PROVO, Utah — A few years ago, Tom Robinson, an advertising professor at BYU, noticed a trend in how his students were spending their free time.
“We saw a lot of young people that were sitting home on Friday and Saturday nights alone and not doing anything, and I started to try to figure out why, and I realized that none of them were actually going out on dates,” he said. “We just saw a need, and we love this age group, and we didn't want them to suffer.”
Robinson and co-host Professor Robert Walz created the "It’s Just Dinner" podcast, which they now call "Dating Made Simple," to emphasize that a date just means spending a little time getting to know someone. On the show, they talk about the challenges young people face with social media and dating apps.
“The expectation that you're going to meet somebody and you're going to have sexual relations scares a lot of people off, and so a lot of people just don't date,” said Walz. “And so you think that people are using dating apps as hookups, and they are, but the vast majority of the people are not really wired for that. Most people are looking to have a relationship to get to know somebody.”
There are many reasons why young people just aren’t dating, said Macie Thelin, a BYU student and podcast producer.
“People are afraid to commit,” she said. “People want to start their careers. People are okay being single. They want to experience a life when without having, in a sense, someone to drag along.”
Thelin finds guests like dating coaches and matchmakers to bring expertise to their listeners.
“We're hitting on those people that are afraid to approach someone, that are afraid that they're going to get rejected, and helping them overcome that fear because in reality, life's better when you spend it with somebody else,” she said.
You can find the Dating Made Simple podcast on any app where you listen to podcasts. They release new episodes every Friday.
