle off to Buffalo. - Do you want coffee?
- Yeah, coffee! - Yeah, there's coffee.
- Always! - There's always coffee.
- As long as it's not decaf!
Ooh, standing up is good!
- I tried to do the shift to decaf where I'd like,
make my coffee in 50/50s, put it between caffeine
and half-caffeinated.
The decaf coffee also just doesn't taste very good.
- Good point.
♫ Soul pancake
(upbeat R&B music)