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How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

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Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#111

Post by innertracks »

mjmahone17 wrote: post #80
com2kid wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I'm ugly[0], but it is hard to be sure! ;) I have a friend of mine who is short (generally considered a disadvantage) and who has one miserable picture, but his messages are good enough that he has a good success rate on OKC. (His messages also violate every guideline, they are at least 5 paragraphs long and very in depth!) The problem is, it is disheartening in the extreme. Spending years going to the…

Join a dance program. Your issue seems to be lack of confidence around women in general, not specifically in a dating environment. Get comfortable with your body in an environment where a lot of women are. And don't try to date the women you dance with, at least not initially. Dance is just an easy thing to join: you could also go to underground music venues, join a co-ed softball/volleyball/tae kwon do team, take ar…

Another vote for dancing! I used to dread dancing for many years. Then I found tango. Argentine Tango has been an amazing positive dimension to add to my life.

My confidence in social settings in general and particularly with women has been greatly improved. It's a great balance to programming and problem solving activities, too.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#112

Post by acqq »

I am feeling sorry for all the women subjected to all that spam, not only by this guy. And talking about this guy, let's be honest, he was different from other "spam" contacts by implementing a bot-assisted spamming, nothing he should be praised for.

Math genius? More a spambot writer, but not for money, for an advantage.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#113

Post by User8712 »

curt wrote: post #104
com2kid wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. That I disagree with, 4 years and hundreds upon hundreds of hours sunk into OKC, and I've had maybe 2 dozen dates from it. Knowing how to optimize the site would be very useful. From pictures (OKC has MyBestFace that helps with that) to profile text. This guy obviously had good pictures (great pictures alone can make a profi…

After I figured out OkCupid I had about a 30%-40% message to date success rate. I've shown friends and while they haven't had quite my success they've drastically increased the number of responses they receive. The key is to keep it simple, 3-4 sentences. First is a funny line about something in her profile to grab her attention, next comment on something shared, finally a funny open ended question. One or two messag…

Agreed, I've used other sites, not OkCupid, but ended up with the same result. I keep it dead simple, write a couple of lines, and if they respond with a hint of interest, I just ask them out for something casual. It works really well. Approaches that failed...

1. Short messages like you said, 'hi, how are you?'. They basically get deleted instantly.

2. Long, thoughtful messages. I'd write a few paragraphs trying to make some jokes, and talk about what we have in common, and then ask a handful of questions about their interests. First problem, it's a lot of time on my end. Secondly, they need to invest a lot of time to respond. It's like those e-mails that you'll get to tomorrow, and then the day after, because you know they're going to be time consuming. Same thing, and eventually, they just say forget it, and never reply. Meanwhile, ask one fun question, and they can reply within a few seconds, and you're more liking to get a response.

3. Trying to keep a conversation rolling before asking them out. It goes downhill fast, and with every message, you risk them disappearing, or someone else grabbing their attention. I've lost count at the number of people I was talking with, everything sounded great after a handful of messages, then they fell off the face of the earth. Once again, ask them out after the first reply, and you don't have to worry about that happening.

In short, simple message, ask them out fast, and don't try too hard. Easy for you to write, easy for them to respond.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#114

Post by dobbsbob »

com2kid wrote: post #39
crazygringo wrote: post #28

It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences. Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second d…

> The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. That I disagree with, 4 years and hundreds upon hundreds of hours sunk into OKC, and I've had maybe 2 dozen dates from it. Knowing how to optimize the site would be very useful. From pictures (OKC has MyBestFace that helps with that) to profile text. This guy obviously had good pictures (great pictures alone can make a profi…

In 2008 I did something similar with OkCupid, but for totally different reasons (friends with benefits) but instead I would find a girl I liked, who was also not looking for LTR, then use fake profiles running scripts auto answering every question to find the answers to all the questions she had done since they are normally hidden. I filled out my real profile exactly the same so we would be a 97%+ match. I then would msg them hey we're a match, I'm going to go shopping for clothes at hey do you want to come with? What's your phone#? Never failed. Phone is important because it shows you are serious and have confidence. Messaging back and forth gives the girl time to reject you, or they think you're a time waster. I'd hang out, buy them a bunch of clothes, get a drink, laugh a lot and then have a bunch of sex.

Each girl I ended up dating anyways for about a month or so because I had to move so often for work back then, but after getting to know them I found their question answers were largely meaningless, since it's a public site with their identity on it they of course lied and faked almost every question or purposely kept answers conservative in case somebody they worked with spied on their account and discovered their secret fetish or something.

This guy's method of mass visiting other accounts and never having to write opening messages is excellent though.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#115

Post by BioGeek »

crazygringo wrote: post #28

It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences. Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second d…

> If he could write it up in a blog, OkTrends-style, I feel like it could get a huge number of hits

He released a 37 page eBook with an easy-to-implement blueprint: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#116

Post by blueskin_ »

crazygringo wrote: post #28

It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences. Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second d…

I've been off the site for many, many years now, but I could find a difference between 85% (which I would have considered low), 90% and 95% in most cases, but what I found worst was that I couldn't weight major red flags enough so even a 97-98 could have one or more.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#117

Post by morgante »

It's a happy story, and I'm sad to see all the naysayers in this thread. I really don't see what's unethical about his behavior. He never lied about his views and his fiancee knows the whole story.

It seems like a totally rational response to the insanities of online dating. Especially as a guy, you have to message hundreds of women to even get a handful of replies. Through automation, he's equalized the playing field so that, like women, he has the opportunity to filter only amongst those who have already expressed interested in him. No more time/effort wasted on women who never reply.

I actually was working on an automated framework for batch messaging and a/b testing on OKCupid (https://github.com/morgante/abcupid) before realizing I don't have time for a relationship.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#118

Post by yitchelle »

com2kid wrote: post #65
scarmig wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The generally accepted rule is 1) Be attractive and 2) Don't be unattractive. That's more than a bit reductionist, of course, but tweaking your profile text or message texts only helps at the margins, assuming you don't have deal breakers. com2kid isn't going to be getting dozens of inbound messages a month just by revising his profile (sorry, com2kid). (On the other hand, updating your pictures genuinely can give yo…

I don't think I'm ugly[0], but it is hard to be sure! ;) I have a friend of mine who is short (generally considered a disadvantage) and who has one miserable picture, but his messages are good enough that he has a good success rate on OKC. (His messages also violate every guideline, they are at least 5 paragraphs long and very in depth!) The problem is, it is disheartening in the extreme. Spending years going to the…

Back in the day when chat rooms were filled with actual people rather bots, this was a great place to talk with the other gender without much fear. I actually meet my wife through a MSN Chat room.

I think that one big disadvantage for those who work in a highly technical field (engineer, scientist etc), contact with the ladies are quite few, this means opportunities for interaction will be significantly smaller.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#119

Post by DannyBee »

scarmig wrote: post #108
DannyBee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is just bullshit. It's what guys tell themselves because they can't write reasonable profiles or write non-creepy messages to women. I've read what most guys send my female friends on okcupid. Not just the random idiots, but what i would think would be otherwise intelligent people. It often comes off as desperate or creepy. It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive. But I'm an average looking…

Did I say a typical guy can't get dates on OkC? No. It's easy to--I'm somewhat below average in the looks department, but I had a steady stream of dates (probably averaging somewhere between 1 and 2 per week) on OkC while I was on it (until I met my current partner on it). The point is that you're not suddenly going to triple or quadruple your inbound message rate or reply rate by improving your written profile. This…

"The point is that you're not suddenly going to triple or quadruple your inbound message rate or reply rate by improving your written profile."

I strongly disagree.

I have A/B tested written profiles on okcupid and elsewhere, and found it matters a lot.

" This much is clear, and the fact that your average guy profile gets nearly as much positive attention as your real profile indicates as much."

Actually, the attention is mainly from women who think it's hilarious :)

"However, smartly choosing quality pictures is probably the one thing anyone should do, and you're going to get far more value back for the investment than putting hours writing a profile slightly more witty and more interesting than your previous profile. It triples, or quadruples, or quintuples your reply rates. "

I don't disagree with this either.

Far too many people have profile pictures that they don't look comfortable or confident in. For example, too many people dress/etc based on what they think people think looks good, instead of what makes them feel actually confident and attractive. They look uncomfortable as hell, and it's completely obvious to the outside world.

Re: How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

#120

Post by DannyBee »

sliverstorm wrote: post #81
DannyBee wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but this is just bullshit. It's what guys tell themselves because they can't write reasonable profiles or write non-creepy messages to women. I've read what most guys send my female friends on okcupid. Not just the random idiots, but what i would think would be otherwise intelligent people. It often comes off as desperate or creepy. It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive. But I'm an average looking…

It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive I think specifically in this context what is meant is 1) have good pictures 2) don't have bad pictures Even OKc harps on pictures, because they know from their data that pictures are important .

Yes. In fact, if you have good pictures, okcupid will let you know. Among other things, you will get an email that says "We just detected that you're now among the most attractive people on OkCupid. ...", once the clickthroughs on your profile increase.

(I thought they send this to everyone, but it turns out not to be true, it's related to profile clickthroughs. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/12/20/is-being-one-of...)

They also have the mybestface stuff, which helps a lot.

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