So when you got on all of the dating apps, what did you see that other women couldn't?

Well, initially, I think I saw what all women were seeing and are saying, which is a lot of, I mean, definitely toxicity and aggression and abuse and all of these things, but also just a lot of confusion, like a lot of really bizarre communications,

which that was almost more troubling to me.

Like, you know, you kind of understand how to, how to react to someone who's being actively

toxic or aggressive or insulting or frightening or whatever it is.

But I kept ending up in these conversations that I was like,

if I entered some kind of bizarre universe and it was like the content of the conversations

was bananas, the pacing of the conversations was insane.

Like I'd match with these guys that, you know,

it seemed like they were like this with their phone like all the time,

just waiting to text, you know, with no break in between and what I call the bored toddler

rhetorical pattern in Birdhastak. And then also men who like every three days would be like,

hey, nothing else. Or how are you? And then like four days later, try to follow up that conversation.

I'm Melissa Monty and you're listening to Mind Love.

So that's what I encountered initially.

And I went into it blind.

You know, I mean, having heard all the complaints about

the fish picks and the bathroom mirror selfies and the shirtless picks, but I was unprepared for how

bad it would be beyond those things. Why do you think your PhD helped you to see some of these

things that other people just

accept as maybe they're chatting with a douchebag?

Yeah. Well, I mean, they are chatting with douchebags, to be clear. I just had some tools to

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