Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

ohmyperson.com

101–110 of 231 posts

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#101
post #73

What’s the incentive for attractive people? Why would you voluntarily give up a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market? If you’re ugly like me this is great.

Being attractive brings its own host of problems when it comes to finding a mate, especially if you are looking for someone you really relate to at a high level rather than someone who just scratches some primal itches.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand? I'd like to learn more about this. Ok Cupid used to publish lots of interesting blog posts, so I'm assuming you got that from one, but I can't find it. Do you have a link?

I wonder if the old blog posts are even still up. After they were bought by Match Group, all those experiments stopped, and the site became one with the borg. It's depressing that one shitty corporation, controls every fucking dating site, and has the money to buy pretty much any competitor at this point.

Somebody archived them here [0]

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/comments/aapn1l/okcupid_blog_...

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#104

In 1 month: Dating Site Without Pictures, But With Voice Recording In 3 months: Dating Site With Pictures, But Only Of Eyes In 6 months: Dating Site With Pictures, Eyes and Nose In 12 months: name change to ohmymember.com (adult site)

This sounds like the plot of a Portlandia sketch.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#105

I’ve thought about this a lot. I think it’s important that dating people match based on relative attractiveness, health, energy level, tidiness, age/maturity, mental attitude, goals and standard of living. Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.” Perhaps a more palatable way to approach this is to legitimately screen/curate each applicant and rate them honestly so…

> Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.” This. So much this. Above all else. Playing the whole game of an online back-and-forth "relationship" before the first meeting is annoying and exhausting. Honestly, it feels like a complete waste of time as well. There will be a yay/nay decision made by at least one party, within the first FIVE MINUTES of that first in-pe…

This kind of thing is why I feel like there's an untapped market in some kind of facilitated speed dating that does some kind of basic prescreening on mutual preferences (age range, want/don't want kids, general interests, etc) and sets up events when there's a sufficient 'pool' of people whose Venn diagrams all reasonably intersect.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#106
post #99
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it mostly as “sex with me comes highly recommended and I have desirable sperm.” But if you were looking for a relationship, I can see how that wouldn’t have felt as...victorious? I didn’t get that context from your original comment though. Anyway, good night.

I was lonely. But also way too angry for a relationship. So yeah, it was bittersweet. Also, said ex wife was professionally quite awesome, so I think that sort of rubbed off on me.

You’re still bragging.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#107

> "References: He was really nice to me, and one of the nicest guys I've ever dated. We had some issues with his parents not liking me, that eventually caused us to break up. but otherwise I'm envious of the next person who gets to be with him!" The juxtaposition between dating and references.. doesn't work, at least to me. I can't imagine actually writing this about an ex. Especially, curious as to the circumstance…

It's very useful for non-monogamous people: you meet someone, have a good interaction, sex, etc. and write a good reference for them.

The problem though is that there's an incentive to game the system.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#108

Hahaha this will never work for an obvious reason that isn't socially acceptable to state. As soon as looks get involved, it's over.

Why isn't it socially acceptable to state that looks are important? I feel like people are conflating "external appearance matters" and "external appearance is all that matters" and demonizing the former in their attempt to ward away the latter.

Also, putting the "X out of 10" scale aside, some people are just drawn to certain looks more than others. Tall, short, certain facial structures, different body types, beards/no beards on men, etc.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#109

I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks. But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you. I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there a…

There is also, unfortunately, a moral hazard associated with not having pictures. Such a site will probably tend to attract people who would not be glad to be judged by their appearance, other things being equal. For many, this would decrease the average utility.

I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard.

Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem.

When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what they looked like). Not long after, I met my wife, who would have been mobbed with messages had she put up a photo that showed what she actually looks like. I was the first and only person she dated online.

Re: Show HN: Dating Site Without Pictures

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if the old blog posts are even still up. After they were bought by Match Group, all those experiments stopped, and the site became one with the borg. It's depressing that one shitty corporation, controls every fucking dating site, and has the money to buy pretty much any competitor at this point.

Somebody archived them here [0] [0] https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/comments/aapn1l/okcupid_blog_...

Thank you. The one top of chain was referring to was https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/okcupid/weexperimenton...
Post reply on HN