Episode 8

Dating in Australia

Hello dear listeners and welcome to the Comprehensible Australian podcast. This is your host again, Josh recording again from the University of Melbourne. Today's topic is dating. Before we get started today, I wanted to mention that I now have a website so you can check out my website. And there you can find all my social media links and get more information about the podcast. You can find the link to my website in the show notes and also in the information section on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. I'm gonna be posting on Instagram and YouTube soon, so please stay tuned. I would also like to say a big thank you to all my subscribers who have been listening to my podcast. I can see that people all over the world have been tuning in from Australia of course, but also. From Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Germany and the United States and makes me really happy to know that people are listening to my podcast. You can follow me also on Instagram at the Comprehensible Australian Podcast podcast. So I repeat on Instagram at the Comprehensible Australian podcast, The link is again in today's show notes. To find him on YouTube and Instagram, he recently published a podcast about his experiences as a man dating women in Australia, and I thought that I would also share some of my experiences and opinions about. What it's like to date in Australia. So something which might be similar between your country and Australia in terms of dating and finding people to go on dates with is that. Rarely nowadays do people meet in bars or. You know, through school, I think most people who. Go on dates. Find each other online. Dating apps are really, really popular now. According to the Pew Research Centre, in the United States in their survey, they found that. For 18 to 29 year olds, so people who are between the ages of 18 and 29, they found that 48% of them had used a dating app or a dating website. There are lots of dating apps and dating websites. I think Tinder is the most popular. I no doubt. Believe that you have heard of Tinder. There are other dating sites as well. Bumble is also popular, especially for my age group. You know, I'm 24 years old. And there are lots of other websites depending on what your interests are, I'm probably won't tell you the other websites because. Yeah, that is an adult topic and I'm not going to discuss it now, interestingly. I think you have to be an adult now to use Tinder, but when I was a teenager. Talking about eight years ago, about eight years ago, teenagers could use Tinder. It was legal, and then they changed it because I don't know. I think it's a bit unsafe for teenagers to be on Tinder. So I'm sure you know how Tinder works, but if you don't know how it works, basically. You get lots of. Profiles in your feed. And you can look at people's pictures and they also have a little description about who they are or what they're looking for. If you're interested in a in a person, you have to swipe right. Swiping right means that you like that person. And if you're not interested, then you have to swipe left. You swipe right and the person you're interested in also swipes right then. You get a match and then you can talk with that person, so you can only talk with a person if you both swipe right to make a match, that is. So studies have found that every day, tender users make over 1.6 billion swipes. I know from the experiences of my female friends they say that when they're on Tinder, they usually swipe left on most men and from the experiences of my male friends, they usually swipe right. On most women. My female friends have so many matches typically, typically something like 500 matches. When I'm on Tinder or when I was on Tinder, I'm not on Tinder anymore because you know, I have a boyfriend. Yeah, I didn't have that many matches because I don't know, maybe people aren't that attractive to me or maybe I'm just. Just careful about who I want to match with, so I didn't have too many matches, maybe maybe 50 matches and I tried to message most people. In my experience and in the experience of many of my friends. You tend to have lots of matches, so it's easy to get a match with lots of people, so you can get, you know, hundreds and hundreds of matches and then. After you get the match, it's difficult to have a conversation, so you know, what do you say? Most people just say hey, but you know, I don't know you. I I've never seen you before. So it's difficult to have the conversation, I think maybe. The average dimmed conversation is maybe 4 sentences before people stopped talking. Yeah. And then after, if you're lucky. Yeah, if you're lucky to have lots of conversation with one person, then maybe you will go on a date. Now. Sadly, most dates do not end in a loving, beautiful relationship. Most most dates kind of don't work out. They kind of fail, so people find that they spend a really long time on Tinder unfortunately. So as I said, I think. Most people I know have met their significant others or, you know, their boyfriend, girlfriend, wife, partner, husband, on Tinder. So even people in my family, they have met their wife on Tinder. So Tinder, is this really important part of the 21st century? I believe, and it really has changed the way that. People meet each other. I knew that my parents, they met on a blind date. So that means that their friends organised the first date for them and they didn't know each other. I think that doesn't really happen anymore. Most people that, yeah, they just meet online if you. Have met your partner online. Let me 9 and if he met your partner face to face? Not on a dating app. Also let me know in the comments. Now paid from the Aussie English podcast mentioned that as a man he usually pays for. Or at least he usually offers to pay for things like dinner and drinks and date nights as a man who doesn't date women, but rather as a man who dates other men. I'm a. Man, my partner and I often split costs so we so I pay for half the bill and he also pays for half of the bill. I'm not really sure if this is normal in different relationships. I know that in some of my previous relationships we split bills and on the other hand. I was really lucky. Wants to have a partner who usually paid for everything. So I think it's more and more normal now for couples, all kinds of couples, you know, straight couples, heterosexual couples and even, you know, gay couples to split the bill in Australia. When it comes to going on dates or dinner or things like that. Yes, I think that's really interesting because maybe 20 years ago or 30 years ago, it's usually the man who splits the bill. Oh, sorry. Not split. The bill is usually the man who pays for the whole bill, but I think that's quite different now, especially with the rise of feminism. Which means that women feel empowered to make decisions for themselves and and. Yeah. I guess in a gay relationship, there's not really that same idea because, well, I guess we're both men, yeah. If you are interested in dating Australian people or Aussie people, here are some things to keep in mind. I think most Australian people are really, really relaxed and casual when it comes to dating. They don't like it if you're very pushy or you put a lot of pressure, keep it nice and casual, for example. Don't ask questions about do you want to get married? Don't ask questions like. Where do you see yourself in 10 years for your career? Ask more casual and simple questions like what do you like to do on the weekend? Have you seen any good movies on Netflix recently? That way? It's more casual, I think maybe in other cultures it might be. More acceptable to be more forward and put a little bit of pressure in the early stages, but in Australian culture it's really important to keep it casual, especially in the early stages of dating. If you are from another country, maybe from South America. Something which, by South American students have mentioned to me is that Australian men or Australian people, when it comes to romance and romantic relationships, are not as passionate. And I think this is because we have a different culture. When it comes to dating, as I said, the dating culture is a bit more casual and I wouldn't say it's less serious. I think it's just more casual and relaxed. It's really unusual to. Tell someone how much you are attracted or. How much you love them on the third date? That comes a lot later on in the relationship in kind of, you know, Australian relationships. I think another thing about relationships in Australia is people like to generally do things very, very slowly. They, you know, usually go on at least five dates before they declare their relationship, and it takes a long time for. Your partner to introduce you to their family. I think with my partner I only introduced him to my family maybe three months into dating and I only got introduced to his family, maybe four or five months into dating and so far he hasn't actually met any of my friends yet. Sorry, any of my friends. If you're listening, yes, there is someone and you are going to meet him, I promise. OK, so I think that's about it for dating in Australia, if you have any questions, you can ask me on Instagram or I think you can also ask me on Spotify, but I'm not really sure. So that is the end of today's episode about dating in Australia. Please remember to follow me on Instagram at the Comprehensible Australian podcast, check out my website and please don't forget to subscribe to my podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify podcasts. OK, see you later, everyone. Bye.