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Chapter 1: What are Eva's experiences as a former dating app addict?
This episode of Everybody Has a Secret is brought to you by smarttraveller.gov.au. The overseas laws, security and health risks, emergency contacts and entry requirements you need to know before you go. Everybody has a secret. Some bury it deep. But in this vault, they come to let it all out. This is The Confessional. Your secret is safe with me. Hello, welcome back to The Confessional.
This is, of course, the place where I interview someone about something they want to get off their chest. Today, I am chatting to Eva. You may know her as attheinterneteva on TikTok. She talks about dating apps and dating culture and has a really analytical, smart way of talking about the state of dating at the moment and I guess the reality of dating now that so much of it happens online.
I found this conversation so, so illuminating and I know you guys will too. So today I invited Eva into the studio to confess and chat and debrief about all of her dating horror stories and I can't wait for you guys to listen.
Chapter 2: When did Eva first start using dating apps and why?
Eva, what is your confession today?
I am a 32 year old lesbian, former dating app addict, and I have so many interesting and juicy stories to share with you.
Eva, welcome to The Vault. We love you here at eHass. You make TikTok videos about essentially being a former dating app addict and about your takeaways as a lesbian woman on the apps. Dating apps and dating app culture is my Roman Empire, so I adore your content and I'm just so happy you're here.
Love it. So it's the same Roman Empire for both of us then.
Yeah.
Yeah.
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Chapter 3: What are some horror stories Eva encountered on dating apps?
Okay, great. So I kind of wanted to start from the beginning-ish of your story and hopefully we can hear some of your dating app horror stories throughout this chat. When did you first download a dating app?
I think I talk about my life as if it's like pre-queer and post-queer because, you know, pre-queer, I was a very different person. Like I was completely just unrecognizable. I was also a food blogger because I'm a millennial. Oh, slay! Yeah, of course. I just had to do the whole, you know, cringe millennial trope back then.
But look, I talk about my dating app history from 2019 onwards, because that's when I came out as a lesbian. So that's kind of when I would say I got on them to date women. And I think that's when a lot of my, you know, dating app failures or horror stories came through.
Chapter 4: How does dating app culture differ for queer women?
Yeah, which I find so interesting because as a straight woman and a lot of my friends who are straight, we always have discourse about how, you know, men suck on the apps.
Whereas your experience is different in that way because you've... Women also suck on the app. Newsflash.
You heard it here first. Exclusive. So what got you wanting to download the apps?
Yeah, look, I think a lot of closeted queer women, especially like late blooming queer women, come out and it's this big shift in like, oh my God, I enjoy sex. Oh my God, I enjoy having a crush on someone. Like you just basically become...
teenager again and so getting on the dating apps was a big part of like the excitement of like oh my gosh I'm actually excited about dating now and I feel like this could be really fun so I think it really comes from a place of A new world, a whole new world. And then, yeah, you download an app and then you get to see what it's like on the queer side of dating apps, you know?
So you call yourself a former dating app addict. What got you hooked about dating apps?
I mean, how much time do you have, girl? I feel like a lot of people don't talk about dating app addiction because it's almost embarrassing, right?
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Chapter 5: What psychological effects do dating apps have on users?
I don't think I knew I was addicted. I think that I just thought everyone was spending, you know, four to six hours a day. on a dating app. I don't know why I thought that, but I just thought, oh yeah, we're all doing this. I think it was genuinely the way that they're designed.
I've got kind of a background in marketing and public relations, so I know a lot about branding and I've worked in branding for 13 years. That was probably the biggest part of dating apps. It's the ping of the notification. It's the colors. It's the notification fonts and typography. It sounds crazy, but it really does feel like a pokey machine. It feels like that's what I got hooked on.
Chapter 6: How does rejection impact queer dating experiences?
I got hooked on the... ping, oh my gosh, I've matched with someone. Oh my gosh, the colors, like the colors are always so, you know, vibrant and everything's very clean typographically. And it's just, I feel like you just get addicted to the gamification aspect of the dating app, I feel.
Yeah, it's like an addictive loop of dopamine hits. And then also in a weird way, the rejection like plummets you down and then it's like, wait, but there's more. Totally. And it's also undiagnosed ADHD. It's also that.
But yeah, that was, you know, that was a lot of, a lot of people couldn't relate with that. You just don't know what it is, but it's like, it hooks you. It really hooks you.
Totally. And you've spoken about in your videos about how it's a bit different in lesbian dynamics as in being on the apps and it being sort of draining in its own way. Can you speak to that experience? Yeah, for sure. It's so different.
Chapter 7: What led Eva to take a break from dating apps?
Like, I always tell straight women, you do not want to date women because I feel like a lot of the time straight girls will say, oh, it's so bad to date men. It's so hard. Like, I hate it. I'm like, it is almost like I feel like I'm a straight man now.
Like, I feel like I'm a straight man experiencing what it feels like to be constantly rejected, constantly feel like there's something wrong with you. You're not getting matches. You're not getting a lot of likes. People don't tend to start conversations on dating apps. Like women to women dynamics are a lot more timid, passive and almost non-existent on dating apps.
I just don't think they're designed for how queer women interact in the real world. And so it translates really poorly to dating apps. We don't actually make any moves on each other. We don't... No one says anything other than, hey, you're pretty. Hey, you're pretty too. Okay, end of discussion. Now we're ghosting. And it's like our community is so small.
We do not have the pleasure or the privilege to be so almost dismissive of our matches. And yet we are. And it's just this massive issue of like...
queer communities not realizing guys we actually see each other in public a lot we actually need to treat each other like human beings we can't treat each other as like oh yeah i'm just gonna i'm just gonna swipe on you and i'm just gonna like ghost you because it's like i'm gonna see you next week at a queer party like I see you, babe. I see you.
And like, it's constantly like that where you're like, you think you're never going to see a person again when you're a straight girl.
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Chapter 8: Is Eva open to dating again in the future?
I promise you when you're a queer girl, you see those people every other week. Like you have to get comfortable knowing that like the people that don't want you are right in front of your face all the time.
Yeah, right. So how do you think the whole endless options of it all that everyone experiences on dating apps plays into it for you?
Okay, for me, there are not endless options. When you're, you know, a lesbian or a bi girl or anything around, you know, being a queer woman, you don't have endless options. You actually run out of matches after like an hour. Like it's just like you actually run out of swipes. It tells you the app goes, hey, we've run out of matches.
Yeah.
We run out of matches. Maybe come back or like maybe, you know, increase your mileage. So yeah, look, for me personally, I didn't feel like I had endless options. I more so was just very naive about the limitless nature or the limited, sorry, nature of being queer. I didn't realize that there was only like 50 women on the app. So I just got into this cycle.
I don't know if this relates with what you're asking. I got into this cycle of matching with bi-curious girls, not knowing they're bi-curious because like, you know, I think they're queer. They're on the queer side of the dating app. And then going on a date and really quickly realizing, oh, she's actually a straight girl that's still figuring it out.
And that's where a lot of my dating app kind of horror stories came from. It actually came from matching with women that weren't even sure they were queer to begin with and looked at me as almost like, oh, you're queer, you'll help me discover myself and help me explore my identity. And it's like, girl, I'm a beginner too. Don't count on me. In 2019, I had never even kissed a girl.
So yeah, it was very much like, it's not limitless options. It's not endless options. But when I first got on apps, it did feel limitless because of the vicarious girls. And then very quickly, I realized genuinely out and proud queer women are very far and few between.
Shushies, do any of you become a little too confident on an overseas holiday? I love that energy for you guys, I really do. But sometimes it can trick you into forgetting that you're in a completely unfamiliar country with different cultures, laws and risks. Regardless of where in the world you're going, it is so important to be prepared and keep your wits about you.
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