When Dating Turns Into A Star Rating

Should we rate the people we date like we do with Uber drivers?

Because we are.
Like restaurants.
Like gadgets we buy on Amazon.
Like a video on YouTube.

We’ve taken the messiest, most irrational human act… attraction… and shoved it into the logic of a five-star scale with comments.

Tea, the women-only “dating safety” whisper network app, didn’t invent this… but it distilled it.
You could join a group chat… swap stories… post warnings.
Leave Yelp-style reviews of men you’d been on dates with.
A “green flag” for the good ones.
A “red flag” for the bad ones.

In a way, this makes perfect sense.

In a way, it feels like a real way to protect women.
Women helping women in an increasingly difficult, messy and sometimes dangerous dating landscape.
We say this is about safety… camaraderie… community… protecting each other.

But step back (even just a little) and it’s hard not to see something else.

It’s about whether we’re okay turning dating into a gig economy of reputations.
Where a name… a photo… a personal history… might be logged, shared and archived without consent.
Where what’s said might be fact… gossip… or pure opinion.
Where one person’s “cheap date” is another’s “knight in shining armour.”

Some have asked if the genders were reversed, would this app even be allowed in an app store?

We could discuss the gender issues in details, but that is not my area of expertise. 
My context is the technology and how it’s changing our behavior.
Once we normalize the idea that anyone can be rated and critiqued (even within a “private” group) those ratings stop feeling like information.
They start feeling like a record… a permanent file.
One that can be screenshot, shared, stripped of context… and that context could just be a feeling.

And when that file leaks (as Tea’s did) it’s not just the “reviewed” who get exposed.

It’s the “reviewers.”
Private conversations about divorces… fertility struggles… fears about safety… life anxieties you’d never post publicly… all suddenly dumped into the open.

The same vulnerability that was meant to protect becomes something that is weaponized.

It’s a tragic reminder that when we think we’re doing accountability.
Sometimes… we’re just doing surveillance.
And surveillance doesn’t care about gender (it cuts both ways).
Just like gossip.

To me, the bigger story isn’t men vs. women.

It’s what happens when platforms promise safety… but the system fails in ways that spill out beyond everyone’s control.
When a tool designed to help escapes its purpose and becomes leverage… or revenge.

The problem isn’t just Tea.

It’s how easily we slide from “protect each other” to “document each other.”
From “we need this” to “did you hear about so-and-so…”

We’ve turned whispers into receipts… and receipts into identity.

We live in a world thick with personal distrust (often for good reason).
A world where women are often treated horribly online (and offline).
A world where unverified information about anyone can go viral in minutes (and ruin lives and families in its wake).
A world where piling on has become sport (and shared beyond the initial platform).

And yet… after Tea’s public breach, almost a million new people signed up to take part.

The very tool meant to dodge danger wound up revealing private lives to the world… and that just encouraged more of that experience.

There’s got to be a better path forward.

This is what Elias Makos and I discussed on CJAD 800 AM.

https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/2152092504

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