The Great RomCon?

Human attraction, the elusive spark or personal chemistry you have with some people (but not others), has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years. We assess available metrics in person: body language, eye contact, confidence - all these tiny signals that help us work out whether someone is attractive, trustworthy, dangerous, charismatic, boorish, pompous, intelligent or completely insufferable...

Communication has been going through a revolution. Originally, humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to communicate face-to-face: tone of voice, eye contact, body language, nervous laughter, pheromones: all the cues and signals that will be read by our subconscious to help us understand one another. Then, within the past twenty years, we collectively decided to move large parts of our...

Innovation and technology have reshaped almost every aspect of our romantic and sexual lives: from how we flirt, to how we perform desirability (even male strippers wear tool belts), to how we understand what counts as “normal” intimacy. If you watch the film Kinsey, about his famous US sex study in the 1948 and 1953 in America, all anyone wants to know of the researchers is, “ Am I normal ?” We a...

This is a recording of our inaugural The Great RomCon? real-life event in London. Our budding singles and AI enthusiasts were in for a singles night with a difference: bonding over a fireside discussion with AI expert, Dr Antonio Weiss . We turned the tables and let AI prompt the conversation for once, where Dr Weiss discussed his further insights from his book ' AI Demystified ': AI is disrupting...

"Why don’t you like me?" No, not the beginning line of a progressive one-woman show, but one of many questions that we may ask ourselves about our friends, colleagues and lovers. If we have the time (and money), we may even pay someone to listen to us, in the form of talking therapy, in an effort to better understand ourselves and other people. Therapy has now gone mainstream - but what does that...

Artificial intelligence has moved from a niche technical field to a force shaping how we work, communicate and even participate in democracy. As governments and organisations increasingly rely on automated systems in the name of efficiency and convenience, questions about trust, transparency and public understanding have become impossible to ignore. What does it mean for everyday life when decisio...

Technology has transformed almost every aspect of modern romance, but for many disabled people, the digital world can be both a gateway to connection and a barrier to it. Dating apps promise opportunity, yet often overlook the needs of those who rely on them most. At the same time, our online lives have reshaped how we think about infidelity, financial imbalance, and even the boundaries of flirtin...

Gossip, since our pre-tribal dawn, has been a useful way of regulating social standings and ensuring community cohesion. In the online social media and dating app sphere, however, all this has changed, with men and women responding to this new age differently. Some women are finding online spaces becoming increasingly misogynistic and threatening, with some men finding themselves excluded and frus...

‘ There is undoubtedly a huge amount of hype that surrounds this latest development in AI. The remarkable ambition of Sam Altman and others to create artificial general intelligence may or may not come to pass. Depending on who you listen to, it is either going to destroy the world, take your job or be your best friend (or even lover) .’ That was a quote from the book ‘AI Demystified’. Today’s gue...

What effect are devices and platforms having on children and young people? The American social scientist, Jonathan Haidt, published his seminal 2024 study on the cohort effect of the use of technology, particularly on girls. I am hoping today’s guest, Nina Moyano , will be able to shed some light on this from her experience of working with children and parents. She is an ICF and EMCC-Accredited Co...

The traditional romantic story has a couple in puberty, not their pension. However, finding love later in life has become more and more prevalent due to increased divorce rates and longer life expectancies. Using tech platforms and dating apps can feel daunting, however. Can a leopard change its spots, and have fun being single at 60? That's what I will be asking Fiona Lambert , an author and entr...

Ever since the Hal 3000 supercomputer in ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ went rogue, the public has worried about the practical and ethical implications of a new race of intelligent machines. Can a computer, that doesn’t know what a person really is, really be trusted to make ethical decisions in high-moral-implication sectors, such as healthcare and crime & justice? Machine learning may be able to ac...

While we once enjoyed community and literature in person, perhaps through a book club, now, with online platforms, people are finding more like-minded individuals online, as shown by the popularity of 'BookTok' on TikTok. However, can you form a real bond with someone on a shared passion online? To help us explore this, I went on the road to speak to Richard Kilgariff . Richard is a former televis...

Tech platforms have changed our lives, in many ways for the better. Email and digital platforms have revolutionised business, as social media and dating apps have transformed our personal lives. While tech solutions have promised to make our lives easier, they have also affected wider society - and not always positively. That’s what I want to discuss with today’s guest, Russ Shaw CBE . Russ had a...

Hope and excitement are powerful human emotions. We all hope for a better tomorrow, whether in our personal or professional lives. Dating apps and social media play into our optimism by showing us aspirational lifestyles, complete with the people that we might want to live them with. But sometimes this promise can turn disappointing, and even dark. That’s what I want to discuss with today’s guest,...

Are our cities and their nightlife changing for the worse, or just evolving to meet modern tastes? When they were first launched, dating apps were originally intended to augment and supplement the existing ways that we might meet someone. One of the challenges of this is that some of the places that would traditionally be fruitful hunting grounds in the West for looking for a date - bars, pubs and...

Introspection and self-reflection may have become modern-day virtues, but at times we will require an independent, impartial sounding board to truly understand how our past affects our current feelings and behaviour. This is the role of the therapist. We have all experienced painful memories that have harmed our relationships. So, how can we come to terms with trauma and move forward positively? T...

In our modern society, we have unparalleled access to other like-minded people and limitless potential for social connection through technological platforms. Yet there is widespread concern that our society is becoming more fragmented and lonely, with time spent on social media making us feel depressed. Dating apps now play a huge role in looking for love, but are they hampering the making of genu...

When we are looking for a date, people often say how important it is that they can make you laugh. This is especially true when looking for a long-term relationship - you want to be with someone who is funny if you are in for the long haul! But wit is often difficult (and sometimes dangerous) to get across online, where tone, timing and accentuation are lost. How can humour win you love, and can y...

It is sometimes said that we now live in the 'attention' economy, where the real product being sold by free or freemium services is us: what we are looking at, watching and engaging with. We call it paying attention as we are giving something of ourselves to our subject. Contrary to popular belief, we are not good multi-taskers, so our attention is necessarily a limited resource. I wanted to look...

Has the constant diet of schmatlz and heart-warming fairytales piped in from LA affected our romantic culture in the UK, and if so - is that a problem? I speak to film and TV screenwriter Emily Carlton about how the depiction of love and romance has changed on the silver screen and what effect this is having on relationships in the real world. We discuss how women and relationships on film have ch...