a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment
kleinbl00  ·  3563 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: I created a bot to find love online – reader, it worked

It's been like 14 years since I was on an online dating site (and they were pretty rough back then) so I'm not sure I understand: he basically scripted his profile to go "look" at every profile on the site? And the sites now show you who is "looking" at your profile?

Dan Ariely's book The Upside of Irrationality blows 3-4 chapters on online dating. One of the experiments he ran had prospective "dates" in a virtual gallery where they looked at random objects together in a sort of "speed dating" environment with a chat window. He then had a real round of speed dating. As it turned out, the people who had enjoyed a mutual experience of any kind were greatly more attracted to each other when they met in person. He also covers several instances where algorithmic refinement of wants basically leads you to never date anyone. There are several pages dedicated to how the things you get to look for on a dating site never align with what actually attracts you to someone.

Lends credo to the notion that "hey, you looked at my profile" matters hella more than "hey, we're 91% compatible according to an algorithm no one understands."