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Poll: OkCupid stories

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Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#81

Post by starpilot »

The poll options remind me of a badly written switch statement. Not only are the options overlapping to different degrees, but they're time-sensitive. Say I just broke up with someone from OkCupid. My answers would be different today than yesterday, even though the significant fact that OkCupid led to a relationship is unchanged. How about more humanized poll options:

a. OkCupid worked for me

b. OkCupid hasn't worked for me yet

c. I've never used OkCupid

At the moment, these poll results are useless. The poll tries to infer too much about general online dating instead of answering the real question: does the most popular free online dating service, OkCupid, work for HN readers? That's enough to investigate through one poll.

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#82

Post by hyad »

Awful. I spent two years on that site, met 2 people in person, sent literally 100s upon 100s of messages. Giant waste of time - I'm thoroughly convinced online dating does not work. Have you seen the movie Catfish? Its kind of like that, no one is who they appear to be on the internet. Sorry if I'm ranting. OKCupid is "free", but it took away many, many hours that I'll never get back.

I met a girl one time who said "You get a good relationship when you need it the least." I think that is the crux of why it doesn't work or can't work. It's like when you find something you've lost, but only after you stop searching for it.

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#83

Post by teach »

dkarl wrote: post #76
teach wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are substantially more women than men on eHarmony. The paywall really keeps out the riff-raff.

I think the premise (looking for marriage) puts a lot of guys off. Even though marriage is exactly what I'm looking for, I steer clear of eHarmony because I'm afraid of what kind of women it might attract. I have a friend who got married to a woman he met on eHarmony, and he seems happy. Still, I have this horrible fear of meeting a woman who has marriage tunnel vision and through sheer determination makes it work so…

I do understand that pressure to "make it work". But it totally wasn't there for either my wife or I. I was matched with over 300 women during the 3 months that I was enrolled, and my (now) wife was in grad school finishing her dissertation. She wasn't in any hurry to settle down, and I was eager to cross off women that weren't perfectly (truly) suitable so I could move to the next one on the list!

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#84

Post by whimsy »

danilocampos wrote: post #54
MistyKaye wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to disagree with your tip. When someone IMs me out of the blue without any prior contact I think it's a little too eager. I prefer to start with a message or two and then move into more real-time interaction.

Well, protip for MistyKaye is to email. I could see how it might put you off, but if you introduce yourself with a bit of fun, don't come off as a weirdo, it can work. By and large, for me this generated much more reliable results than the email method. As good as 1 in 3, versus 1 in 12 for emails. (Yeah, I kept rough stats. I was an SEM nerd in those days, shudder, and looked at it like a campaign to be optimized.)

Are your "successes" here "responses" or "dates?"

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#85

Post by whimsy »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #77
jamesteow wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, you're right, it is about me. But what do you want me to say? That it works for everyone? A lot of my good friends are photographers so most of my portraits are taken from them. Thus, I think my photos are well executed compared to self portraits taken via mirrors/cellphones. My profile is pretty genuine. I don't aim to be pretentious or egotistical. When I contact people, I usually start up with something that…

Maybe 1 reply in 25 is normal for most people.

It isn't according to OkCupid's exposed stats. Average reply rate to messages sent by males is between 1/3 and 1/4 (varying by age). If you hunt through the OkCupid blog archive, you can find the relevant stats. (I think they were released this year.)

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#86

Post by jamesteow »

whimsy wrote: post #85
FooBarWidget wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe 1 reply in 25 is normal for most people.

It isn't according to OkCupid's exposed stats. Average reply rate to messages sent by males is between 1/3 and 1/4 (varying by age). If you hunt through the OkCupid blog archive, you can find the relevant stats. (I think they were released this year.)

Ah. The truth hurts.

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#88

Post by whimsy »

jamesteow wrote: post #86
whimsy wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't according to OkCupid's exposed stats. Average reply rate to messages sent by males is between 1/3 and 1/4 (varying by age). If you hunt through the OkCupid blog archive, you can find the relevant stats. (I think they were released this year.)

Ah. The truth hurts.

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/your-looks-and-online-dati... is the relevant post, I think. It looks like I was wrong about it varying by age. (Maybe that was another post, though.)

http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/online-dating-advice-exact... may be relevant to your interests as well.

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#89

Post by gastlygem »

JeffL wrote: post #64
msluyter wrote: post #36

I really liked OKC when I was using it and think it's one of the best dating sites, but I have something of an anti-OKCupid story: I met my current SO in person, at a party. It turns out that we have opposing political and religious views (we're both fairly moderate, so we're not polar opposites, but we do categorize ourselves as Dem/Rep, Atheist/Christian). Personally, I'm a little surprised that things have worked…

I always searched for "atheist only" in my online searches. Then a Muslim girl wrote me and told me I had good bone structure. 3 years later, we're engaged. (She's also very moderate in her beliefs.)

Does she have issues with, say, pork?

Re: Poll: OkCupid stories

#90

Post by JeffL »

gastlygem wrote: post #89
JeffL wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always searched for "atheist only" in my online searches. Then a Muslim girl wrote me and told me I had good bone structure. 3 years later, we're engaged. (She's also very moderate in her beliefs.)

Does she have issues with, say, pork?

No. You wouldn't know she is a Muslim in any way except that she says she is.
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