Dating at 36: Situationships, Dating Apps, and the Pressure to Find “The One”
Seeing Other People
Ilana Dunn
4.5 • 608 Ratings
🗓️ 12 March 2026
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A 36-year-old single woman shares the reality of modern dating: a year-long casual situationship, dating app fatigue, and the pressure of watching younger siblings get married while you’re still searching for your person. We talk about what it’s like designing engagement rings while being single, the aftermath of a toxic long-term relationship, and the unexpected lessons from group therapy. From manifestation lists for a future partner to the brutal honesty of speed dating, this conversation dives into what dating in your 30s actually feels like.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Can you please introduce yourself and share what you're here to talk about? |
| 0:05.9 | Sure. I'm Erica Spey. Oh, should I say my last name? Up to you. Okay, fine. I'm Erica Spain all day, every day. And I'm here to talk about dating. All right. Yeah. And how old are you? I'm 36. And where do you live? I live in Jersey City. Okay. Yeah. Given the context to the folks. |
| 0:22.2 | Oh, for sure. |
| 0:23.3 | What is currently going on in your dating life? |
| 0:27.0 | Ooh. |
| 0:27.4 | So I am currently sleeping with a guy that's coming up on a year. |
| 0:33.3 | And I fully expected to, like, I don't know, continue to date other people and like find |
| 0:40.4 | someone else in the mix to not like circle back to like our meeting point at March. |
| 0:46.6 | So it's a really interesting time. |
| 0:49.6 | So sleeping with, not in a relationship with. |
| 0:51.9 | You know, it's casual. |
| 0:53.4 | Is it actually casual, though? |
| 0:55.6 | Meaning my frame of mind or in terms of just like what is going on. |
| 1:01.8 | All the things. |
| 1:02.6 | So I would say casual, totally. |
| 1:06.8 | Okay. |
| 1:07.5 | I think that I, this is just like I really dubbed into the beginning. |
| 1:14.2 | I, from the beginning, set out to like be in a relationship and then had a conversation |
| 1:21.2 | that went a different way. |
| 1:22.7 | And then it turned into like a situation ship, but not in the way that I would imagine, I've never been |
| 1:28.9 | in a situationhip, adds more dating elements in terms of like going places and like doing things. |
| 1:34.5 | We're not doing other things. |
... |
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