Last week, I had the privilege of introducing you to my friend Brad. (If you missed his guest post, you can check it out here!) Brad recently conducted a two-month internet “dating experiment”, learned a lot, and shared some thoughts on his experience via podcast on a show he co-hosts called the Outsiders Podcast. I loved the podcast so much, I asked Brad if I could ask him some follow-up questions, and he agreed. There’s so much gold in this interview, we’re actually going to turn this into more than one post. Enjoy! (And (shameless plug alert!!) be sure to subscribe to the Outsiders Podcast for some thought-provoking conversations on the intersection of church and culture!)
Happy: Brad, in your podcast, you said, “We live in a time that is super-connected, but it’s changed the paradigm of dating a lot. We’ve lost the art of communication and the ability to understand social cues.” And then you talked a little bit about how our gut instinct when we meet someone new is to find them on social media. How does that negatively impact us as singles, and what would a better world look like? What are the social cues we’re missing?
Brad: The instinct to jump to social media is just reinforcing the commoditization of dating. It gives us yet another avenue to “inspect the goods” and see if the person is a match. I completely understand the need to be physically attracted to people. Totally get it. But I think that a big part of attraction goes far beyond that, and there has to be chemistry. We forgo that to see if the person is “hot” or “a babe”, etc. Online dating is the biggest perpetuator of this amazon.com-style approach to dating.
photo courtesy of ©Depositphotos.com / stockyimages
In terms of social cues, we’ve lost the art of not only communicating with our words but with our body language. It’s OK to show you’re interested in someone. It’s OK to want to sit next to someone when you’re out with a crowd. We’ve lost sight of how male/female interaction used to work.
Before cell phones, before internet, before Facebook, people used verbal language and body language to communicate. The reason our connectedness has changed this is that the internet has created this monster that speaks loudly into our insecurities, affecting our views on body-image. Body-image issues are killing us. We often start telling ourselves, “he/she won’t be interested in me, I’m so plain” and so on.
It’s a terrible cycle that paralyzes us with fear, so we turn back to the internet to like someone from afar: accepting a random friend request, liking a photo, commenting, sending a message, favoriting a tweet, and of course, passive-aggressively trying to make the other person jealous. Dating has become a completely different game with completely different tools.
Happy: Everything you’ve just said highlights one of my biggest concerns with online dating. I’ve always been a little uncomfortable with the idea of visually “shopping” for a date, and that’s what it can feel like at times. And you’re so right – the way online dating works can feed into our brokenness, including self-image issues, in damaging ways.
In the podcast, you and your co-host, Scott, both talked about the way brokenness impacts our relationships. Our ideas about dating are wrapped up in so many broken social dynamics, and it can be easy – for women and men – to allow insecurity and false ideas of what the “perfect” person is (or even what he/she looks like) to impact our choices about who we’re willing to date and why.
My absolute favorite quote from your podcast is this:
“I’m here to tell you you’re definitely pretty enough, you’re exactly how God has made you, and you have value, and you have worth, and if guys can’t see that, then I’m telling you right now, you’re asking the wrong guys.”
And I loved Scott’s response, too: “And the only reason why they can’t see it is because they’re broken, not because you’re broken.”
What steps can we take towards changing broken social dynamics? Is talking about them enough?
Brad: I wish the answer was as simple as: just log off of Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter – then you won’t see any of the things that lead you to believe you’re not good enough, others won’t see “ideals” to measure you against, and we could all be happy.
Unfortunately, I just don’t think that’ll happen. Our best weapon against that is God’s truth. If we could speak truth over each other’s lives on a regular basis, it would not only give people that worth and value, but it would release something the world really needs.
Happy: Agreed. In spite of its drawbacks, social media has a lot of benefits. (For example, I’m rather dependent on it as a way of sharing my blog posts!) But in the midst of all the disconnect that can occur in an increasingly interconnected world, I think we can all take steps towards reclaiming the art of communication, by speaking truth with openness and appropriate vulnerability, whether it’s on a Facebook wall or in a private message we’re sending to a friend.
Even conversations like the one we’re having right now are key to changing broken social dynamics. When we start by promoting awareness that there’s a problem by having a conversation about it, then we can work towards solving the problem and creating a better culture: one post, one status update, one tweet at a time.
© 2015 Brad Gross
A data analyst by trade with a Humanities degree (not sure how that works? no one else does either!), Brad Gross writes for chasethesunrise.com where he blogs about all things life. Whether it’s music, movies, Jesus, culture, technology; whatever you’re looking for, he’s probably blogged about it. He also writes for and co-hosts the Outsiders Podcast with his lifelong friend, Scott Matkovich. They write & talk about all things church-culture, and have a lot of fun doing it.
Brad would never want to live in a world without music, and has 12 nieces and nephews whom he loves very, very much. His mission in life is to to increase the quality of life for those around him through hugs, humor, and compassion. He believes that Jesus has given us all of His power and if we’re willing to step out into the world around us and RELEASE that power and speak His truth over others, people will experience real breakthrough and the love of The Father.
