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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

#131

Post by Paul12345534 »

GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #89
70forty wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current girlfriend is Cambodian, and we met via OkCupid. I noticed that of the ~1000 Cambodian girls using the site, none of them matched above 80% with me. I disregarded this and I'm really glad I did. Personally, I was searching for someone who seemed sweet, adventurous, and spoke English well. I think I read through just about every one of those 1000 profiles, but my girlfriend's stood out... in a way that I co…

I'm gonna assume you and Paul12345534 aren't white dudes b/c that'd be a behavior for creeps.

Not going to go into personal issues on an open forum :) but you're pretty quick with your assumptions. The gf isn't poor and only trying to escape and we don't have a large gape.

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

#132

Post by qq66 »

nostrademons wrote: post #110
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna assume you and Paul12345534 aren't white dudes b/c that'd be a behavior for creeps.

There's a big difference between dating someone specifically because she's Cambodian and dating someone who happens to be Cambodian. If I read the GP right, he's talking about the latter.

Is there anything actually wrong with dating specifically because they're Cambodian? Anymore than dating someone specifically because they have a certain body type, or certain hair color, or certain sports team affiliation?

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

#134

Post by Paul12345534 »

nostrademons wrote: post #110
GFK_of_xmaspast wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm gonna assume you and Paul12345534 aren't white dudes b/c that'd be a behavior for creeps.

There's a big difference between dating someone specifically because she's Cambodian and dating someone who happens to be Cambodian. If I read the GP right, he's talking about the latter.

I happened to have made hundreds of Filipino friends online beforehand, the Philippines speaks English, there's a large % of Catholics, and I find Asians attractive in general. I don't live near a big city and I was looking for someone who's a devout Catholic, educated, reasonably attractive, without excess baggage (kids, prior marriage, etc) so it seemed like a reasonable choice.

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

#135

Post by iso-8859-1 »

quenlinlom wrote: post #128

Does anyone think that this is really creepy? I mean, men using dating sites like OkCupid are mostly creepy people already, but actually writing programs to automate stuff on OkCupid? That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex.

Why does have anything to do with sex? It's just confirming that people get discouraged too quickly by imperfect profiles and that men want to meet women.

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

#136

Post by yodsanklai »

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"

I think it depends where you live. In some places you can have as many dates as you want, in others, it's even difficult to have someone read the messages you sent. I experienced both.

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

#137

Post by azernik »

What's interesting to me is how this guy inverted the gender roles on OkCupid. Normally (says OkTrends data) men take the initiative, and women filter incoming messages. In the later stages of this setup, the guy set up bots to get himself in the "inboxes" (list of profile views) of lots of women, getting enough incoming messages that he could take the normally female role in this online dating dance.

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

#138

Post by alan_cx »

keerthiko wrote: post #61
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 spent about one year on OkC @ approx 40minutes/day on the site, and got about 20 first dates, 10 second dates, 2 third dates, and 2 fourth dates. They were almost all 85+% matches, and weren't that hard to find. However, I would say that my manual filtering probably took way less time than he spent implementing his models. He probably learned more engineering and advanced math while I learned how to read subtle mes…

"And then met a girl the very next day (not kidding) that I really hit it off with when I wasn't looking"

This, IMHO, is the best advice. I remember the Dalai Lama's advice about finding happiness. How do I find happiness? "Stop lookin, be happy", he said.

Same with dating. How do I find a date? Stop looking. More exactly, live life, and in time, you'll meet someone.

Part of the reason why is that someone sort of on the hunt isn't that attractive, because such a person isn't being totally natural, or themselves. The dating game becomes false. That is subtly there to see, and is a turn off. If not then what you get is potentially two false people under pressure to maintain something.

Yeah, I know, it can't work for all, circumstances, time, and all that. But so far, regardless of who I have passed this notion on to, regardless of their situation, in time, its worked. And worked solidly.

Unfortunately, this is something people do get fretful about, and then decide something has to be done.

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

#139

Post by e12e »

com2kid wrote: post #94
mjmahone17 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your messages sound really stilted and like you're really nervous. They jump from one random topic to the next, without actually showing anything uniquely you . > But, well, I own a 5 foot long remote controlled floating dolphin. I gave up on being 100% sane long ago. Technically I am sane, but I do enjoy having fun toying around with things. I also drive a bright orange car! What this says: I own toys, you should kn…

The point about the orange car was meant to be self deprecating! (The $10 inflatable dolphin is supposed to be cute, ends up being really freaky looking, go figure!) The dolphin was actually something I brought into work for my team to play with, we had a good chunk of the building watching as we flew it around our atrium. The problem is, it is hard to capture that I am the sort of person who is always thinking of wa…

IMNHO this whole (parent) message (less the quotes) sounds a lot more confident, sane and interesting than all those quotes put together (or taken separately). Perhaps you just need to relax and write as if you were talking to people here on hn. (I think the keyword in that sentence is people).

If the women you respond to aren't interested when you're being honest -- why bother sending them messages at all? (Lame, casual sex, I guess -- but there must be easier ways to go about finding that than hanging out on a web page?)

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

#140

Post by llasram »

At least one useful take-away: k-modes clustering. I initially thought it was a typo/miscommunication, but the soybean reference seemed bizarrely specific. It apparently actually exists, and is an extension of k-means to categorical data, using Hamming distance instead of Euclidean distance.
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