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A Quantitative Analysis of Online Dating
imjustatomato writes "Never before has something so human and primitive as dating been reducible to such discrete values. A study analyzes the data of an online dating service. When do you like someone like yourself? Among online dating members, "marital status" and "wants children" are the two most influential characteristics to match. Other interesting findings are: men initiate 73.3% of messages, but their initiations are 17.9% less likely to be reciprocated; 78.2% of messages are never responded to."
I wrote that I wanted to relax on a couch with someone getting high and watching insects having sex on the Discovery Channel.
100% of my messages are never responded to.
Why not link to TFA? Here is a more direct link to the research. I wonder why we got linked from the summary to another summary. Maybe because the summary is new today but the research is 2 years old.
Anyhow, none of the numbers seem all that surprising, except that 55% of active members are women (63% of all members were men).
I had mostly positive experiences with online dating after my divorce. I met several women, some were romantic friends, some were regular friends and one just didn't work out at all.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Among online dating members, "marital status" and "wants children" are the two most influential characteristics to match.
Uhh, yeah. I'm going to guess that the phrase "wants children" means something different, depending on whether you're on a dating site, or on alt.sex.lolita. Yes?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
I can't believe how many blank pages there were in this dude's thesis! Interesting work, but come on, at least do what we normally do when we can't make our 90 page requirement... use larger fonts, make the margins 1.5", double-lines, etc.
A thesis doesn't have to be long in order to contain good research. My doctoral thesis is only 81 pages, and 20 pages of that is overhead (front matter, table of contents, list of symbols, preface, advice to the reader concerning the order in which chapters should be read, epilogue, and references).
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I always thought discrimination against religion and smoking were bidirectional. Religious people are more likely to not want to date non-religious types, than the other way around. Non-smokers will prefer to date non-smokers, but I doubt smokers have much of a preference. It would be interesting to see if there are characteristics that work in the opposite manner. Opposites attract, don't they? Guess not
- Communication. Email (and other text-based mediums) miss out on several communication cues. Tone of voice, body language, etc. are important to figure out exactly what is meant. I can write something and mean it in one way, but that doesn't mean the person at the other end will read it that way - they could just as easily (especially if they're having a bad day) cast it in a negative tone in their mind.
- Expectations. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find out that men (and women!) online are looking for the "perfect partner". Newsflash, people: there's no such thing. Everybody has their flaws. Doesn't matter who they are.
- Appearances (which comes in with expectations, I suppose.) If you're not 'beautiful', you're evidently not worth knowing. Dig a little deeper, people. There's more to beauty than stick figures like you see in those fashion magazines
...
My experiences with online dating? I've met five, maybe six, people that way. One's a decent friend still. One, it's too early to tell (but my feeling is "nothing more than friendship".) The rest, I haven't seen much of beyond the early meetings.All in all, my Quest for Non Single Status shall henceforth be conducted off the computer. Between the cost, the frustration of usually never getting a message back (I'd rather hear "thanks, but I don't think it'd work out" than never hear back at all - at least then it's a clean break), and generally getting out and about in the real world a bit more than when I was a teenager, I think I'll be much happier for it. Do I need somebody? Hell no. Do I want somebody? Yes. But I'd rather be single than with the wrong person.
I recently spent two months on Match.com and by and am pleased with the end results... I am dating someone I met on there. .ru email addresses. The old I need a visa and it costs 600 American dollars thing.
You really have a hard time weeding through the mass amounts of spam email (I realize you are looking for someone in Virginia, but Montana is only 6 hours away), the obvious scammers mostly with
Also there are a fair amount of women that fall into the FREAK category.
I would disagree with this point made in the paper "Among online dating members, "marital status" and "wants children" are the two most influential characteristics to match."
From my limited experience on Match, I think the most important thing women were looking for was income range. I initially had that on my profile and got swamped with replies, after hiding that bit they slowed way down.
Yeah, but 72% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
And from the other side of the equation, no sensible female of the species will choose to date a geek that is clearly ill-adapted socially, is not likely to resemble a movie star from her wall poster, and probably will not fare well in the salary department if he ever manages to leave his basement (many choose not to.)
And with respect to children, many men dislike children and don't want them at all. They are expensive to maintain, and pointless to raise in the first place. The society changed so much in the last 100-200 years that a large family that was a great advantage to a peasant is now a death warrant in many professional areas, financially and time-wise. Parents nowadays are expected to sink up to a million dollars into a child, with no ROI whatsoever. The parents become slaves to their children, working most of their productive life to maintain the family.
Of course, women love a man with a huge... bank account. Did this suprise you?
I cannot believe geographical distance wasn't a factor. Who is going to date someone a two hours drive away? Then again, ignoring this probably helped in making the number of messages sent the best predictor for number of messages received, giving more false hope to quicktyping nerds. Bet the author was one.
blow your mind already
I disagree that online dating "is an easy, socially acceptable way to find partners for dates or relationships." The "stigma of desperation," as it is described in one of these papers, is still strong.
Interestingly enough, my *nix instructor lives with his mom (who happens to be the SQL instructor).
Yes, I'm a coward.
For what it's worth (and I imagine it's worth a lot to slashdot readers), my experiences with online dating have always been best with okcupid. It is free, novel (fun matching tests), and its participants always seem, to me, to be more appealing than those of eharmony, match.com, and all the other paysites.
I've had much success with "internet dating", but it seems to depend on where I live. When I lived in Houston the girls were plentiful and fun. Living in Des Moines is a completely different story. The only ones I get replies from here are trollish freaks that probably couldn't get a date if they didn't post fake pictures of some model, or at least some hot chick from down the street. I'm still amazed at the enormous differences in both quality and quantity of women from the online world between the two cities.
You're nothing; like me.
An important part of research is to first be aware of the existing body of knowledge, in order to avoid duplicating work done elsewhere, or, worse, of coming to conclusions debunked elsewhere.
Most papers have a part called "state of the art" whose purpose is to reference previous work done in the area.
Hello, im a desprate virgin tieered of masterbating to videos of other people having sex. I spend all day at the computer, and i need someone to cook my food, do my laundry, and clean the house, as i have just moved out of my moms basement. I also require you to do all of this in sexy outfits, and have sex with me whevere i want, further, no naging is allowed, or i will reprogram you in the basement
Please resond this time HotWifeWannabe1337!!, you dident seem to get my first 26 messages...
-- Anoymous Coward
I am just completing a research phd, and beleive me, it was very hard indeed.
The idea of doing a phd that had involved just learning the current state of the art didn't appeal at first, but they get you educated to the required level, and they're easier.
Doing original work is painful, stessful, and frankly scares the shit out of you at times. I'm lucky (well, I worked my ass off), I managed to acheive my stated goals. A 'book report' thesis, as you describe it is still hard, but you at least know it can be finished if you work hard enough.
I can certainly see why people do them. It has another huge advantage over research as well. My knowledge covers a very small domain at the moment, albeit to a very high level. I've now got to 'prove' that I can do other things because of acheiving so much in my current field, which is a problem I hadn't considered. A student who doesn't do original research doesn't have that problem to such an extent.
Whichever type you do, you still need to conduct research afterwards to stay current. After a while it all levels out.
What's 'primitive' about dating? You think they have or had 'dating' in primitive societies? Modern Western culture, and those parts of the rest of the world that have been globalized into it, are the only places we find this custom. They didn't 'date' in Europe/America in the 1900s, and they don't 'date' in most of the world now, except for that internationalized overclass that you get in big cities.
They have lots of sex, but that's a whole nuther thing.
Enjoy the sophisticated, rarefied culture that allows you to have such esoteric customs as dating! But don't think it's a basic primitive instinctive thing, because it's about as natural to human culture as the iPod.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
If this were really happening, what would you think?
That is just plain wrong. Members (Latin name: Phallus Maximus) are sentient symbiont life-forms that human males carry between their legs. The member is connected to the brain of the human male and takes over control of the brain and thus the entire body whenever a human female is present manipulating the human male into to doing and saying idiotic things he would otherwise never dream of. Members, and the effect they have upon the behavior, utterances and personality of the human male can be quite annoying but unfortunately they can also not be eradicated since they are essential to the procreation of the species. Research into alternative technologies such as cloning is ongoing.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
When I was 14, I hoped that one day I would have a girlfriend. When I was 16 I got a girlfriend, but there was no passion, so I decided I needed a passionate girl with a zest for life.
In college I dated a passionate girl, but she was too emotional. Everything was an emergency; she was a drama queen, cried all the time and threatened suicide. So I decided I needed a girl with stability.
When I was 25 I found a very stable girl but she was boring. She was totally predictable and never got excited about anything. Life became so dull that I decided that I needed a girl with some excitement.
When I was 28 I found an exciting girl, but I couldn't keep up with her. She rushed from one thing to another, never settling on anything. She did mad impetuous things and made me miserable as often as happy. She was great fun initially and very energetic, but directionless. So I decided to find a girl with some real ambition.
When I turned 31, I found a smart ambitious girl with her feet planted firmly on the ground and married her. She was so ambitious that she divorced me and took everything I owned.
Now, I am older and wiser, and am looking for a girl with big tits.
threadeds blog
...who is attractive. No surprise there.
from grandparent post:
From my limited experience on Match, I think the most important thing women were looking for was income range. I initially had that on my profile and got swamped with replies, after hiding that bit they slowed way down.
As a woman I can make a reciprocol evaluation: From my experience, the most important thing men were looking for was looks. I initially had a photo up and got swamped with replies, after removing the photo they slowed way down.
this chick_ 004.jpg
_ 003.jpg
http://www.tshirthell.com/images/contestpics/a249
and this chick
http://www.tshirthell.com/images/contestpics/a249
the reason they didn't write back was they already finished spanking it for that evening...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Having done online dating in the past my top criteria was religion - not what religion they were following per se, but what religion they were looking for. "Catholics seeking Catholics" seemed to be the most common requirment in my area on match.com. As someone who is Jewish, albeit barely practicing, I was forced to skip these profiles over. What really irked me were profiles seeking a "Christian, Muslim, Taoist, Atheist" etc. and they had to go out of their way to de-select the option of dating someone who was Jewish, rather than just select "All religions"
I had quite a bit of luck when I was using a fee-based service: had a steady flow of dates, dated for several months on a few occasions, and met my present girlfriend. With the fee-based service, you had to buy credits to send messages (instant or mail) but 'smiles' were free. You'd log in and either find responses to the few emails you sent out the day before or at least a couple of new 'smiles' to pursue. It was easy-peasy.
When I tried a free site, my response rate dropped to about 1% compared to about 50% on the fee-based site -- it was a complete waste of time. Why? It turns out the women were bombarded with hundreds of mail a day (compared to 5-10 with the fee-based services). A few of my prior-dates-now-chat-buddies and I talked about this and confirmed it -- they just couldn't keep up with all the mail, most of it being half-assed attempts to get them into bed or have webcam sex.
My conclusion? Since the service was fee-based, and each message costs you money, you have to think twice about sending pictures of your wee-wee to "IWANTHOTSEX69" and the "LONELYHOUSEWIFEWHOJUSTWANTSATTENTION" and "IM18ANDGIGGLY" types are much less likely to dominate the population.
body massage!
Kids are frequently portayed as a cost factor with no ROI whatsoever. I can tell you otherwise. I have seen many old people in retirement homes and see a huge difference between those who have a family and those who don't.
...
Those with no kids often have nobody, who
- looks after their well being (nurses and doctors are often overworked and do not notice health problems until it is too late)
- visits them regularly. You can immediately spot people who haven't seen friends or relatives in a long time, they are often highly depressed and apathetic.
- can take care of them so they stay out of retirement homes as long as possible. You will find that most people in retirement homes are folks with no family. Most of them could survive easily in their own house if someone cared for them properly.
- really takes the time to understand their needs. Nobody knows your parents like you do. Nurses don't have the time to find out what you want if you can't talk after a heart attack
- gives you love and comfort if you are sick and/or dying. You can't pay for that.
Remember, that you spend many years being old and fragile, dependent on help. And at that age you don't look like an actor anymore, so most other people won't care about you. You can't take for granted that you kids will care about you, but from what I've seen, if you were a good parent, they will.
Don't waste your time dating primatives. Full fledged objects make much better dates.
Women have what you say is "the advantage" in ANY singles settng. But very few girls manage to exploit it. And the reason is: the girls who are good with men have all got one before they every make it to a singles setting. Guys arn't usually happy with just one, if they can help it, so the guys who women usually choose in signles setting are just after a 2nd or 3rd partner. So the cycle continues.
But the other important factor is compromise. All women want a "self-confidence" guy above all else (your genes say "get me a guy who can teach my sons to get multiple girls" but "try to get him to put all his effort into my children"). So any woman who can compromise on the guy's "self-confidence" gets her good looking, rich, & faithful, but shy, but. Guys likewise care about looks above all else, making fat girls pretty damn easy.
Anyone, women especially, who bitches about dating just han't been trying to learn from mistakes or compromise.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
So that's what chicks are into these days. Silly me, I thought they were all about differential equations!
My bicyles
OKCupid's designers (math geeks from Harvard) anticipated this sort of study, so they built their entire matching algorithm on it.
Most dating sites have a small (fixed) number of variables you can set, such as "wants kids" and "smokes." Say there's 10 variables with 4 values each. That's 2^20 possible distinct people (1 megaperson) on the site.
OKCupid does that too. But then OKCupid lets users create additional variables for study (over 2000 at this point) with two to four possible values. So there's more than 2^2000 possible OKCupid users, or "more than there are atoms in the universe." That's a much nicer dating pool.
But it's not just a bit array. It's weighted. You decide how much each variable is important to you. I can give a question like "Do you play a musical instrument" marginal importance -- it'd be neat if I had a musician partner, but it's not a big deal. However, it's vital that a potential match properly answer the question "Would you consider dating a person of Caucasian descent?"
There are several other key factors making OKCupid a great site to meet people. As you mentioned, there are lots of non-single people on the site. This is actually a big plus for a dating site because it means not everyone is trying to get in your pants. Some just want to know what's your inner Hobbit. Many of these people are interesting, worth talking too, and fun to have dinner with.
The site has a great sense of humor. The test you take when you sign up is a parody of the famed Meyers-Briggs personality test, but with results like "The Boy Next Door" and "The Dirty Little Secret." One of the random logout messages is "See? The internet's not so bad..." The graphics are humorous, and many users make the effort to have a profile entertaining to people completely uninterested in dating them.
Finally, their user interface is pretty well designed. Their new messaging interface is similar to Google Chat and their ads are pretty non-obnoxious. Not to mention the whole site's charge-free (supported by donations and ads).
Disclaimer: I don't work for OKCupid, but I did meet my wife there.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.