So I guess the takeaway from this is "Don't be too picky, you'll enjoy being with more people than you actually think". As an experiment, I updated my OKCupid profile a bit, then ran through my matches and clicked a huge number of them so I would show up as a visitor. I didn't look at profiles, just clicked and closed. 90 minutes later, and I have six views on my profile and one message (EDIT: It was "Your comment made me laugh". It's a start!). I guess the article's author is on to something. I've been on OKC for years, and being too picky is exactly my problem. Finding matches I'm physically attracted to is easy. Everything else? That's harder. Are they educated enough? Do they have the same interests? The same sense of humor? Too religious? Too anti-religious? Strong political opinions? Do they like to travel? Do they like to cook? Do they have pets? (these last three actually make me less interested in them, believe it or not. I'm weird.) But the chances of me meeting someone that actually meets all my 'requirements' is slim. I don't think any one thing I'm looking for in a partner is unreasonable, but finding someone with all of them (well, I thought I did last month, but our interest in each other was asymmetrical...)? That's hard. I don't know where I'm going with this, sorry.
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."
I think that "hey you looked at my profile" is simply a starting place for people to actually start talking, which can lead to more in depth connections and conversations you may have not normally, especially if you had originally filtered them for not being a 22-23 year old white girl with athletic body type within 5 miles who is Jewish, only drinks socially but does hard drugs, and has a had a job for more than 3 years. The ability to filter, or lack thereof, is one of the reasons Tinder works so damn well. You can't browse profiles in the typical sense. You swipe, you like, and only if they like you too, can you begin to talk. This fact alone initiates conversations that are more likely to be responded to, and you are unable to not see someone because they don't meet one of your criteria that you think you want. Tinder also prohibits you from seeing anything beyond 6 photos, 500 characters (ish), and your mutual friends and mutual likes on Facebook. You can't filter. You can't sort. You can't spend more than a minute per person bc there's only a minute's worth of information to consume. The downside, of course, is that the tiny amount of information and the prominence of photos over text, leads to people judging on looks alone. It's reputation as a hook up app doesn't help this fact. Guys have been known to swipe as fast as they can without even clicking on profiles just so they can see who liked them and then ween out the ones they don't want. I, as a fairly okay looking girl with a nice selection of photos and a text section that spoke to my likes, interests, and goals, got to the point where I would swipe 112 people in a row and match every single one of them. Note: my roommate did this while we were drunk and I had to unmatch all those poor souls, hungover the next morning. Regardless of the obvious flaws, it does some things really well and it does get people who would never connect elsewhere to connect. And that can lead to good things. I never did okcupid (which is what the author is presumably using) but I did occasionally look at my roommates okcupid matches. The scope of information on most of the profiles was absolutely insane. You have age, race, and body type. You have occupation and interests. You have drugs and alcohol and religion. You have 10,000 words of copy for each of the 10,000 sections. You have questions with answers. You have quizzes they've taken. And of course, all of this is then pushed through algorithms that determine how much of a match you are, which is depicted prominently on the page as a percentage (91% match vs 54% enemy). I think that the tinder methodology without the photo prominence and hook up reputation would be a very successful app. I'm on mobile so maybe someone else can find the link to some of okcupids blog posts and data analyzing. It's super interesting what happens when you have that much data. You can determine factors that lead to conversation, don't lead to conversations, determine length of conversation, etc. very easily - and they (the okcupid admins) do. It's remarkable. I think I posted one to hubski and it had to do with running experiments on its users. Fantastic shit, as long as you are watching from afar. <- Found it: https://hubski.com/pub?id=170031
Your description of Tinder is kind of the reasonable elaboration of Hot or Not. If they judged you hot, and you judged them hot, and you both paid, you would be given contact info (as I recall). Of course, you could just sit there and rate people for hours and it didn't do the best job of limiting things regionally. Also, no names, no biographies, nothing. 1 photo, god speed. OKCupid is the logical progression of eHarmony rendered free. eHarmony was Match but more so. What was impressive about Match backintheday is that your average male sent out maybe 3 messages a night. Your average female sent out zero because even the not-so-attractive ones would get 70-80 messages a day. A friend of mine (whom I would never date) was a 100% match for me and got 400 messages a week; her roommate (who I almost dated) was a 3% match for me and got 800 messages a day. I've seen the OKCupid posts. They're interesting. I like how they took down the one about how much eHarmony sucks when eHarmony bought them.
Great post! Online dating in general sometimes unfairly gets a bad wrap, but most people don't realize that over 40% of new relationships world-wide are started ONLINE! There are a lot of good paid sites, and a few great free ones if you know where to look. For those who are more interested in Asian singles, the best truly free site we've found is www.Filipino4U.com There are also some good paid sites like Match or eHarmony if you are willing to pay monthly fees.
Great post! Online dating in general sometimes unfairly gets a bad wrap, but most people don't realize that over 40% of new relationships world-wide are started ONLINE! There are a lot of good paid sites, and a few great free ones if you know where to look. For those who are more interested in Asian singles, the best truly free site we've found is www.Filipino4U.com There are also some good paid sites like Match or eHarmony if you are willing to pay monthly fees.
The story reminds me of a great book called The Rosie Project. It's about a professor of genetics trying to find love. The guy is very rational and wants to optimize everything, including his love quest, and creates a questionnaire to find the perfect match.