I'm Audie Cornish, and this is the assignment, and today's episode is about dating,

which, full disclosure, I have not done since the Bush administration, the second, not the first.

But it does make me qualify to answer questions about how people dated in the before times.

I guess I'm curious how much people actually struck up conversation with strangers or near strangers.

So, like, when I met my husband, I think he was just, like, sitting outside the office having a cigarette.

And I was like, hi, is this the place?

You know, like, I'm looking for a building.

That was an interaction we would not have if I was on my phone using a map app and he was on his phone, right?

Like, we just were not as shut off from each other the way I feel like now everyone is, of all age groups.

Faith Hill is a writer at the Atlantic, and she's made a beat of chronicling the business of modern dating.

She's also single, and the way she describes dating tells me this is not the era of Carrie Bradshaw-style sex in the city adventures.

It's exhausting.

And the anecdotal evidence is that y'all hate it too.

Dating apps make me evil. It turns me into an evil person.

Most people I talk to on Hinge are weird or mean and just don't reply to me.

So I'm going to delete it and live the quiet life in the

woods, not speak to anyone ever again for the rest of my life. The match group, which owns Tinder,

Hinge, OKCupid and others just had to pay $14 million to the Federal Trade Commission over false

advertising and deceptive billing practices. In June, Bumble disclosed it was laying off 30% of its workforce.

So even though more people than ever are using the apps, as they're called,

they're burnt out and frustrated with online dating.

So who or what is to blame?

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