History (and Future) of Dating
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Hello, my lovely Betwixters. It's me, Kate Lister. I am here. This is Betwixt the Sheets. You are you and you have got your listening ears on. Do we all have our listening ears on? Excellent. In which case, I have to tell you, this is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about adulty things in an adulty way, covering a range of adult subjects, and you should be an adult too. And we call that the fair dues warning because if you've listened to that and you keep listening and you happen to get offended, tough t***s, that's on you because fair dues, we did warn you.

Well, hello and thank you for meeting me for lunch. I know it's a busy time of year. These bustling coffee shops of George and London really are the places to see and be seen right now. I love what the landlady, Mrs Miggins, has done with the place. And it's here that we can take a browse to the latest newspapers and something that really caught my attention are these newfangled lonely heart ads. Gone!

Well, he doesn't sound like a dick at all. That one's going to be a hard pass from me.

But how did dating traditions from this period evolve with the invention of the Lonely Hearts ad? And how did it change in the following centuries? Another coffee, please, Mrs. Miggins. I am going to stick around to find out. What do you look for in a man? Oh, money, of course. You're supposed to rise when an adult speaks to you. I make perfect copies of whatever my boss needs by just turning it up and pushing the button. I'm a man! I'm a man!

Yes, social courtesy does make a difference. Goodness, what beautiful dance. Goodness has nothing to do with it, does it? Hello and welcome back to Betwixt the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society with me, Kay Lister.

Can you even remember a time before we were meeting people through apps? Well, apparently there was such a time. I mean, people have always been finding ways to meet one another, but it was in the 17th century that people started to post Lonely Hearts adverts in the flourishing printing press. And it was only a hop, skip and a jump from there to getting ghosted on Tinder. In

In today's episode, I will first be speaking to Francesca Bowman, author of Shapely Anchored Preferred, a history of the Lonely Hearts advertisement, to find out how Lonely Heart ads through history created a new way for city dwellers to date.

And also how it created new opportunities for scams. Think Tinder swindler of the 19th century. And for the second part of this episode, I'll be talking to Anna Kirova, CEO of the dating app Field. And she's going to tell us all about dating culture today and where it could lead to in the future. Including research that they've done which reveals surprising findings about what Gen Z are fantasizing about. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm ready. Let's crack on.

Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's only Francesca Bowman. How are you doing? Hello, very well. I'm glad to be here. I'm thrilled that you're here, although I feel that maybe I should have put out a sort of a Lonely Hearts advertisement to ask for someone to come on the podcast, like,

blonde podcaster seeks author extraordinaire in the history of Lonely Hearts to come on and talk about it, because that's your subject area. It is exactly. Of course, we're going to immediately have to write you one, you know, partner or no partner. In fact, one of the reasons I came to the subject was when I was first dating my now husband, I used to spend hours trawling through the Lonely Hearts ads, as in what was then the Sunday newspapers. And

and have always been interested in them, whether I had a partner or not. They've always fascinated me. I remember them. Now we've got Tinder and Bumble and so many of them and they've kind of, they've sort of gone past being cool and have just gone into something. They're just sort of there. Like no one really thinks anything of them now. But I remember when dating adverts, Lonely Hearts, there was something kind of tragic about them and they were like a punchline almost. Absolutely.

Absolutely tragic, slightly racy, slightly weird, but now they're the primary way where people meet their partner. So 29% of people meet their partner through some kind of dating app or website followed only by people meeting their future partner at work and university. So it really has become mainstream. I think though, it's interesting the amount of stigma that still is involved.

To some extent, it hasn't gone away totally, sadly, and that's certainly something we can talk about. But yeah, there's been a shift in perception for sure over the last few hundred years, really. So you've always been interested in them, even if it was a sort of a passing curiosity of like, ooh, let's look at this week's. Well, so I claimed, Kate, so I claimed. Ha ha ha!

But at what point did you think, I think that there's a history to this. I think I want to write a book. Yeah, great question. So I was always interested in them. And as a historian, we're always with an eye for a subject. And I've always been interested in the history of slightly strange things. My first book was about the history of the pineapples. So...

I love that. I'm always on the lookout for a quirky subject like that. So having always been interested in them, I just popped down to the library one day to look into how far they went back. You know, those idle questions. Oh, you know, I wonder when the first ad was. And when you first start researching them, there's a lot of information about how they started in the 20th century, in the 1920s.

But when I actually went to the newspapers and the first magazines, sat in the British Library and trawled my way through, I was flabbergasted and also, of course, thrilled to find an ad, a Lonely Hearts ad, as far back as 1695. Wow. So much earlier than anyone realised. And immediately I knew I had a story, well, indeed, a book on my hands because this was just entirely...

new information, a completely new source of evidence for so many aspects of the human existence. So it was a really, it was a thrilling moment, actually. I can't believe, well, I can't because you're telling me, but I'm really surprised that they go back that early. I guess I would have thought it would be something the Victorians came up with. 1695. 1695, really with the first magazines and the first newspapers, you get the first Lonely Hearts ads. And this is a pattern that plays out more often

widely in terms of the development, the history of the way humans use new forms of technology, as we would call it, of any sense. So whether it's the printing press or newspapers or the silicon chip or the internet,

Really one of the first uses we have for those are the building of relationships and sex, you know, whether it's pornography on the internet or pornography in the first printing press or dating, you know, Lonely Hearts ads with the very first magazines and newspapers. They emerge very, very quickly. It's a primary use that humans put these new forms of technology to. Wow.

I was just going to ask you, what medium was this very early Lonely Hearts advert in? Because I'd completely forgotten that they did have pamphlets and magazines at this point. This wasn't just somebody who'd printed something out on a piece of paper and was just handing it out. Yeah.

I mean, only just, absolutely, but only just. It was a very, very early one. It was a pamphlet called Not Very Thrillingly a Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, which, you know, doesn't sound a laugh a minute, but it was published by a sort of popular London figure called John Horton, advertised all kinds of merchandise.

And in July 1695 on page three, in amongst an ad for a cobbler's apprentice and an Arabian stallion and a secondhand bed,

I found this ad. I know. I found this ad that goes, a gentleman about 30 years of age that says he had a very good estate would willingly match himself to some good young gentlewoman that has a fortune of £3,000 or thereabouts and he will make settlement to content.

and then another one right below it. So, you know, in some ways it seemed very out of place. But of course, in another way, it's just another example of the emergence of the marketplace of commercialising matchmaking in a way that brings marriage into line with, you know, rooms to rent or the arrival of a consignment of tea from the Indies. You know, it's just another service really, isn't it? It is, I suppose. There was this one and then underneath there was a completely different one. So I guess...

It must have been known that this was a thing that you did for two people to have written in. Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good question. So there was one right below it of a 25-year-old man. He said he'd been brought up a dissenter and is sober. Very important to put your lonely hearts out at that time. The bar is low. The bar really is very low. I think those were the first ones. What's interesting is actually there had been joke ones in earlier years. And in a way that set the stage for them to be used in a more sincere way. And, you know, really becoming a very early piece of evidence about...

you know, what men are looking for in a woman, really? What's the idea of the perfect late 17th century woman? Okay, so the earliest ones are men. Is there any evidence that women were writing Lonely Hearts adverts? Because I'm very curious about this because if you've ever been on the dating apps, you'll know that there is quite a strict divide between how men experience it and how women experience it. I mean, were these women getting sketches of penises being sent to them? LAUGHTER

It's an amazing idea that early on, isn't it? Not as far as I have evidence of, Kate, but I mean, who knows? Maybe they were, you know, pinned up on a tree stump somewhere. Who knows? I would say in the early days of Lonely Hearts ads, certainly it was almost all...

men who were placing them. Because of course, in those days to place them, you needed the money, you needed the time to go down to the newspaper or magazine office, you needed the freedom. It was also an incredibly bold and brave thing to do. And so with the restrictions on women's lives at the time, that was certainly kind of tricky logistically to make it happen.

It wasn't until quite a lot later that you get the first ads from women. And one of the earliest appeared in 1761 in a Birmingham newspaper, which was addressed to men of sense. And it just said, wanted for two young ladies whose persons are amiable, straight and free. How brave you'd have to be as a woman. That is amazing.

That's a bulshy move, that is. Isn't it? Rather than just sitting at home waiting for some bloke to turn up and rescue you from your life as a single woman, which, as you and I know, in those days was a fate worse than death. Of course. These women were really putting themselves out there and taking control of their own destiny, or at least trying to, of course. We have no...

for whether these ads worked or not. See, that's true, isn't it? Because that's the thing that you never get with this. You never get a follow-up. They never print later on to say, thanks everyone for writing in. I've gone on a date with Ethel. It went really well. Does that ever happen? Have you ever found that of like a follow-up outcome? Yeah, it's definitely very frustrating, it being so rare to be able to find out what happened next.

And usually when one does, it's because something went wrong. It's because either the ad turned out to be a scam or fraud was committed or bigamy or, you know, even worse, like a merge or something. So you tend to hear what happened next later.

when it goes really dark and sad. What you don't hear, of course, because it's far less interesting is, yeah, we met and we got married and we lived happily ever after. Because of course, no one really cares about that, right? That's not as interesting. Only historians. Oh, of course, we care hugely, but only historians. And it does mean then...

some of these characters really stay with one. So you asked about ads from women. There was one in the Times newspaper, really quite soon after it was first founded in 1788, from this woman called Eleonora, who I honestly still think about. And she placed this ad saying,

that said,

So, you know, it's this very dramatic situation that Eleonora finds herself in. And, you know, I do still wonder what happened. Oh, Eleonora. I know. Wow.

It rather captures the imagination, doesn't it? And it also shows you how vulnerable women were because Eleanor out there has written into a paper and has just basically said anyone, absolutely anybody, because she's got no family support anymore. Exactly. And in those days, if you weren't married...

there were very, very few ways of gaining financial security. And so for most women, that was their only way to get a roof over their head in a sort of stable way. I know. So those early ads from women, it's really striking the sort of sense of, I'm afraid, desperation that emanates off the page. You know, there's,

There's one woman in 1781, she talks about she's desirous of freeing herself from the control of her cruel and capricious guardian. You know, there's lots of widows, lots of orphans. It's really sad. That is, isn't it? If you're writing in to these newspapers, pamphlets,

and you can tell me what other publications carried this stuff, there is always the issue, and people forget this, of who is holding your information. And this is what was the undoing of the Ashley Madison scandal is because people handed over all their info and assumed it would be safe. How does this system work in the 17th and 18th centuries? You write in and then does somebody read it and print it exactly? And then do they facilitate the replies? How did it work?

work? So how it worked in those days was you would physically take your written Lonely Hearts ad down to the newspaper office. You'd sit at home and write it. And then either you or possibly your maid servant would take it down to the newspaper office, often in Fleet Street, if it was London or elsewhere. You'd hand it over to the newspaper editor usually, because these were small operations. And then they would choose whether to print them. But of course,

They almost always did because newspaper editors at the time realized very quickly what an excellent source of entertainment these ads were, that they were going to sell newspapers. Yeah, of course they were going to sell newspapers. They were no dummies. It's why the Times newspaper put these Lonely Hearts ads on its front page for many, many years in the early days. I know. Front page. Yes. Yes.

It's why it's ironic then years later, the Times newspaper would make these claims that they've never placed Lonely Hearts ads. Well, they jolly well did and they had them on the front. You heard it here first. I have found newspaper articles writing about a Lonely Heart. Like something was so extraordinary that you'll find a newspaper story of like a young man is advertised for a wife and a pig and lives in... Yes, yes. So they were clearly quite novelty items for a long time.

Exactly. And seen as a source of entertainment. So you'd place the ad and often in the ad, it would say at the end, you know, please write to this newspaper office if you're interested. And the newspaper office would then collect the replies. Frequently as well, though, the advertiser would say, please write to a certain coffee house.

especially in London, those were also a great place to receive any replies from potential suitors. I'm trying to get my head around that because there was a big coffeehouse culture in London in the 18th century and it wasn't like Starbucks today, was it? Can you give me a description of what the coffeehouses were like and why someone would be receiving Lonely Hearts ads there?

Yeah. So they were an invention of the 1650s. And by 100 years later, they were no longer quite as fashionable as they had been. And they were trying to find other ways to draw in the punters. And as a result, proprietors would often get subscriptions to newspapers and encourage their clientele to use these coffee houses as places to meet and chat and receive letters and whatever purpose you could use it for. As a result, they often pop up in sort of

plays of the time as the sort of location of all sorts of intrigue. You know, the appeal of coffee houses in many ways was the anonymity they offered. And of course, that's really helpful for a Lonely Hearts ad. Someone could drop off a reply to Lonely Hearts ad and not necessarily get spotted by their neighbour or their colleague. That makes sense. I suppose a Lonely Hearts advert, is it, maybe it doesn't, does it offer some kind of

safe haven for people that might otherwise have been stigmatized in a society? Because I suppose it's a space where you can say, I don't have any money and my husband's run off. Or do you still get this sense of decorum with them? That's an interesting question. How are people their true selves in ads like this? It's

So we're all reinventing ourselves in any sort of advertising for love and saying, you know, we're a bit skinnier than we are or a bit richer than we are or a bit younger than we are. Exactly. So, you know, whatever it is that one is feeling insecure about, I think...

can come across in the ads. I mean, in the early days, the Lonely Hearts were only placed by people of means. So it was a pretty narrow demographic. It was basically rich white men were pretty much the only people placing these ads in the very early days. And so, you know, within that, obviously you get a pretty consistent and samey type of ad, both in terms of

how they describe themselves and also what they're looking for in a possible partner. But they do quite frequently talk about, you know, I work very long hours, so it's hard to meet people. I'm quite lonely. So there certainly is an honesty there sometimes in terms of why they're placing the ad. You know, they feel the need to explain themselves.

And you kind of forget that you really don't have to go back that far in our history when people, like if you were in love with the person you married, that was good. That was a nice thing. But a lot of these adverts, I want to say that they're business contracts.

But a lot of them, it does sound like they are hiring somebody. Like if you know, it's like the lady who desperately needs someone because her family hate her. That isn't someone who's saying, I really love someone. That's saying, I need somebody to support me. That's what that's saying. Oh, absolutely. This was a society that was very...

blatant and open about the economic basis of marriage. It's only in the course of the 18th century that we're just beginning to see the rise of romantic love as a valid proposition. As you say, people thought being in love was a nice bonus, but it

It wasn't, you know, it was an absurd basis for a marriage and marriage remains really a business transaction in many ways. You know, people placing ads saying, you know, they'd love to go into business with somebody who runs a pub or a tavern or they talk about, you know, how much money they have.

they can offer or how much money they want from the person who replies to the ad. Or there's other people who are in a hurry saying, oh, you know, I want to get married before this year's harvest so that I've got help with the harvest. So they're very sort of practical, depressingly practical in many ways. Have you ever been able to track somebody down and find the identity of somebody that placed a Lonely Hearts advert?

Only the much later ones. So I trawled long and hard to try and find people in the 18th century or 19th century who had met through Lonely Hearts ads. And the only people I could find, I'm afraid, are people who ended up getting murdered or in the newspapers because of fraud or bigamy. It wasn't until I put a call out for people in the 20th century that I got a few replies saying, oh, you know, my granny met

grandpa in this way or this was a family story but honestly Kate you'd be amazed how few stories sort of come down through the generations and I think again that speaks to

to the enduring stigma really up until the early 2000s or the 2010s surrounding advertising for love. You know, people feeling like there must be something weird or wrong with you, which of course is not the case. And we know that now, but for a really long time, people weren't prepared to admit it. So they just go, oh yeah, you know, I met your father at a party.

Oh yeah, I've met him in the street. We're a bit vague about how they got together. There was absolutely, and I remember it distinctly, there was a stigma of only really weird people would be doing this. Only the most desperate people.

would be doing this at all. Well, that's why with the first dating websites, like when Match.com started, the guy who ran it had to get his own girlfriend to post on the dating website because he didn't have enough people because everyone thought it was massively weird. So they've come a long way in terms of society, accepting that in a post-industrialized society where we're not...

Most of us are not going to marry the vicar's son, right, or the girl next door or, you know, someone we meet at church or whatever in the way people did in the 17th and 18th century. You know, in a post-industrial urbanised society, we're going to need new forms of matchmaking. And that has only become more and more urgent as the centuries have gone on and up until the present day. I'll be back with Francesca after this short break.

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What about the Victorians? I love the Victorians. I'm a proper fan of them. They were absolutely crazy, crazy people. What was a Victorian Lonely Hearts culture like? So Victorian Lonely Hearts culture really broadened out. So advertising for wife...

No longer was it confined solely to urban communities and no longer just to the well-off, those who could afford to place an ad. So the demographics of those both placing Lonely Hearts ads and replying to them really, really shifts and broadens. I was quickly...

minded of this fact when I found an ad in 1832 in the Dorset County Chronicle from a farmer named Charles Warren, who put in an ad to look for a wife to help him look after his three children. But he says, I want a good steady woman between 30 and 40 year olds for a wife to help me look after the children. I also want a woman to look after the pigs while I'm out at work. So he wanted, you know,

Someone who could do both. So it's very sort of practical. At least he's upfront. Exactly. I completely agree. At least he's upfront. And that, you know, if you take ads from around 1830 to 1860...

They range in profession in the newspapers from, you know, commander in the merchant services and a chemist and an officer in the Bengal army. So they're really kind of all kinds of people. And again, all around the country, they become much more popular outside of London and you find them all over the UK.

And is this when the lonely soldier trope came about? So the lonely soldier trope really sort of peaked quite a bit later during World War I. Oh, that makes sense. And after World War I, yeah, when soldiers came back from war and wanted someone to share their life with. They first appeared in Teepee's Weekly, which was an Irish magazine. And those lonely soldier ads are really, really,

touching. They're very vulnerable. Again, Lonely Hearts ads becoming much more vulnerable and personal than the ones 200 years prior to that. What kind of thing are they saying? Is it just, I'm a lonely soldier? Were they actually serving on the front when they were advertising? No, they'd usually got back and had, for example, lost a leg or lost their sight. Or again, that's the same when women in this period were placing ads. But

The writer Vera Brittain recalled an ad that she saw in a newspaper in 1915 that said, lady, fiance killed, will gladly marry officer totally blinded or otherwise incapacitated by the war. Oh.

I know. Wow. Isn't it moving? So moving. So these women and men were both facing a difficult world, both during World War I and post-war, you know, with three quarters of a million men killed in combat, there was a real shortage of potential husbands. And so again, lowly hearts ads came into their own as another form of matchmaking when people needed a bit of help.

Is this a uniquely British thing? Were other countries doing Lonely Hearts adverts? So America was very much embracing Lonely Hearts ads. The first ad in America I found was in 1759 in Boston. I know, really, really early. It's particularly spectacular because it was placed by a young gentleman and his only criteria in a wife is that he wants someone who's

Under 40 and not deformed. That's all he's looking for. Very straightforward. And again, in America, just like in Britain, with industrialization and the growth of the cities, once New York and Boston and Philadelphia have these population explosions, that's when you get the first industrialization.

And that's when you get the first ads, right? Because you've got all these people moving to the cities. They don't know anyone. They don't have the community networks of your mum's friend's daughter or your dad's colleague's son. And so they've got to find other ways to find themselves a partner. So America really, really embraced them a little bit later, but there were hundreds of them. Also embraced the crime wave that came with these Lonely Hearts ads again of...

various sort of core celebs taking over the newspapers of horrible stories of people who were murdered because of a lonely heart. Well, we should talk about that because anyone that's done a couple of tours on the dating apps now will tell you there's a lot of bullshit. There is. But, you know, one doesn't want to be

negative about it. The problem with the horror stories of Lonely Hearts ads is those are the ones you hear, right? So, and you don't hear as much about the success story. So, yes, in America, America's worst ever female serial killer is

was someone called Belle Gunness, who in the 1910s murdered over 40 men that she met through personal ads that she placed in local magazines and newspapers. That's a bad date. That's a bad date, isn't it? Oh, even worse, she murdered them, chopped them up and buried them in her farm, you know, under the ground in her farm for her pigs to gradually eat. I mean, it's all horrific. Wow.

What was she advertising? Have you found any of her adverts survive? Yes. So she was advertising. She lived on her own on a farm in Indiana and she advertised for her husband. But again, this was a time of lots of new immigrants coming to America who, again, didn't have the sort of family connections or social networks or whatever. So she got a lot of Scandinavians replying.

who would sort of turn up and basically not be heard of again. And there are all these sort of letters that would turn up at Belle Gunness's farm being like, oh, the last I heard of, you know, my brother or my son, they were coming to see you and then they're never heard of again. So really, really...

So serial killer, that's probably one of the worst. But what else? Because, you know, the Tinder swindler was a huge documentary on Netflix. I'm going to imagine that people were using these to con many other people right from the off. Oh, so many. I mean, one of my favorites, if that's the word, is the guy that the New York Times called the one-armed bigamist.

every headline that they wrote about him. One-armed bigamist strikes again. What I think is notable is that

In this period of a really high crime wave emerging out of the Lonely Hearts ads, both in Britain and America, around the 1880s, 1890s, 1900s, really around the turn of the century, it was impossible for police forces to keep track of people, right? There was no computer database. So if you married somebody in one city, stole all her jewelry and left in the night...

turned up somewhere else. There was no way to track that person. Absolutely no way. So as a result, when I would trawl through the newspapers, I found so many of these cases and yet it seemed no police network at the time had put them together. No one had said, oh my God, there's a crime wave. What are we going to do? There were other concerns, you know, newspapers at the time

about sort of criticising Lonely Hearts ads and saying no respectable person would use them. But actually, of course, what they really were scared of was the idea that through a Lonely Hearts ad, you had the potential to meet someone outside of your social station, right? So I know. Exactly. And then what was going to happen? Everything might collapse, you know, if a land girl married a lord. Yes. So that was really sort of the subtext of the criticism. Wow.

I'm surprised that people didn't at least recognise the one-armed bigamist. You'd think he'd be easy to spot. What happened to him? Did he ever get caught? Yeah, he did get caught. Again, that's why we know about him because he did get caught and it was reported in great detail in the New York Times. But, you know, then it's sort of sad because presumably it does put people off from placing Lonely Hearts ads, which...

can be such a terrific source of finding companionship. But these big crime cases, when they're reported in newspapers, inevitably they do understandably put people off or create a stigma that can be quite hard to recover from, I think, for many years. It's such a shame that we don't have happy stories because they do. And they still, even today, dating apps and things have a reputation as being a bit

dodgy. We've normalised them, but they're a bit dodgy. Sure. I mean...

One keeps thinking the stigma will disappear entirely because you and I have so many friends who met, you know, by advertising for love, whether it's Tinder or whatever. You know, we all do. It's so mainstream now. It is, but there are some strange people on those. There are, but I mean, there are in the world. This is true. So what's the difference in a way? This is true. Yeah, and I think it's interesting how that then shifts...

Whether it's Lonely Hearts ads in newspapers through to dating websites like Match.com in the 80s and 90s, and then the rise of dating apps like Tinder or Hinge or Bumble. The use of those, of course, has expanded dramatically.

And it's interesting to think about how that's changed what men look for in a woman and what women look for in a man. How the history of human mate choice has changed just as a result of the medium through which we search. And also the social norms have changed. I really don't think that you would get very far on Tinder just saying, I need someone to look after the pigs when I'm at work. No.

Or under 40 and not deformed. Don't think you get away with that either these days. No, probably not. Because it's what we're looking for for people is it's not, we don't need somebody to have money. Sometimes it's just people looking for a shag. I don't suppose there was any echoes of that in some of the earliest ones. Was there any kind of very early hookup culture here? Yeah.

Not in the very early ones. So the very early ones are revealing about what men looked for in a woman and what women look for in a man. You know, men were looking for women who were fertile, frankly, who were young, who could...

bear their offspring because the demands of evolution sort of at the time overrode anything else. Equally, women were looking for men with resources, resources that could then support any ensuing offspring.

And that has actually changed depressingly little. I mean, I would say our definition of resources has changed. So these days it might mean like loads of Instagram followers or a great sense of humor, you know, anything that when Armageddon comes means that the children will be okay.

But, you know, it doesn't have to just be like property or cash or loads of money in the conventional sense. But it hasn't changed as much as one might think. In terms of the sort of broader picture of people looking not for marriage, but for casual relationships or just sex or anywhere within that, that tends to come later, really in the sort of 1840s and 1850s. And then you do get ads saying, oh, looking for fun and companionship.

looking for a fun day out, you know, these sort of broad and very generalized terms. A couple of them then went to trial for obscenity. A couple of...

agencies that place these Lonely Hearts ads in there. There were dedicated Lonely Hearts newspapers like the Matrimonial Herald and the Matrimonial Chronicle. And they variously got in trouble for placing these ads, which clearly were sort of just about sex. But again, it's hard to follow those up. It's hard to know what the outcome of any of those is.

One of the things that always surprised me when I'm on dating apps and occasionally once in a while I'll download them and then within an hour I've gone, no, I don't want to do this anymore. But it's that you do find people on there that are going, I'm married. I just want to have an affair. And the whole Ashley Madison thing of people, that behavior has always blown my mind because that's,

That's not like I met somebody, sparks flew, oh, it shouldn't have happened, but it did. That's just going, I want to shag someone else. I just don't know who it is yet. It's very intentional. Entirely intentional. Very intentional. Yeah. Is there anything that you've ever found or something just like a husband seeks or wife or anything to suggest that maybe it was a facilitator for infidelity? Nothing.

Nothing like that, but it doesn't mean they didn't exist because of course part of the obstacles of these Lonely Hearts ads is trying to decode some of the language in them. And that's, for example, is something that was very frustrating when I was searching for the earliest gay ads because of course they exist and that's a fascinating topic. And gay ads have been written about as existing from sort of the 1920s onwards.

I, however, feel sure they existed earlier, but...

They of course were somehow using a lexicon that obfuscated their intention. With homosexuality still illegal, people had to be, of course, incredibly careful about how they phrased what they were looking for. I mean, they obviously thought they were being careful, but some nowadays they'll use phrases like, so there are some ads that say things like, they sort of lean into cliche. So they'll say sort of, "Artistical and musical man really enjoys Oscar Wilde, Lord Byron and the opera."

Clever. And I assume that those were trying to be a bit more overt about looking for a man to have a relationship with. You know, even I can sort of get what is being inferred there, that they felt they had to be so sort of, in a way, unsubtle and sort of say, oh, I like, you know, Oscar Wilde is one aspect of that. But it makes me feel sure that there are other gay ads out there that we...

are unable to decode. You've just got to learn the language, don't you? Exactly, exactly. And that's the same to your question. That must be the same with us that are just looking for sex. I feel if we could decode the language more accurately, they probably are out there, but with so many, you know, references that we don't understand to popular culture or a book or, you know, a particular word that it just passes the modern historian by. So final question then.

where did the phrase lonely hearts come from? Because they can't always been called that. Or maybe they have. No, they weren't. Do you know, it's genuinely unclear. It's a pretty modern phrase. So it merges again in the 1920s and 30s. I think that's why...

To return to the point we started with, I think that's why many historians thought these ads themselves didn't exist until the 1920s and 30s, because they didn't have the name Lonely Hearts as they weren't called those. They were called matrimonial ads for many, many years. So from 1690 to about 1920, they were always called matrimonial ads, perhaps because people started to realize they weren't just about matrimony.

and were about all sorts of other things as well. Then they became Lonely Hearts ads. And that's the 1920s and 1930s. But you know what? It's really not until the 1960s and the 1970s that the language of personal ads that we understand today began to emerge. So GSOH for good sense of humor or would like to meet LWTM or all those sort of abbreviations. And

Those only emerge once you really get a lot of ads of this sort in the 60s and 70s and lots of different publications. Then there's a tipping point. They become very mainstream and therefore a language that everyone understands does emerge. Amazing. Francesca, you have been wonderful to talk to. Thank you so much. And if people want to know more about you and your research, where can they find you? They can read my book, Shapely Anchored Preferred, A History of the Lonely Hearts Ad. And are you on social media or are you smarter than that?

I am on social media as Francesca Bowman. There's lots there too. Thank you for talking to me today. You've been marvellous. Of course, it's been great fun. Thanks for having me.

Whoa, easy there. Yeah.

This is a PSA, or Public Sock Announcement. Experts have declared Bombas socks as the best way to warm up chilly feet. These pairs are super cushy, soft, and designed for maximum coziness. Plus, for every pair purchased, another pair will be donated, so someone in need of essential clothing can stay warm this winter.

Go to bombas.com slash ACAST and use code ACAST for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash ACAST and use code ACAST at checkout. Thank you so much to Francesca. Next up is my conversation with Anna Korova, CEO of the dating app Field, about where all of this leaves the current and future landscape of dating.

Hello, and welcome to Betwixt the Sheets. It's Anna Korova. How are you doing? Hi, it's really nice to be here. I'm doing great. I'm thrilled to meet you. You're the CEO of Field.

That's pretty impressive. That must be a hell of an icebreaker at parties. It is, yeah. I'm going to the summit later this month and we have to introduce each other in this group chat and it just did. And the amount of people just texting me like in DMs, hi, actually, Hughesfield. Yeah. Fantastic.

For anyone that's listening who's a little delicate, innocent person, can you just tell us quickly what is Field? Absolutely. Field is a dating app for the curious. It's for humans who are open to experiencing people and relationships in new ways, who are looking to explore themselves and meet others who are on the same path or other paths. Okay.

It's a dating app, but a bit spicier than a dating app. Would that be fair? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is a way to describe it. Now you, I say you, not you personally, but Field have just released a piece of joint research with the Kinsey Institute of All People, the gold standard of sex research at the moment. What brought that about? Did you approach them or did they approach you? And what did you want to find out?

So we have worked with Dr. Justin Le Miller for a while on different projects and there can see a partner and we've always wanted to

find a way to share insights from what we're seeing is happening on our platform. We really believe that with all humility, the kinds of experiences, the kinds of data and the kinds of insights that we have on the field are

are incomparable to anywhere else. Oh, yeah. Well, I would say that. I'm a sex historian and what you never, ever, ever get until really recently is that kind of information, that kind of personal preferences, what people on that micro level, it's just never existed before. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

One thing that I've experienced, and I think a lot of people from the team have experienced, is that we're seeing all these journeys that people have. We have the privilege of receiving some of the stories people just want to share, but they don't always make it to the public in a way that is...

accessible and helps people see that there are so many ways that you can exist. And there's so many ways you can express yourself and experience relationships and others. And this report was kind of our way to show that

both how generational shifts are looking right now, but also to give insight into likely unexpected things and patterns, such as what Gen Z are actually fantasizing about. We would think it's one thing, but actually it's quite different. The difference between different generations as a whole, how people define themselves and present themselves. And that's how everything came about. We launched it on September 4th.

to coincide with World Sexual Health Day. And we just wanted to really open new conversations around sexual health and relationships, which are really tightly intertwined. And this isn't a case of data scraping from your users. You use the platform to send out a questionnaire

And the first thing that kind of took me back, I don't know why it should, I should have known better than this, was the age range. I mean, it was thousands of people that responded to this, wasn't it? But it was aged 18 up to, was it 99? Yeah.

Yeah, as open as we can. Everybody. And what kind of questions were you asking people? We would ask questions around what is people's preferred relationship style? What are they looking for? And what is their current relationship style? How they identify themselves? So even though we have this information in some ways, we wanted to make sure we offer people the ability to express that in that format.

There's so much that people are openly sharing with us whenever we ask them questions like this. So we just wanted to create that format that allows us to publish it in a way for anyone to be able to kind of get to know and hopefully either find themselves or get inspired to look for themselves.

This interview is following on from another interview that we did about the history of dating, in particular Lonely Hearts adverts. I don't know if you're nearly the same age that I am, but I can certainly remember newspapers with the Lonely Heart adverts. They kind of had this...

I don't want to say it, but I am going to say it, kind of like tragic feel to them. Like they were sort of a bit of a punchline if you were going to put an ad in a paper, you know. And then suddenly the dating apps arrived and they seem to have changed that completely. It's no longer a tragic thing. Why do you think the dating apps managed to make it

normal and cool and interesting, whereas the Lonely Hearts adverts for a very long time, they were kind of a bit desperate. I think one of the key differences is the equality of experience when you go on a dating platform. You have this kind of barrier to entry. You have to put yourself out there. You have to put your image or information about yourself and then publish it that way. I think one of the things with Lonely Hearts was that you're kind of

Putting yourself out there in a space and you don't really know who is seeing it. How are they responding? And there's just silence. And I think it's actually really brave if you think about it. There's a lot of bravery. Sure, it is. Yeah. And it takes a lot of courage to do something like this. I can't really...

imagine it right now. But today to go on a dating platform, everyone has to go through that process of being okay to put themselves out there. And I think that evens out the experience and it makes it just less awkward.

Can I put something that might be a bit controversial towards you? I have heard rumblings that people are starting to turn away from dating apps. Just little murmurs here, there and everywhere that people just hit a point where they're just like, oh God, I just can't be doing with any of it anymore. As the CEO of a dating app, what is your take on that?

Yeah, I've heard more about it too. I think what people are turning away from isn't dating apps as a whole. I think people are rejecting being considered as just parts of a very transactional exchange. I think that's what people are saying no to. So I think as long as dating platforms allow people

space for the humanity and the unique nature and pace and rhythm of every human. They're actually incredible spaces. Where else could you meet someone like a stranger that you wouldn't cross paths with in your day-to-day life? So I think they're really powerful, but I think

The rejection we're seeing, any rejection that we're currently seeing has to do with how people perceive the whole experience, which can be transactional on many platforms. And people feel like they're being collected or they are collecting like little cards. I think that's the thing that is just not interesting. And it exists in various different, for various different reasons. One is probably there are many people using platforms now. So it's just endless.

And the other one is we're just craving more real, authentic experiences. There is a bit of impatience in dating sometimes. I think people want to go on the platform and just find someone like right now. That's not really possible. There is a lot that needs to happen for dating.

humans to find ways to connect to each other, not just connect technologically, but connect like in depth. And I think if we put that patience and if we put ourselves out there and we're open ourselves to meet people as they are, we're

real magic can happen. I like that. I read a piece of research about the dating apps and it said exactly that, that the reason that some people find them exhausting is precisely because of the amount of choice. It's like choice overload and then people kind of, they're not relating to them as people. It's like Pokemon cards or something. And you kind of lose that human interaction with it sometimes. Yeah, and I think most,

Right now, what people are looking for is probably a bit more curation when it comes to the kinds of people they meet. Like there has to be something that you can hold on to that isn't an algorithm that tracks who you find attractive, but it's more to do with intention and has more to do with interest probably.

one thing that we see in fields is we're trying to find what sets us apart. We're often have this kind of exploration and kind of looking inward, like what is it that we give to people? Can we give more of it? Do we need to think of other ways? And,

conceptually, one of the things we offer is this community feeling because the people who come to field are really open. They might want something or they might be curious about something specific, but they're quite accepting and sort of nonjudgmental towards what others want and what others might be looking for or what others might be into. And

And this openness allows for a kind of conversation that is really honest. And that seems to really resonate with people. So it's not just about...

what you look for. It's also where you are, who you are and what and who the other people are. I love that. And you do have a very loyal fan base. I've been putting the feelers out from people I know and the feedback is, oh yeah, I like field. You do have that loyal fan base, but we should talk about the report because

There were some things that came out of that that I wouldn't have seen coming. I would have thought that Gen Z, after the pandemic and being locked in a house for a year and political instability and everything else that we've been going through, I thought they would be itching to be let off the chain and go completely wild. But the data you've got back is, well, you tell me what you found out about Gen Z. Yeah.

It's one of those things that is surprising at first, but then you sit and think about it actually isn't that shocking. So what we found with this research is that 23% of Gen Z field members prefer monogamy compared to just 12% of boomers.

I think that's the thing that's kind of challenging when you compare the two. You would expect it's probably the other way around. But if we dig in, we see that the most prominent relationship style for Gen Z currently in practice does remain ethical non-monogamy at 33%. This generation is practicing open relationships with a lot more confidence and comfort,

and are curious about monogamy, which is probably something they haven't fully experienced or explored yet. And if we look at different, like more older generations, they are more familiar with monogamy and they are looking to explore ethical non-monogamy. So I think the pattern here is

really exploration and curiosity for relationships that are different and alternative to what people have experienced so far. And this is, people are looking for themselves and they're looking for others that way. When you said it like that, it just made me think, so Gen Z are fantasizing about monogamy. Yeah, that's how I would put it. Yeah.

I love that. You've got all the boomers going, oh God, I wish, I wish I could just open things up and experiment a bit. And Gen Z are so off the, they're so utterly wild. They're like, I'm just fantasizing about settling down. I think I've become quite sensitive to assumptions that we put in these things. There is settling down is one thing, but I think being monogamous could be a different thing. Very true. That was a good catch. Yes. Hmm.

When you get data like this, how does that help inform an app like Field? When you look at this, does it change what you want to do? How does it alter things to know that Gen Z are sort of more interested in monogamy than we thought they would be? It gets our cogs turning, for sure. We sit and we think.

We talk to our community, to our members a lot, and we have a lot of this kind of insights coming our way. And what usually happens when we are surprised is,

We either get a little kind of almost giddy to experiment and think big about something that we haven't seen in other platforms ever and something that we haven't thought about before at all and doing it with our members, or we just feel confidence in something that we were already planning to do. I think one of the features we released recently is an example of this. One of the

most requested features was the ability to add multiple partners and people to your profile. And we called it Constellation to allow people...

freedom in what kind of partners they add. So instead of just sticking to this idea of multiple partners, we wanted to open it up so that people could sign up with friends if they're looking for friends. And that sort of fluidity is something that we consistently get inspired to

find ways to express in the platform and find ways to enable expressing in the platform. I think when you see that Gen Z, for instance, are so open, by default, we just want to continue offering space for that expression and personalization that doesn't feel like it's putting them in a box, but also allows them to stay open

exactly as they are, where they are and how they feel. What about some of the older generations? I taught at university for years and I adored Gen Z and just how fluid they are. You can see it changing so much even within a few years, their understanding of what a relationship is and polyamory and friendships, how they all merge together. What about the older generations? What information did you get coming out about them? Are they equally

leaning into this sort of breakdown of what we think of as traditional relationships? One thing that we found, which I found quite, it wasn't necessarily surprising, but I hadn't thought of it at all, was that I already mentioned that just 12% of boomers, for example, prefer monogamy.

But a significant portion of them, so almost 30%, are looking for friends with benefits relationships. Wow. Oh, that's interesting. That definition in particular, which I found to be really interesting. Yeah. I don't know necessarily what to make of it, but maybe you have thoughts.

Maybe my thoughts are that they're busy. The women in particular just can't really be doing with a full-time relationship. But if you could come over, give them an orgasm and maybe put up some shelves, that would be just about perfect. That's my... But don't listen to me. Talk to the Kinsey researchers. But that is fascinating, isn't it? It's interesting. Yeah, there is a sense of, I think...

If I were to think about it, probably kind of confidence in one's life as it is right now and an openness to welcome people, but also explicitly state the kind of ways that you welcome people. Yeah, I could keep you here all day and just fire questions at you, but that would be extremely rude of me. But as a final question, we've been looking at the history of dating and how people met.

I know you don't have a crystal ball, but what do you think is the future of dating and dating apps? Will it all move online? Do you think that eventually people will, they'll crave meeting in real life or what do you think? What's your projected theory for the future of dating? It will be online and offline.

I don't think we can stick to just one. We've seen it with the pandemic, which we don't want to talk about, but we do need in-person contact and connection in some way. We need tangible experiences. We need holistic physical experiences.

and we're seeing it with the events we host in London we're seeing it with the magazine we launched recently people love that they need that but it's not just that you also need the technology because it's convenient and it does allow for really diverse experiences and connections I think it makes you braver too I think it like something like fields you can put

fantasies and say a bit more about what you would... You'd never go up to someone in the pub and be like, hi, are you a dom? I'm a sub. Do you fancy doing a scene? You just... You'd get thrown out. But on something like Fields, you can really put that out there. But this is what I'm interested in. Anyone else? Exactly. It also allows for baby steps towards that. Because if you are a dom or a sub, there is actually a possibility for you to know where to go and to say that. But if you're not, and if you've never...

interacting with that world, like there are baby steps towards that. And it's usually online in the comfort of your home, feeling a little safer to do that.

I also think diverse relationships will get more normalized. And we are seeing that even in this report. I think people will feel a bit more, increasingly more comfortable to explore and almost build structures based on how they feel, when they feel good and when they feel whole and when they feel inspired.

And it doesn't have to default to monogamy. It also doesn't have to default to polyamory. It could be kind of whatever makes sense for the people involved at the moment. One thing that we talk about a lot is this idea of serving niche interests at scale. This is where technology actually really enables that. I think things that are considered niche before are becoming more accessible.

accessible and people are capable of exploring that and deciding whether it's for them or not. And I think this is only going to continue. But nostalgia, romance, I think they are here to stay and take new shapes as we go forward.

Anna, you have been fabulous to talk to. Thank you so much for coming to chat to us today. Are you on social media in case people would like to follow you and see more about the work you do? I am indeed. Yes, it's Anna, A-N-A underscore, underscore, underscore, Kirova, K-I-R-O-V-A. Brilliant. Thank you so much. You have been absolutely fascinating to listen to. Thank you too, Kate. Thank you for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening and thank you so much to Francesca and Anna for joining me. And if you like what you heard, don't forget to swipe right to review and follow along wherever it is that you get your podcasts.

If you'd like us to explore a subject or if you just wanted to say hi, you can email us at betwixt at historyhit.com. Coming up next, we've got the latest instalment in our limited series, The Secret Lives of the Six Wives, and we are looking at Catherine Howard. This podcast was edited by Tom DeLarge and produced by Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Charlotte Long. Join me again betwixt the sheets, the history of sex scandal in society, a podcast by History Hit. This podcast contains music from Epidemic Sound.

To everyone else, this is a task. But to you?

This is opportunity.

This is a PSA, or Public Sock Announcement. Experts have declared Bombas socks as the best way to warm up chilly feet. These pairs are super cushy, soft, and designed for maximum coziness. Plus, for every pair purchased, another pair will be donated, so someone in need of essential clothing can stay warm this winter.

Go to bombas.com slash ACAST and use code ACAST for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash ACAST and use code ACAST at checkout.