This is Steve Dean.
82. 200 dating profiles: horizontal with a superconnector (1 of 2)
Welcome to horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down, wearing robes. I know I said that Season 3 would be threesomes all season long, but we will still have the occasional dyad, because, sometimes it just works out best that way.
Steve: I intentionally fill my dating life with people from all different parts of … the social spectrum. I don’t really have that many scruples about who I’m willing to explore and experience things with, because I really wanna understand myself and other people, from many different angles. And I don’t like the idea of arbitrarily cutting people out, on— just because I’m not looking for like a long-term committed relationship with a particular person, doesn’t mean that, I don’t wanna understand how they see the world.
Lila: What do you mean “arbitrarily cutting people out”? That also doesn’t mean you have to be romantic with them, just to see the way that they see the world…
Steve: Uh, it depends. If there’s someone who I have definitively no intention of bringing into my social network, then the only other pathway, other than physically working together — like on a project — would be some degree of romantic or sexual involvement. Because like, they’re not a friend, per se. They’re not someone I want among my friends. They’re not someone who’d want to be among my friends, because there’s no overlap there. But, when it comes to still wanting to understand their world — you know, it’s almost like a quiet, clandestine, moment that we will share together. Or we’ll like go and hang out at a park for a little while, or go and grab a hotel for the night. We still get to have an interaction and get to understand the world through each other’s eyes … with the complete acknowledgement, that this is just for us. There is no logistical setup in which this can expand to be a thing where this person’s like, rooted in my life, and, exists throughout my different friend groups. ‘Cause neither of us want that. We just want to understand what it looks like to see the world through each other’s eyes. And it’s nice when those moments happen. And, to be able to have those moment with people who otherwise would have no reason to ever be in my life.
Steve: I feel like connection does not require compatibility. But commitment tends to require compatibility. I look at connection as a skill, that can be honed.
Lila: So is it just that you want to train yourself to be this Mmmegaconnector who can connect with anybody in the world — therefore, you sort of put your body on the line romantically in order to test this?
Steve: Absolutely. But it’s not like I— it’s not like a thing that I set out one day, like I want to be able to connect with anyone in the world. I think it’s just a skill that’s been optimized, over time. And part of it is my profession, you know, I’m dating across 200 different dating apps, and you never know what you’re gonna find on some of these apps. Some of them let you very strategically zoom in on exactly who you want, and I can predict, with almost perfect certainty, that, if I go on a date with this person from this app, we’re gonna be compatible and it’s gonna turn into something great. And there’s other times where, I can predict with almost-certainty that we are completely incompatible, and that we will never be… staples in one another’s lives. But, that the experience we craft together, however weird it is, will be memorable, and might be something we want to revisit.
Welcome to horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down, wearing robes.
[I know I said that Season 3 would be threesomes all season long, but we will still have the occasional dyad, because… sometimes it just works out best that way.]
In this episode, I lie down with Steve Dean.
Hi Steve Dean!
Steve Dean is a dating expert, a MmmmEGAConnector, an adventurer, a perpetual nomad, and an event SuperHost. He’s the founder of the dating industry consulting firm dateworking. He stewards workshops, dinners, coworking sessions, and massive meetups like the food-court-centered Hygge [HOO-GAH] (which means cozy in Danish).
Steve Dean intentionally dates people from all different parts of the social spectrum, including those he would never introduce to his friends, in order to understand their perspective on the world. I think he’s actually an anthropologist at heart, and dating is the Tribe he studies.
He’s a quintessential participant-observer. His experiences are research. His research is experiential. His brain incessantly crunches data, and relentlessly seeks for the most optimal of the optimal outcomes. I’ve never met a human machine quite like him.
This is Jillian. I love her. She and I share the mission of making the world a more intimate place. Subscribe to The Joy List!
One week this February, I had the mean blues, and I reached out to my friend Jillian, patron of the podcast, and creator of The Joy List, a weekly compilation of events that one can go to alone, and leave with a new friend. I asked her what she was excited about that week and she rattled off three or so happenings.
Then she asked, “How about you?”
And I realized that I wasn’t excited about anything that week. I had, in essence, nothing to look forward to.
So Jillian decided to fix that. She encouraged me to go to Open Brain, a roving salon for art and ideas that takes place in living rooms and public parks and spaces in-between. This was a living room edition. I almost didn’t go, I was just feeling so blah. But I eventually dusted off a tango song I used to sing, and showed up.
At Open Brain, two things happened in quick succession: I met a man from San Francisco, Michael (who became my lover), and he invited me along to an after-event hang in a hotel lobby in the Financial District. There I would meet Steve Dean, who was orchestrating the event. Everyone kept saying his name. Nobody said his first name on its own. He was Steve Dean to everyone.
Jillian said, “You don’t know Steve Dean? Oh. You should know Steve Dean.”
That clinched it. And so I went along to talk Burning Man with Michael, and meet Steve Dean.
When Steve Dean and I met, I told him, “Jillian said that we should know each other.”
Steve Dean said, “What’s your name?”
“Lila,” I said.
“What’s your last name?”
A bit bemused, I said, “Donnolo.”
“Yep,” said Steve Dean. “We should know each other.”
And then we talked intimacy, dating, and why teenagers are having less sex these days, until the wee hours.
Because I had recently curated my intimate immersive Valentine’s experience at Hacienda Villa, 14 Rooms, Steve consulted me about his love-language-themed townhouse full of intimate encounters, The Love Immersive, set for March 30th, and invited me to be a part of it.
Knowing that the environment would be overwhelming — potentially magnificent, but certainly overwhelming, I set up a breather-space. A closet with a cozy mat, blanket, and pillow set-up, like a child’s secret hiding spot, with three headsets programmed with an 11-minute audio experience I pre-recorded, about the upper limits problem, catching it in time, and the radical recalibration of rest.
The day of the Love Immersive, Michael was back in town from SF. I hadn’t seen him in three weeks, and we had ferocious, pounding sex that soaked all the way through my mattress cover. That night, at the Love Immersive, juiced up and well-fucked and sex-haired and satisfied. I met my current partner, Patrick.
Because Steve Dean is a Superconnector, I’m in the most communicative, loving romantic relationship of my life so far.
In this, the first half of our conversation, we talk about VR World (where Steve met Patrick), my tendency to codependency, Steve’s dating habits, whether connection or commitment requires compatibility, optimizing the skill of connection, dating across 200 different dating apps, the Sex on Demand app, whether comets are partners, or if they might be growth charts, polyamory as part orientation and part skill-set, how relationships are like start-ups, and the libido-killing cycle that Patrick and I found ourselves in at the outset of our relationship.
Next week’s episode will be the second half of my conversation with Steve Dean, in which I ask him for dating advice about my own relationship. It is available to patrons only!
You can become a patron of the horizontal arts and gain access to the part twos from every episode, as well as an invite to the secret patrons Facebook group, and a monthly video of intimacy tips…
In other words, come lie down with us in Chelsea, on the island of Manhattan, New York.
horizontal with Steve Dean, during our first recording attempt (hereafter to be known as: The Lost Recording). Manhattan, NY. March 2019
P.S. If you’d like all the horizontality in your inbox, I send (extremely intermittent) emails with information about my live events (stay tuned for one coming up at the end of June at Hacienda Studio in Bushwick!), photos, and other things of a horizontal nature. You can sign up for that on the homepage of horizontalwithlila.com
P.P.S. Cats were drugged in the making of this episode. And by cats I mean: one singular cat. And by drugged I mean: with catnip. Still. I thought it was important to tell you.
Links to Things:
Steve’s dating consultant / coach website, Dateworking
The Atlantic article about why teenagers are having less sex these days
Hinge (a dating app)
okcupid (another dating app)
Pure (a sex on demand app)
The Ethical Slut, the classic slut handbook, now in its 3rd edition
82. 200 dating profiles: horizontal with a superconnector (1 of 2)
Welcome to horizontal, the podcast about intimacy of all kinds, recorded while lying down, wearing robes. I know I said that Season 3 would be threesomes all season long, but we will still have the occasional dyad, because, sometimes it just works out best that way.
