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OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

jonmillward.com

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Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#61

Post by impendia »

goodside wrote: post #37

Hi. I work at OkCupid. I coud have saved you a lot of trouble. Your results confirm what all dating web sites have always known, and which we've made no secret about: Nearly all initial messages are sent by men. This does not mean that the site is "better" for women than for men, relative to any other form of heterosexual courtship. It's a deeply ingrained cultural, and perhaps biological, norm that men make proposal…

>I coud have saved you a lot of trouble. Your results confirm what all dating web sites have always known, and which we've made no secret about: Nearly all initial messages are sent by men.

I am curious: Are there any variables which, after you control for them, make this go away or diminish? i.e., high income, feminist leanings, political beliefs, etc. ?

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#62

Post by ig1 »

wtvanhest wrote: post #55
goodside wrote: post #37

Hi. I work at OkCupid. I coud have saved you a lot of trouble. Your results confirm what all dating web sites have always known, and which we've made no secret about: Nearly all initial messages are sent by men. This does not mean that the site is "better" for women than for men, relative to any other form of heterosexual courtship. It's a deeply ingrained cultural, and perhaps biological, norm that men make proposal…

I just started using it after I moved to a new city. I have had some great dates, and even met some friends who introduced me to their friends so I’m certainly not complaining about the site, but I have two observations I would love to have the understanding behind. 1st, what is the purpose of the green/yellow/red dot? To me, if I see a women with a yellow or green dot I rarely if ever contact them. Also, the percent…

You realize for someone to see that you're checking in all the time they'd also have to be checking in all the time and stalking your profile ?

I don't know OKCs reasoning behind it but I can think of a bunch of arguments. For example say you've messaged someone to rearrange a date and you want to make sure they've logged in since you sent it, or say you want to catch them online and want to know the best time, etc.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#63

Post by untog »

wpietri wrote: post #57
ashconnor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you pay in air tickets and hotel rooms. It's not an escort site...honest.

What is it, then? Anybody have enough experience to give us the HN-style breakdown (as opposed to the marketing pitch)?

I think he was being sarcastic.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#64

Post by wtvanhest »

ig1 wrote: post #62
wtvanhest wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started using it after I moved to a new city. I have had some great dates, and even met some friends who introduced me to their friends so I’m certainly not complaining about the site, but I have two observations I would love to have the understanding behind. 1st, what is the purpose of the green/yellow/red dot? To me, if I see a women with a yellow or green dot I rarely if ever contact them. Also, the percent…

You realize for someone to see that you're checking in all the time they'd also have to be checking in all the time and stalking your profile ? I don't know OKCs reasoning behind it but I can think of a bunch of arguments. For example say you've messaged someone to rearrange a date and you want to make sure they've logged in since you sent it, or say you want to catch them online and want to know the best time, etc.

I’m reacting to my thought process in viewing women’s profiles. If I visit a profile just twice I have a pretty good idea that they are checking it every day etc. If both times I visit they were online within the last 2 hours (extreme example) I know they are checking it a lot.

While that information doesn’t really matter, I noticed that I sort of laugh about it to myself and make assumptions about the person. If I am making assumptions, women are making assumptions and if the environment is as highly competitive as described, you really don’t want anything against you.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#65

Post by pja »

wpietri wrote: post #57
ashconnor wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you pay in air tickets and hotel rooms. It's not an escort site...honest.

What is it, then? Anybody have enough experience to give us the HN-style breakdown (as opposed to the marketing pitch)?

From a cursory scan of the online profiles, I'd say TG is a venue for both out-out and prostitution (search for profiles requesting "generous men only" and you'll see what I mean) whilst at the same time being a place for relatively well-off but friends-with-spare-time-or-money poor people to find travel partners (the stated goal of the site).

I have no idea what the breakdown between those two populations is though!

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#66

Post by mootothemax »

jaems33 wrote: post #56
mootothemax wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, men have it harder than women in the mating game. I think this is a myth. I wish years ago someone had told me all I needed to do was walk up to someone I found attractive and say "Hi, my name's Tom, how're you?" The day I started doing so, my dating life was revolutionised. Actually, this applies to most situations: parties; conferences; seeing a new face at work. With exception of special cases (maybe al…

Eh, sort of. I'd be interested to know your race and your height. At the end of the day, women still have deal breakers regardless of your personality, boldness, income, skills, etc. The reason why I think women have it easier is that they can both wait for someone to approach AND take the initiative and go up to a guy if they so choose. Whereas guys not named Ryan Gosling almost always must take the initiative.

I'd be interested to know your race and your height.

Pasty white with a beer gut that shrinks and grows according to the season, and somewhere around 5'10" or 5'11".

At the end of the day, women still have deal breakers regardless of your personality, boldness, income, skills, etc.

Are you saying that men don't? I think it's fair to say that everyone has deal breakers. Personally, I'm put off by people who judge others according to their income - or lack thereof.

The reason why I think women have it easier is that they can both wait for someone to approach AND take the initiative

You're right in that women are approached by guys far more often than the other way around. Given the number of unhappily single women out there though, sitting back and hoping doesn't seem to be a successful strategy.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#67

Post by planetguy »

jacques_chester wrote: post #13
continuations wrote: post #10

Interestingly the SECOND BEST looking woman got far more messages than the best looking woman, both in US and UK. I wondered why.

Learned helplessness. Most men stop contacting the most attractive female profiles because they never hear back.

This might be the case sometimes; in this case the best-looking one isn't in the unattainably-beautiful class though. Her nose is kinda big.

In this case I think it just indicates that the initial judges did a poor job of judging who the most attractive one was. Or perhaps that the black and white picture used by the most attractive woman is a turn-off.

As for the "most attractive" man, he has a nice smile and nice eyes but his baldness and undefinable ethnicity might be a turnoff for the average woman.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#68

Post by akoumjian »

goodside wrote: post #37

Hi. I work at OkCupid. I coud have saved you a lot of trouble. Your results confirm what all dating web sites have always known, and which we've made no secret about: Nearly all initial messages are sent by men. This does not mean that the site is "better" for women than for men, relative to any other form of heterosexual courtship. It's a deeply ingrained cultural, and perhaps biological, norm that men make proposal…

I was going to leave a comment that this guy obviously doesn't read the blog. Then I noticed that the Trends blog (blog.okcupid.com) hasn't been updated in well over a year. What happened? It was an incredibly fascinating read.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#69

Post by jsnk »

nostrademons wrote: post #12
jsnk wrote: post #3

>The fact that the first stage of online dating is so heavily stacked in women’s favour doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any easier for them, compared to men, to reach the end goal of pure love or perfect sex. Of course, men have it harder than women in the mating game. This conclusion seems like a white lie the author created for women. No one is looking for perfect mate. Both men and women choose their partners f…

You're familiar with the Stable Marriage Algorithm, right? The math doesn't bear you out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem It's been proven that the algorithm is optimal for the initiators of proposals, i.e. men in contemporary Western culture, although women can hack this by asking guys out themselves. The confusion is because you've artificially restricted the universe to a subset of its true si…

Stable marriage problem doesn't say anything about how receiving more message is actually a bad thing and hurts the chance. Or you'd have to show me how receiving 20 messages is same as receiving 1 message.

Re: OkCupid on Trial - 4 Month Experiment

#70

Post by dlytle »

goodside wrote: post #37

Hi. I work at OkCupid. I coud have saved you a lot of trouble. Your results confirm what all dating web sites have always known, and which we've made no secret about: Nearly all initial messages are sent by men. This does not mean that the site is "better" for women than for men, relative to any other form of heterosexual courtship. It's a deeply ingrained cultural, and perhaps biological, norm that men make proposal…

I think one advantage of his test is that it's (apparently) independent of an entity with a stake in the outcome.

Based on everything I've seen about OkCupid, there's no shortage of integrity, but independent verification is still valuable.

Also, I'm curious: I've read a couple of articles online proposing different methods for OkCupid handling Mandatory answers to questions. One in particular involves treating Mandatory answers as only negative, so that agreeing with someone about the size of the sun (for example) doesn't mean you're a better match, it just means you're a worse match if you disagree. What are your thoughts on that? (Not the company's thoughts, of course.)

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