Shadowing Practice: Why Dating Apps Don’t Always Fix Loneliness | What We’re Really Searching For - Learn English Speaking with Video

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If you've ever opened a dating app and then scrolled around for 15 or 20 minutes and then closed at Disappointed, and then opened it again 20 minutes later to see if anybody flirted with you or if anybody responded,

then you already understand the loop.

Because you can spend hours searching, chatting back and forth, flirting, exchanging pictures, maybe even hooking up, or maybe even getting what you thought you wanted,

and still feel lonely when it's over.

And here's what surprised me.

In a 2025 study of 226 men who had sex with men,

participants spent an average of nine and a half hours per week across nearly three different dating apps.

And more problematic use was associated with spending more time on the app searching, but not with having more sexual partners.

So if more searching doesn't lead to meeting more people, just more wasted time, then what exactly are we searching for?

Because I think for a lot of us, the answer is more than just sex.

And some of the latest research on dating apps gives us a really interesting clue into what may actually help with loneliness.

But first, we need to understand why the loop is so hard to stop.

First, I'm not here to tell you that dating apps are bad.

They're convenient for people with really busy lives, and if you're looking for sex, they can be a great solution.

Dating apps can also be useful if you're naturally more introverted, or if you just don't like going out to the public spaces like bars where people typically go to meet,

or if you live in a rural area and you just don't have many people near you.

But the question I became interested in is different.

What happens when a dating app becomes one of our primary tools for human connection, but we're asking it to give us something it may not be especially good at giving us?

Because contact and connection are not the same thing, and the research gets pretty interesting here.

A team of researchers in Switzerland studied 226 men who have sex with men and who regularly use dating apps.

Again, the research found that participants averaged 9.5 hours per week across nearly 3 different dating apps.

When they rated why they used their favorite dating app on a scale of 1 to 5, the strongest motivation was finding a sex partner, 4.3 out of 5.

Finding a life partner came in at 2.3 out of 5.

Now that part probably isn't shocking.

Guys use dating apps to hook up all the time.

But here's the part that I found more interesting.

Higher problematic youth scores were associated with higher anxiety, depression, loneliness, and lower sexual fulfillment.

They were also associated with spending more time on the apps, but not with having more sexual partners.

And while this study doesn't prove that the dating apps caused anxiety, depression, or loneliness, since this type of study can't tell us which came first,

the problematic app use or the mental health symptoms, it does raise an interesting question.

If somebody is spending more and more time searching on dating apps without becoming more fulfilled, then why does he keep coming back?

I can only answer that part from my own experience.

When I moved to a new town and I was looking to meet new people, but I hadn't yet, and I was feeling a little bit socially isolated,

and since I don't fit neatly into gay or straight, so I don't really fully feel comfortable in most gay or straight spaces where people go to meet in public,

I spent a lot of time on dating apps.

Some of them were more relationship-oriented, but since I wasn't really looking for a relationship at the time and I needed to satisfy my natural male urges,

I found myself spending more time on the hookup-oriented dating apps.

99% of the time I spent on these dating apps amounted to nothing more than just wasted time.

And there was a lot of wasted time.

But occasionally I connected with somebody and it was great and a lot of fun in the moment.

But I noticed something afterwards.

Once the horniness was gone, the hookup often didn't feel as good in hindsight as it did in the moment.

And usually not good enough for another meetup with that person.

The chase, the buildup, and the anticipation were almost as exciting as the sex itself.

And the novelty of the hot sex often wore off after the first

or second time because the main thing that brought us together was physical attraction, and for me, that can fade pretty quickly if there's nothing below the surface to create a deeper connection.

It can also fade pretty quickly if somebody appears different than their pictures, or if our personalities just simply aren't aligned.

The most fulfilling sex that I've ever experienced has been with partners that I knew deeply, where there was a strong sense of chemistry,

trust, camaraderie, affection, communication, and a bond that went deeper than skin deep.

The app encounters could occasionally satisfy something immediately, but they rarely satisfied that.

And even still, I kept searching.

Looking back, I thought I was just looking for another hookup, one that was better than the last one, and sometimes I was.

But I think a lot of the time, I was actually looking for the person who would finally give me a reason to stop searching.

A real-life partner.

Somebody that I genuinely connected with.

And great sex that came out of that connection.

Instead, the search itself became almost endless.

Like I was on a proverbial treadmill exerting a lot of time

and effort but not making any ground on finding that real partner.

And that brings us to The Loop.

Every time you open a dating app, there's a maybe.

Maybe they responded.

Maybe they sent a picture.

Maybe they tapped me or flirted with me.

Maybe tonight's going to be the night.

Maybe this person will be the one.

You don't know what you're going to find until you look.

And that uncertainty is what's so compelling.

It's a similar principle to slot machines in a casino.

Say you sit down and you pull the handle a few times and nothing happens.

But then maybe on the third or fourth time you pull the handle and you get a big payout.

So now you're feeling lucky.

So then you start putting more money in and pulling the handle again and nothing happens.

So then you just keep putting money in and pulling the handle hoping that you get another big payout.

So what I'm saying is the reward is unpredictable and it can come at any time.

And that's what keeps us coming back.

On a dating app, whenever you open it on your phone, sometimes nothing exciting happens.

But then sometimes you open it and something exciting does happen.

Maybe somebody sends you a flirt or a nice message or some pictures or shows some interest.

So then you respond.

And then a few minutes later, you check to see if they responded.

And if they didn't, maybe you check again 20 minutes later, because maybe then you'll finally get that reward of a response.

One framework that helped me understand my own experience with dating apps comes from Stanford addiction psychiatrist Anna Lemke.

In the well-known book Dopamine Nation, she describes the brain as continually trying to maintain a balance between pleasure and pain.

With repeated exposure to highly rewarding, instantly gratifying stimuli, in this case, using a dating app that occasionally leads to sex,

the reward, the sex, can become less satisfying over time, while the discomfort of going without it can increase.

So a behavior can shift from I'm doing this because it feels good,

which is impulsive, to I'm doing this because not doing it feels uncomfortable, and that's compulsive.

It's like a heroin addict who shoots up, not because the high feels great since they've built up a tolerance to the drug,

but mainly to avoid the excruciating pain of withdrawal, the pain of not shooting up.

Now I should mention the Swiss dating app researchers did not measure dopamine in their study.

I'm just using Lemke's framework as one way of explaining my dating app use

and why I felt so compelled to use them more than I really wanted to.

But then I found another study that changed how I thought about the loneliness question entirely, because one behavior on Grindr was associated with less loneliness, but it wasn't sexting.

In 2017, researchers at Cornell surveyed 274 Grindr users.

They were interested in something called intimate self-disclosure.

Basically, what happens when you tell another person something honest and revealing about yourself.

Their analysis found that more frequent Kriner use was associated with greater intimate self-disclosure,

and that disclosure was associated with less internalized shame about their sexuality, and lower internalized shame was associated with less loneliness.

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So the beneficial aspect of the app use wasn't sexting and hooking up to reduce shame and loneliness, it was revealing something true about yourself to another person,

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and as a result feeling known, seen, and understood.

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Essentially, being able to say something

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that you may not be able to say anywhere else and discovering that the other person doesn't reject you for it.

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For guys who don't fit neatly into straight or gay, either sexually, socially, or both, who often have to hide parts of themselves

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or perform in public spaces in order to fit in and not be rejected by the group, I can see why dating apps could provide enormous value.

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And that's when something clicked for me.

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Maybe what a lot of us are really searching for isn't just another person to have sex with.

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Maybe we're searching for someone with whom we can be our true selves without the fear of rejection.

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And the middlemen survey gives me another reason to think that that may be true.

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The middlemen survey is a self-selected survey of guys who found the middlemen content.

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These guys don't fit neatly into straight or gay, sexually, socially, or both.

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It's not nationally representative, but as more and more men have responded, a remarkably consistent pattern has emerged.

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Of the 395 respondents, 82% reported that they felt like the lonely only to some degree.

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That means feeling like nobody else experiences attractions or feelings the way they do.

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30% said they felt that way almost constantly.

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Another 22% said they felt that way for most of their lives until recently.

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And nearly 30% said they felt that way sometimes.

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Only about 5% said they felt like they've always felt understood.

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And then look at what else these men told me.

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Nearly 75% reported that they felt like they don't belong in either the straight or the gay worlds.

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Over 65% reported loneliness that's hard to explain.

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60% wished they had somebody they could talk with who truly gets it.

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And almost 60% reported shame about their attractions.

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Those numbers make me ask a basic question.

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If these men want connection, then where are they supposed to go?

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Among the 172 gay and queer men who answered the community questions in the survey, nearly 74% said they don't connect with the nightlife,

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bar, and club culture of the gay spaces available to them.

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Nearly two-thirds said those spaces feel too focused on appearance and youth.

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And almost two-thirds said their values, hobbies, and interests felt too different from those found in the gay spaces available to them.

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And then I asked 93 bisexual or pansexual men how connected they felt to a bisexual community.

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Do you know how many said, yes, I feel connected to a bisexual community?

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Zero.

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Not a single one.

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Some said the bispaces exist, but they're either too hard to find or they're not really what they're looking for.

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And the broader survey paints an equally striking picture.

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I asked 390 men, where, if anywhere, do you feel most fully yourself?

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The top answer?

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Alone.

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29% of the respondents.

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Another 15% said in nature or doing solitary activities.

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And another 11% said, honestly, nowhere yet.

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That means for 55% of the 390 men in this survey, the place where they feel most authentically themselves isn't with a social group,

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family, friends, or a community.

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It isn't even with another person.

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And that matters because loneliness isn't always being physically alone.

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Sometimes it's being surrounded by people while feeling like nobody actually knows you, often due to hiding parts of yourself or performing in order to fit in with the group.

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So if you don't feel at home in the straight or gay spaces available to you, and there are no in-between spaces, and you don't know where else to go to find men who understand you,

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then where do you go?

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For a lot of guys, the answer is obvious.

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You open your phone.

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And that's where the apps come in.

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Of the 272 middlemen survey respondents who answered an optional question about dating apps and websites,

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190 reported using at least one.

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Those 190 men made 377 app or website selections, almost two selections per user on average.

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And Grindr, Scruff, Sniffies, and Tinder were among the most commonly selected in that order.

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And here's where I think the story becomes really important, because when I looked specifically at those 190 men using dating apps, they weren't describing lives overflowing with connection.

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Quite the opposite, actually.

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More than 76% reported loneliness from not being truly known.

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More than 83% said they'd experienced that lonely-only feeling.

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And nearly a quarter said nobody in their lives knew the full truth about them.

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Again, that doesn't necessarily mean that the dating apps caused their loneliness.

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Lonelier men just may be more likely to use dating apps.

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But I think it does raise an important tension.

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These men are actively searching for other men and women, and presumably sometimes meeting them.

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Yet many still feel unseen as their true selves, and consequently lonely.

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And perhaps the most revealing finding came when these app users were asked what would make the biggest difference in their lives.

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The top answer?

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Friends who truly understand them.

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70%.

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The second top answer?

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A private community of men like them.

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62%.

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Being able to fully come out?

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23.4%.

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That one stopped me, because it suggests that for a lot of these guys, the problem isn't simply, I need to tell more people about my sexuality.

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They wanted something deeper.

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And when those spaces aren't available in everyday life, it makes sense why a lot of men gravitate towards dating apps.

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Maybe what looks like a search for another hookup is sometimes a search for a person

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or a community where we don't have to hide parts of ourselves or perform in order to fit in and belong.

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And that's ultimately why I don't think the answer is simply delete the dating apps, because they serve a real purpose.

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I just don't want them to be the only door that men know how to open.

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So instead of telling them to close that door, I built another one.

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Not a replacement for dating apps, and not an anti-sex base, but just another way for men to connect, without leading with sex first.

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I built the middlemen community around two main ideas, Truth-first connection and effort-first connection.

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Truth-first connection means having somewhere where you can say the thing that you've been carrying silently for years.

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Somewhere where you can be yourself around men like you without having to hide parts of yourself

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or perform in order to fit in.

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Maybe you live a straight life but sometimes discreetly connect with guys.

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Maybe you're married.

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Maybe you're bi or gay but don't fit neatly into gay or bi spaces.

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Maybe you're questioning or curious or you don't like labels

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or you don't know what label you are and maybe you don't want one.

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Maybe you're struggling with loneliness, relationships, faith, or sexuality.

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Well, in this middlemen community, you can speak your truth and hear other guys say, me too.

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Like the finding in the Cornell research study, real connection can begin when you share your true self with someone and they accept you as you are.

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But exchanging words isn't the only way that men bond.

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Men also build relationships by doing things together.

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A dating app can offer a reward in seconds, but a run asks something of you first.

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So does lifting weights, or learning how to play a song with band members, or going on a hike, or going hunting, or fishing,

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or cycling, or surfing, or building something together.

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Those activities put men beside each other repeatedly.

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You don't have to sit across from another guy and say, hi, would you like to start a deep and meaningful friendship today?

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You can simply say, hey, do you want to go for a run next Saturday.

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And before you know it, you're sharing miles and maybe you're talking about work and relationships and friendships.

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And then maybe you reveal something about yourself you've never told anybody before.

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That's the kind of community that middlemen is.

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It's centered around activities, values, hobbies, interests, conversations, goals, and shared experiences.

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Sex and sexuality can absolutely be a part of it.

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It just doesn't have to be the basis for the relationship.

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Because I believe that connecting on a deeper level leads to longer lasting and more meaningful friendships, partners, and community.

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And instead of telling men to close the only door that's useful to them, I'd rather just give them another one.

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So the next time you're about to open a dating app, ask yourself one question.

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What am I searching for right now?

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Is it sex?

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Is it boredom relief or loneliness relief?

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Is it attention or validation?

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Am I looking for someone to talk to?

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Am I looking for a life partner?

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Am I looking for a connection with somebody that's more than just sex?

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Or am I looking for someone with whom I can be seen and accepted as my true self?

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Because different needs may require different doors.

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And if you're looking for sex and a dating app helps you find it, then that's great.

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But if what you really need is a deeper connection, and you find yourself caught in the loop wasting too much time on dating apps

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and feeling like you never found what you're ultimately looking for, then ask yourself whether the tool that you're using is actually giving you that.

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And if it isn't, then maybe you don't need to search harder.

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Maybe you just need another door.

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That's what I'm trying to build with middlemen.

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If you're gay or bi but don't fit neatly into the spaces designed for you, if you're questioning closeted, fluid, or unlabeled, if you're straight or closeted and you're not out to anybody,

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or you're simply a guy who's attracted to men who wants relationships built around more than just sex, the middlemen community is there.

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The link's in the description.

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And if you haven't already, I also invite you to take the anonymous middlemen survey, and the link for that's in the description as well.

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After you complete the survey, you'll be able to see the collective results, so you'll be able to see how many other guys out there answered the questions just like you did.

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And at the time of recording this video, there are responses from 550 men from all over the world.

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The goal isn't necessarily to never open an app again.

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It's to build a life where an app is no longer the only place where you think connection might be waiting.

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And maybe to finally find that person who gives you a reason to stop searching.

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Because a grid of faces can show you who's nearby eye.

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It can introduce you to somebody.

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It could even be the beginning of something meaningful, but it cannot guarantee that anybody on that grid will actually know you.

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And sometimes what you're searching for is not just another face.

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It's a place where we can finally be seen, known, accepted, understood, and supported as our true selves.

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Thanks for venturing into the middle with me.

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I'll catch you in the next one.

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63 sentences

Speaking Goals for This Clip: Master Real-Life Conversation Flow

This video is perfect for boosting your ability to discuss complex ideas—like loneliness, technology, and human connection—in natural, conversational English. You’ll practice structuring thoughts, using transitions, and expressing personal experiences, all while sounding fluent and engaged. It’s a great way to move beyond basic phrases and into meaningful dialogue, a key fluency milestone!

Phrase Bank: Reusable Expressions for Daily Chats

"the loop" – Refers to a repetitive, hard-to-break cycle (e.g., "I’m stuck in a loop of checking my phone!")
"problematic use" – Describes unhealthy habits with technology or activities (e.g., "Her problematic use of social media affects her sleep.")
"below the surface" – Means deeper than what’s obvious (e.g., "Their friendship has issues below the surface.")
"wore off" – When a feeling or effect fades (e.g., "The excitement wore off after a few days.")
"primary tools" – Main methods for doing something (e.g., "Books are still my primary tools for learning.")

Fix Your Weak Spots: Rhythm and Emphasis in Storytelling

The video’s narrative style—mixing research, personal stories, and questions—teaches you how to vary your rhythm for impact. Notice how the speaker slows down to highlight key points (like "contact and connection are not the same thing") and speeds up during anecdotes. Practice shadowing this clip with a shadowing app to mimic these patterns: pause after emphasis words, stress contrasts, and let your voice rise and fall naturally. Shadow speak techniques here will help you sound more engaging, whether you’re sharing a story or debating an idea. With a little practice, you’ll master the art of keeping listeners hooked—just like the speaker does!

Ready to level up? Use these phrases, focus on rhythm, and try shadowing the video daily. Tools like a shadowing app can make practice easy, turning quick sessions into big progress. Remember: every conversation is a chance to grow, and this clip gives you the skills to shine!

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was associated · were associated · were also associated
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	men who had · men who have · person who would
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've ever opened · I've ever experienced · they've built

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Why Dating Apps Don’t Always Fix Loneliness | What We’re Really Searching For - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Fix Your Weak Spots: Rhythm and Emphasis in Storytelling

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?