ANDREA SILENZI: I don’t respond to anyone.
HZ: You don’t?
ANDREA SILENZI: I look at their faces and I feel nothing. So I just keep my mouth shut.
HZ: “I look at your face, and I feel nothing.” That is a chilling indictment of the whole system.
HZ: A few months ago, I was a guest on one of my favourite podcasts, Why Oh Why, hosted by Andrea Silenzi. Why Oh Why is about dating, which Andrea was doing reluctantly, as she was still in pain from a break-up with her long-term boyfriend. Approaching people is tricky online, as in real life, and because Andrea knows one of my favourite things to do is to analyse the ways humans communicate with words, she got me to take a look at the kinds of opening lines people send each other on dating apps to initiate contact, to try to figure out why most of them are not piquing her interest.
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