Dear Archy

The Last Untraceable Era of Love

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Welcome to the Dear Archy podcast — a show about the last untraceable era of love. From the Pill to the iPhone, it was a time when lives were preferred private, and the reality of love was much stranger, messier, friskier, riskier, and more contradictory than the official story. deararchy.substack.com

Oct 14

Part 1: Matchmaking — Joan Ball — The Mother of Computer Dating

It’s the early 1970s, and Joan Ball is riding the London Underground when she sees something she knows very well. An advertisement for computer dating. Except it isn’t hers — the company is called Dateline. For years, Joan has been fighting to convince newspapers and other outlets that computer dating is respectable enough to advertise. She has built the first commercially successful service using a computer to generate individual romantic matches. She has designed the logic behind its matching system, weathered the Western stigma surrounding paid matchmaking, and even found customers through pirate radio when conventional media wouldn’t take her money. Now another company is advertising her invention on the London Tube. And Joan’s own business is having problems, as Britain is being battered by strikes and economic turmoil. Her telephone information has been printed incorrectly in the telephone directory, and one of the newspapers that carried her advertisements has changed its policy and stopped accepting them. And Dateline is getting bigger. Its founder is John Patterson. And eventually Joan Ball is going to call him and offer to sell him the company that helped create the market he is now taking over. This is Part 1 of our look at Matchmaking during the last untraceable era: Joan Ball — ‘The Mother of Computer Dating’ Welcome to the Dear Archy podcast — a show about the last untraceable era of love. From the Pill to the iPhone, it was a time when lives were preferred private, and the reality of love was much stranger, messier, friskier, riskier, and more contradictory than the official story. — Before we jump in today, I have a rare personal ask: This is an independently produced Podcast: its creation takes place at my dining room table that I share involuntarily with my 3 cats. By this point, we are so grateful and thrilled to have a growing listener-base. But we need your help: hit the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform, and share us with a friend. Our show, being new and indie, cannot break through the Apple or Spotify algorithms yet to appear consistently in Search results, so as our traffic is coming from word of mouth and alternate search engines, we know we’re just getting started. Your support means the world to us in being able to preserve our independent status as creators. Thank you in advance. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deararchy.substack.com
Oct 6

Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr. — Before Everyone Knew Everything

It’s 1989, and Robert Downey Jr. is just twenty-three years old. He’s living in a pink stucco house above the Sunset Strip, that had once belonged to the notorious silent-film era actor Charlie Chaplin. He has a fifty-thousand-dollar car. A red lacquered baby grand piano. Designer clothes. Two movies in theaters. And one Sarah Jessica Parker. The couple, having been together for almost six years, had met when they were eighteen, moved in together almost immediately, and somehow survived the transition from two teenage actors trying to get jobs, to two of the most promising young performers in Hollywood. And Robert is talking about their future. Children. A family. The traditional stuff. Yet he tells the Los Angeles Times that they had recently learned something important about their relationship. They needed to be less dependent on each other. And he is beginning to understand that wasn’t healthy. And there is something else in that interview. Robert Downey Jr. is also talking about addiction. He says he is trying to understand why he needs things that remove him from the present. Now, if you were reading that interview in 1989, you had absolutely no reason to know how much those two subjects—addiction...and Sarah Jessica Parker—are already connected for RDJ. Because this was an era before, everybody knew everything. Before TMZ. Before the supposed friend sold the texts. Before the person three tables away posted a video of your spat. Before seven years of somebody’s relationship could become searchable while they were still living it. The couple had a love story almost completely in public… and almost completely private. And it would take decades before either of them told us what was actually happening inside of it. (And what they haven’t yet shared — I maintain — is only theirs to know) This is the story of Sarah Jessica Parker and Robert Downey Jr. — Before everyone knew everything. ———— Welcome to the Dear Archy podcast — a show about the last untraceable era of love. From the Pill to the iPhone, it was an era when lives were preferred private, and the reality of love was much stranger, messier, hornier, riskier, and more contradictory than the official story. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deararchy.substack.com
Sep 28

Jerry Greene’s Sexual Freedom Movement — Swingers of Cleveland

In 1971, something unusual was happening, behind the closed doors of suburbia. Every other Saturday, married couples, were quietly making their way, to an apartment, in Warrensville Heights. Some were doctors. Some were lawyers. Some were parents. Some, even worked in law enforcement. And at the center of it all, was Jerry Greene — a once Army intelligence translator turned traveling salesman, who had decided Cleveland, needed its own organized swinging scene. What began with an underground newspaper ad, became a private network, with memberships, newsletters, orientation meetings, rules about consent and secrecy ,— and eventually, more than three hundred couples. They weren’t trying to escape suburbia. They were creating another life underneath it. And up until 1973, almost nobody outside of that apartment, had to know. This is the story of Jerry Greene’s Sexual Freedom Movement — Swingers of Cleveland —— Welcome to the Dear Archy podcast — a show about the last untraceable era of love, when lives were preferred private, and the reality of love was much stranger, messier, hornier, riskier, and more contradictory than the official story. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deararchy.substack.com
Sep 22

Heidi Fleiss — Keeper of Sex Secrets of the ‘90s

Welcome to the Dear Archy podcast — a show about the last untraceable era of love. From the pill to the iPhone, it was a time when the reality of love was much stranger, messier, hornier, riskier, and more contradictory than the official story. This week, Dear Archy tries something a little different — a more cinematic trip into the last untraceable era of love. Archy and Lex head back to early-’90s Los Angeles, when lives were preferred private, and Heidi Fleiss figured out that discretion itself could be a business. What followed involved Hollywood, beautiful women, powerful men, an undercover Ferrari, one very famous not-a-little-black-book, and a paper trail that turned out to be far more dangerous than anyone’s secrets. Because in an era when people could still disappear into their private lives, Heidi Fleiss discovered what happens when the keeper of everyone else’s secrets becomes impossible to ignore. Tempting Timestamps: 2:19 - Why the pill-to-iPhone years became Dear Archy’s last untraceable era of love. 8:34 - Troy interuptus — Archy launches into one of her trademark rants, which Troy (once again) secretly deletes to publish on a Friday. 10:10 - Why the study of this era matters. 12:15 - The Heidi Fleiss Story: before apps, screenshots and location sharing, there was Heidi Fleiss. 33:49 - An undercover cop, a Ferrari and the LAPD’s “three Cs.” 38:00 - Suddenly everyone in Hollywood wants to know who’s in the black book. 49:00 - The Federal case delivered, and the case took another turn. Have a pre-2005 love story to share or rant to request? Email your submissions to deararchy@gmail.com. You must be 18+, and remember to check out our Terms of Use at deararchy.com! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deararchy.substack.com
Sep 9

Gen-X Is Dating Again But We Think You’re a Bot

From double blackmail to marrying your catfish — yep, you read that right — this week on Dear Archy, your hosts find themselves overflowing with so many real-time bot and catfish dating tales from their own circle they don’t even make it to listener letters. 30% of Gen-X is eligible to date at present, and these terrifying tales validate their refusal to do it any other way than in-person. Have a secret love story to share or rant to request? Email your submissions to deararchy@gmail.com. You must be 18+, and remember to check out our Terms of Use at deararchy.com! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deararchy.substack.com
Sep 2

Love Stories That Would Never Happen Today

This week on Dear Archy, the gang kicks off with a new Creepy or Retro, and finally gets into your listener letters with a selection themed love stories that would never happen today. Archy reminisces on the lost thrills of intangibility, risk, mystery, and ‘best f—k of your life’ physical chemistry that courtship sidesteps today. Have a secret love story to share or rant to request? Email your submissions to deararchy@gmail.com. You must be 18+, and remember to check out our Terms of Use at deararchy.com! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit deararchy.substack.com

6 Episodes

Welcome to the Dear Archy podcast — a show about the last untraceable era of love. From the Pill to the iPhone, it was a time when lives were preferred private, and the reality of love was much stranger, messier, friskier, riskier, and more contradictory than the official story. deararchy.substack.com

Creator

The Last Untraceable Era of Love
Years Active

2026
Episodes

6
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© Dear Archy
Show Website

Dear Archy