even though we romanticize sex and romance so much.

And you can see that in like, everything from

reality shows about weddings to iconic rom-coms.

Dating is not dead, romance is not dead

It just evolves with changes in the economy

And this is, you know,

I think this could be a reason for optimism.

As well as looking more critically at

why we date the ways we do.

I like to joke that dating was invented in 1896

because the first time we find that word

on the printed record

being used the way we use it now, was then.

In the early years, it was really thought to be

as sort of disreputable activity

because it was mostly working class women,

poor women, immigrant women who did it.

Who were in cities, going out on the street

going out to bars, and like Coney Island,

and New York or movies with men.

And it was thought to be really shocking

because there was no precedent for that.

In older courtship systems,

the platform where courtship happens

is controlled by the family, which presumably

has a stake in how it turns out.

So it's like, your mom and your aunt

in your Jane Austen-y parlor,

they care about whether or not you get married

they have an economic stake in that.

When it moves into public spaces

like bars, or movie theaters, or like Tinder,

The people who provide the platform

no longer have a stake in your "pairing off."

Indeed it would be better for them if you never paired off

and if you kept buying drinks and processing photos.

The economy is constantly pushing us

to try to do all this work that's actually for corporations,

not for our happiness.

And whether that's getting a Brazilian wax

and working out two hours a day,

or like working on your OKCupid profile

every time they ask you to,

It's just important to remember that like,

that is exploited labor, I would say.

And ideally, you know

the work of dating, the labor of love is work

that an individual can take a more active control over.

I mean to put it more prosaically,

get off the app as fast as you can.

I definitely don't mean to just say, you know,

"we're all just drones for the

Tinder industrial complex full-time now."

You know, it's not hopeless.

Definitely not.

Honoring love means accepting

that it's like this active form of care

that we can do for one another.

And it's not like if we give it away to one person, then it's gone

and so we have to guard it.

If you like some one and had sex with them and liked it,

that's not a waste of time if you don't

get married and have kids.

Our desire to have sex or to connect with other people

is literally the gift that we each have

that allows us to recreate the world however we want.

The idea that love could be like world changing labor

is really exciting.