Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

http://www.alternet.org/why-online-dating-sucks-men

by pmoriarty • 9 years ago

112 133 9 years ago

autokad2• 9 years ago

when i was young, my female friends would say just be yourself, happy, etc and someone will just come along. i did that, failed, and i said why did it go so wrong? then i considered their world view, and i face palmed myself.

same thing happens, women say try online dating, its so easy! my response rate (let alone something that leads to a rl meeting) is about 1/50. not worth it.

i wonder if online dating will become so bad for men, that it will be bad for women too, as the quality men realize its not a favorable arena.

voltagex_• 9 years ago

Set yourself up with a profile as a female - yes, it's very very bad.

sneak• 9 years ago

One of the reasons most women put little/no effort into online dating is because the median quality of men is generally so low.

There are ways of differentiating, like anything else, but it's become much worse in the last 3-5 years.

pottersbasilisk• 9 years ago

why would the quality of women be higher than men on dating sites ? Is it some american cultural thing?

I assumed the quality would be pretty even.

muninn_4• 9 years ago

Nah. The issue is that women generally have higher perceived self worth than men do in this regard, and so are more selective.

tracker13• 9 years ago

Well, men tend to outnumber women in such sites, so that's the start... also, people are only likely to respond (with interest) in the top 10-25% of people they communicate with based on looks... from there, personality comes into play.

It works both ways. It's just the majority of women don't respond to the majority of men, regardless of crafting of the message.. though I must say that I've gotten more thanks but no thanks type responses than actual interest, which is still less than 1 in 15 messages out for any kind of response.

Of course the buffet effect works both ways... people tend to see the options, and gravitate towards a level of attractiveness and features they like, which removes most of the pool on that alone.. now, if you aren't in that attractiveness block, your options for matches won't work as well.

I think that OK Cupid does better than most at matching similar attractiveness levels in terms of who you even see. If you happen to get any response from more attractive people (even a thanks, but no thanks) you'll see a shift in the matches coming up all around.

Then again, I'm a bit of an odd duck who tries to read the profile before seeing a picture too closely. So will usually respond if something catches my interest in the writing.. and unlike most men and women, I'm perfectly happy making new friends. Getting serious with someone I met about a year ago via Facebook... All dating site experience for me in the last 5 years has been pretty bad all around.

Would think it would be cool if you had a short (300-500 character) block to write about yourself, where you pick matches on picture and words... so you either see a blurb, or a picture... if there are two matches (either you like both, or both of you like one or the other) then you can communicate and see the full profile. Would probably be a more effective matching strategy at least.

throwaway911112• 9 years ago

Is that the median quality of men, the median quality of men reaching out to you, or the median interactions you've had with men overall? Honest question.

bobdole12342• 9 years ago

Just wait, the dating pool for men and women flip later in life. Quality men pair off with significant stability early on, and the remaining single men have significantly larger viable age range than women can generally expect.

Also: the biggest trick for being successful online is to keep your profile as brief as possible. Everything you say about yourself someone will find off-putting. You need just enough to show you're likely a real profile and give the people you contact something to ask you about if they decide to respond.

jbooth• 9 years ago

Counterpoint: A friend of mine had an okcupid profile where he dedicated 500 words to denying that he ever had sex with a bowl of macaroni and cheese. It was hilarious, and he's the one person I've met in my entire life who reversed the equation presented in the article.

That said, unless you've got some comic gold up your sleeve, you're probably right.

taneq2• 9 years ago

Even without pairing off, simple age dynamics skews it in favour of women first and then men. Young women statistically want to date older men (even if only by a few years) since older men are more capable, confident, and have far more resources. Men want to date younger women (usually again by only a few years).The end result is that men have a much tougher time competing up until mid-20s, and then roles suddenly reverse and women in their late 20s and beyond are left wondering 'where all the men went'.

superioritycplx• 9 years ago

Don't ask fish how to fish.

Check out theredpill on reddit and never look back.

pyre2• 9 years ago

Check out theredpill on reddit and never look back

Yea. As in once you check it out, you never want to see it again...

st3v3r• 9 years ago

Yes. Check out theredpill, laugh and/or cry that such a thing is real, and then close it and never look back.

mtreis86• 9 years ago

Please dont. That subreddit is gross. Its like asking sociopaths how to make friends. The answer may make sense on some level, but to follow their advice is to discount a large range of human emotions. The red pill is the last place to go for real advice. Talk to your grandparents. Talk to women themelves. Listen. Ask questions. Stop trying to manipulate people.

lumberjack3• 9 years ago

Don't bother with online dating. First of all the quality of women is much lower than any you'd meet IRL. Secondly, they purposefully set absurdly high standards. Thirdly, if physical looks aren't your strong point, you cannot really make a good impression because that is what they are going to be judging you on. What you write in your profile is close to useless

If you have trouble finding women, move to a big city and start working on meeting people. It's pretty much a numbers game for men of average/below-average looks.

cgb223• 9 years ago

As someone who just moved to a big city and has been waiting for an excuse to ditch Tinder, what activities or events would you recommend to do to meet people?

valuearb2• 9 years ago

Yea, none of this true. The best application of the numbers game is to message a dozen girls a day online, and it works.

toodlebunions2• 9 years ago

It's absolutely a numbers game. Increase your exposure for best results.

majormajor• 9 years ago

i wonder if online dating will become so bad for men, that it will be bad for women too, as the quality men realize its not a favorable arena.

So the assumption here is that if something that works for a lot of other people (even in this thread it's about 50/50 amongst the men in the "worked pretty well for me" vs "didn't work" camp) doesn't work for you is that it's everyone else's problem?

It is, like everything, a sort of game. The successful are the ones who adapt. That can mean changing approaches, trying new things, developing new interests, changing standards, etc.

I did online dating off and on for three years before getting into a long term relationship through it, and the one thing I can tell you is that by the end of it (a) I sent different sorts of messages, (b) I had different sorts of profile pictures, and (c) I behaved differently on dates. I paid attention, I didn't assume I deserved anything, I made adjustments, and it paid off. Sure, I'm jealous of the extremely good looking people who don't have to try, but you don't have to be one of them to find success.

vecter6• 9 years ago

"Be yourself" is absolutely the worst dating advice a man can ever receive. Seriously, don't take dating advice from women. They give you bad advice not because they don't care for you (they genuinely do want to help and their intentions are good and pure), but their advice is bad because they don't understand what it's actually like to date women. It's not their fault either. Before everyone jumps on me for hating women, I don't. I love the women, they're wonderful. I'm not making a moral judgment, just stating a practical fact.

To see why this is bad advice, consider if you weren't very good at basketball and asked a friend on how to improve. If they said "be yourself", that would be crazy. Clearly, whatever you've been doing hasn't been working, so doing more of that isn't going to improve anything.

If you actually want tips to meaningfully improve your dating life, feel free to email me (email in profile). Happy to chat more offline.

L_226• 9 years ago

I think when most people offer "be yourself" they actually mean "don't pretend to be someone you're not".

pmoriarty11• 9 years ago

You miss that dating is not a game for some people. That's the crucial difference between it and basketball.

In dating, some people are after finding someone who is compatible with them, and if you're not being yourself, you're basically misrepresenting yourself, and lessening your chances of finding someone compatible -- as they think you're someone other than who you really are, and if they think themselves compatible with you, they're really only compatible with the image you are projecting of yourself.

So, really, lie about who you are at the risk of incompatibility.. which might be fine if you're just looking for a one-night-stand, but if you're looking for a deeper, longer-lasting relationship, you're doing both of you a huge disservice by lying... not to mention that it's skeezy and unethical.

rak00n3• 9 years ago

Be yourself means stop giving a fuck about being perfect. That's sexy.

vacri2• 9 years ago

I can't recall the name, but a comedian once said "People tell me: 'Don't worry about love, you'll find it when you're not looking for it'. When's that? When I'm asleep at night? Are they going to creep in through my window?" :)

djsumdog• 9 years ago

I really feel like online dating only works for people who are at least average to very attractive. If you're near average or anywhere below, you're kinda totally out of luck; both men and women for various reasons (although even that situation - women still have the upper hand as far as number of responses and the ability to actually go out on more dates).

That's been my personal experience anyway. I gave up on it a while back.

Forge36• 9 years ago

I'm not sure where to take this discussion, on one hand I've went through the process an I'm engaged to a woman I met through online dating. On the other I remember how tiring it was trying to get responses and make a decent opening.

I spoke with my fiance about this she and she showed me how many messages are got. While a guy may get a few replies. She had so many new messages mine had dropped off the page. Message management was a paid feature, but sending was free as was searching and filtering.

If anything: Perhaps the problems with online dating aren't simply skewed ratios, but poor design with regards to how users used the Software vs expectations.

Why should a woman search through profiles when she can review 20+ already interested candidates in a day? Why should she reply to every message (I assume the average guy doesn't message every girl)?

make3• 9 years ago

you must be pretty

onion2k• 9 years ago

Why should a woman search through profiles when she can review 20+ already interested candidates in a day?

I don't think you can equate a man sending a message with genuine interest in many cases. At the very least women on dating sites have to filter out the guys who cut and paste the same message to every woman. Even if that's only 1% of guys, that's still a lot of messages to read and reject.

avodonosov• 9 years ago

Can machine learning help?

samysaadi• 9 years ago

^ The M.O. of silicon valley rn

pavel_lishin3• 9 years ago

My blockchain-based dating app solves all of these problems.

lumberjack3• 9 years ago

The behaviour is due to our culture.

charles-salvia• 9 years ago

How is this different from the default state of Western culture for the past century? Despite many positive social changes towards more equal opportunities for women, socially speaking, Western culture is still very traditional in terms of the common expectations surrounding the "courtship" dynamic between a man and a woman. The man is still expected to initiate and drive the interaction, while the woman is expected to be more passive about it. This is how it is off the Internet as well - women are routinely approached by men at bars/nightclubs etc., but it rarely happens the other way around. So why would online dating be any different?

caf• 9 years ago

How is this different from the default state of Western culture for the past century?

It's not, but the author is considering how her actions have hitherto been perpetuating this state.

russellbeattie• 9 years ago

Someone needs to combine Vine with Tinder. A 2 second video of you saying hello, and you can only record via the app. This wouldn't change the general imbalance of dating, but it would help narrow down choices really quickly and maybe clear the backlog for women a bit.

pavel_lishin3• 9 years ago

Serious question: how do you solve the "oh, that's a penis" problem?

taneq2• 9 years ago

Deep learning with a crowdsourced dataset based on 'report penis' button (cross-referenced across a bunch of accounts and filtered to remove false positives from people who click 'that's a penis' on every profile out of spite.)

wavefunction• 9 years ago

If machines watch the video first and see a penis -1 that thang

*aw dang beaten to th punch

pentae• 9 years ago

Probably the same reason theres not too many penises on Tinder profiles - report button.

btgeekboy• 9 years ago

The same way we "solve" it on every other platform: artificial intelligence combined with human intervention (i.e. a report button).

I don't see how making a short video is any different vs. uploading a handful of photos.

louprado• 9 years ago

Great idea... or maybe I think that because I'm a photo 5 but a video 7.

SegFaultx64• 9 years ago

That exists (or at least it did). I think the name of the app is Flutter, I know Jason Calcanis invested in it and they presented at Launch Fest last year.

dbg314155• 9 years ago

I don't really agree with this article.

I gave up on online dating a few years back, but as a guy I don't think it was all that bad. Someone said 1/50... I think it was closer to 1/5 women would respond. And look... if they don't respond, that's fine... it's nothing personal at that point. Women have to sift through the messages very quickly.

Anyway my advice for making it not suck so much for guys:

1) Find a girl friend who has some style, have her pick out your clothes (you can have her go through your closet and throw out everything that sucks if you want -- every 5 years or so it's probably not a bad idea to let a woman do this for you). I'm not the best looking guy... compensating by dressing right helps.

2) Make sure your pics aren't shirtless selfies, or drunk frat-boy poses, or just you standing in front of a boring ass wall; photos where you are out doing interesting things... hiking, at a cooking class... whatever. No selfies. Outdoor pics in good lighting taken by someone else. Make sure your pics are current.

3) Put some time into your profile, but make sure it's not a wall of text. A few tweet-like sentences that are funny or summarize yourself... that's what you need to go for. I think you want to be a more-fun version of yourself. Be a little goofy, don't take yourself too seriously. And be honest... you'll get what you're looking for.

4) When you write to girls... actually write to them. Not a book... but something individual. Copy and pasting the same message won't get you anywhere. Tweet-like comments about something on her profile... ask her a question, share a funny story... Avoid diving right into compliments. Give her something to respond to, something to play off of.

5) When you go out to dinner, have her pay half the first date. It's not cheap, it's fair. And you own't feel taken advantage of. Be friendly, be courteous, but don't be some white knight waiting to be a victim. Look, if you really had a great time and you don't care... pick up the check, but only if you really want to. You aren't paying for her time... she's not an escort. Splitting the check is fine.

6) Have things ready to talk about on the dates. Ask stupid questions. Bring up things you know about her from her profile... have fun with it. Reading just one book a month will give you an incredibly leg up here.

And be realistic. You aren't perfect... she won't be perfect. The goal is to find someone you enjoy being with. No reason you can't have a lot of fun along the way.

tracker13• 9 years ago

My responses were generally about 1 in 15. but the rest is generally good advice... that said, I can pick out my own clothes... some things I just like more than others... I was an artist/designer before a programmer, though it was a long time ago.

dbg314155• 9 years ago

Fair... most guys don't know anything about clothing. I didn't until I lived with a woman for a bit. There's a science to picking the right clothing that flatters your body, matches your skin tone... all that... it was like calculus to hear someone try and explain it. I didn't have enough interest to learn it, so I just let someone else do it for me.

nether3• 9 years ago

But shirtless selfies work, if you have muscles. And copy-pasting messages also garner responses that lead to successful exchanges, that's why OkCupid chose not to ban them.

How tall are you and what is your race? Those two metrics are greatest determinants of how many messages you receive as a man.

dbg314155• 9 years ago

I didn't use OK Cupid... I thought it was just for hookups. I'm old though, we had Match and eHarmony 5-10 years ago.

autokad2• 9 years ago

"Someone said 1/50... I think it was closer to 1/5 women would respond."

thats me,

I'm pretty sure if a plague wiped out all men on earth but me, I still wouldn't get 1/5. 1/50 isn't an exaggeration for me. most websites make it hard to track such things, but the coffee meets baggle app made it easy. out of 100 i had 2 reciprocation, 1 saying it was an accident. out of the next 65 had 1 more before I deleted the app. on traditional dating sites like match, pof, etc I had similar though un-quantified results.

dbg314155• 9 years ago

It sucks, but so much of what we see online is the photos. Can you put on some nice clothes and have a friend shoot some pics of you out around town? Will probably help improve response rates more than anything else. Good luck!

valuearb2• 9 years ago

She really didn't get it. I"ve seen plenty of young men spend swiping through dating apps and messaging girls for hours, because it works and works well.

xor12• 9 years ago

Didn't even realize this article was 4 years old until I started reading the comments.

Dating apps are the ultimate hunting ground for individuals with borderline personality disorder. They provide an endless supply of one-night-stands and no-strings-attached sex, as well as playthings and victims when short-term and long-term relationships are desired.

pavel_lishin3• 9 years ago

Wait, it's impossible to enjoy one-night-stands and short-term relationships without having BPD?

xor12• 9 years ago

I don't see how you inferred that from my post.

Lazare2• 9 years ago

Eh, sure, I guess, kinda? However, the article presents the situation as being: 1) very positive for women and 2) very negative for men. In reality, neither is entirely true.

As many, many women will tell you, the unrelenting torrent of creepy messages and dick picks is by no means an unmitigated positive. Yes, you can just open your inbox and find it full, but mostly it's full of utter crap, which actively drowns out the actual good messages. The article glosses over this; just ignore the "addled idiots" and exchange an email with the good guys. For many women it's more a case of "find inbox 100% full of unsolicited pictures of genitals; close it and go watch Netflix alone".

Similarly, as many guys can attest (including me, and other guys in the comments here), not being massaged out of the blue is survivable (it's no different than real life, and I'm somehow survived the experience of never being accosted on the street and asked out on a date...), and response rates are not that low if you're smart about it. People talk about 50 messages to get a reply; my experience is more like 10 to get a date (and no, I'm not conventionally attractive).

In short, I'd say online dating sucks for everyone, in different ways, but it's not that bad for anyone. "Soul crushing"? Hardly. And if all of your messages are being ignored, maybe it says something about your messages.

(The real trick, I think, is empathy. Think about the person you're messaging. They have an inbox full of terrible messages. What can you write that will stand out? How can you make the reply interesting? What do they want to see? They have too many messages; they're looking for a reason to filter your out; what do you need to avoid saying? Your goal is to get them to read the message, then click on your profile, then reply to your message. It's not that hard a problem!)

dualogy2• 9 years ago

not being massaged out of the blue is survivable

I can confirm this is true.

Touche2• 9 years ago

Also the article makes some assumptions on what is a positive experience, based on her own feelings. Actually, having a brief exchange with someone you are attracted to that then fizzles out is not the worst thing in the world. It means they saw your profile and didn't think you were undateable. I'd take 1/10 for that amount of positive-reinforcement.

And the rejections don't hurt that much. As a man rejection from women is a part of life. To be rejected by a lack of response is about the best rejection I can think of. I mean, I still have vivid memories of being rejected by girls in high school and can't remember a single profile from a woman who didn't respond to me.

paulcole3• 9 years ago

I'm a man and in my late 20's (currently mid-30's and been with my partner for a few years now) had a great time using OKCupid. I was able to average 2-3 dates per week and received replies to ~25% of my messages.

Before anyone asks, I am average appearance. I don't drive (bicycle only). Things I had going in my favor: I'm white, had a flexible job (could meet whenever) and vegan diet (probably the biggest help as vegan women way outnumber vegan men even here in Portland).

Here are my tips for men seeking women:

1. Say as little as possible in your profile.

2. Spend as close to no time as possible on the messages you send. Should be 3-5 sentences max and end in a relevant question that the recipient can answer.

3. If you get a response, don't waste time with back and forth. Immediately ask to meet for coffee.

4. Ask questions and listen. When someone tells a story, don't immediately tell one that's similar-- ask a question.

5. Open your age range to include women who are older than you are (try as much as a decade, not just 1-2 years).

dbg314155• 9 years ago

Good advice, all of it. And written in less space than what I just typed -- shorter means better. (=

paulcole3• 9 years ago

Your advice on picture is dead-on, too. Obviously be in your photos but doing something interesting and don't take the picture yourself. I think mine were: cuddling a stray cat, on a hike, and biking in Seattle on vacation.

dualogy2• 9 years ago

Also mid-30s and like you, I very much enjoyed the hey-days of OkCupid, that is before Tinder landed and everyone began to swipe dozens of faces per minute and express their personality via unicode icons. That very moment online dating lost all its splendor for me and I was instantly part of the "older set". Which frankly I don't mind a bit. Sure, there are probably still old-school platforms out there, and with plenty of the "as much as a decade older than you", vegan women, but that's uh for another day (or decade)

nitemice• 9 years ago

This seems to be good advice. The more you know about a person, before you can properly meet them, the more likely you are to find out something that seems massively off-putting and shatters your impression of you.

I know a sample of 1 is nothing etc. but I read an article [1] a while back about a woman who tracked everything she could about every date she went on for two years, and one of the most interesting things I felt was that if she met someone through a dating site, it meant that she knew a lot more about them up-front, and thus didn't like them as much.

[1](http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/what-you-can-lea...)

pmoriarty11• 9 years ago

That's a really interesting article. The part that most resonated with me came at the end:

  "People can look great on paper but it doesn't mean that they are
  the right person for you.

  "That was basically what came from this whole project - chemistry
  can't be quantified. I have no idea why this guy I am falling for,
  even though he looks terrible on paper and then another guy is
  awesome on paper and I don't care about him at all."

I wish more people tracked the data about their dating experiences and shared their results.

cobookman• 9 years ago

+1 While living in a 55+ coop. All of us polled together a list of what opening statements lead to a date on various chatting apps. The #1 opening statement was, "You look like trouble...". The #2 was, "Backstreet boys or Nsyc".

Turns out blasting a simple message to as many girls as possible is the best way of online dating.

pmoriarty11• 9 years ago

This probably works if you're an average guy looking for an average woman. In that that case, you are most likely to be compatible.

It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however.

I have a lot of unusual interests and prefer to find women who share them. So my success rate at just randomly rolling the dice and having women just randomly roll the dice in return (such as with short profiles or speed dating) has been pretty low.

What has worked reasonably well for me has been having really detailed profiles. That way women really know what they're getting when they contact me, and I they're likely to be women who self-select to be relatively compatible with me by the time they reach out -- though there's always the chance that we just won't have much chemistry when we meet in person, and that tends to happen more often than not (though not as often as when I meet random women at bars, clubs, work, or wherever).

I've also never posted pictures of myself (though I have sent them upon request). That, along with my interests, helps to select women for whom looks aren't critically important, which is important for me (despite being above average in appearance myself.. I just don't want to be sought after primarily for my looks).

Another thing that's helped enormously is to find some way that immediately sets you apart from the crowd. My profiles/personals effectively scream "freak!" and that attracts freaks in return -- which is exactly what I want. That can be a huge turn off for the normals, but an attraction for people who share my tastes.

Not to get too philosophical, but I think it's important to somehow signal to others that you are like them. That's why dress codes for subcultures are still so important. They're systems of signaling that you share common tastes, world outlooks, interests. The same has to be done on dating sites, whether you do that through a pic of your biker tats or punk haircut, or (as in my case) by just detailing your interests.

Personality is, of course, also important, and that can come through your writing (or pics). I still have to work on that.. maybe take a creative writing course. My profiles are definitely way too dry.

projektir3• 9 years ago

I'm a woman and felt similar reading that response. I'd never pay much attention to a guy if he has nothing on his profile because, as you said, the interests and such are too far off the beaten track. It definitely works for a wide range of people, but really doesn't for a certain subset.

I wonder how a dating service focused on detailed profiles, later meeting, and customizable search range would do...

paulcole3• 9 years ago

It doesn't work so well if your interests, tastes, or personality are off the beaten track, however.

How did you manage to infer that my interests were so pedestrian?

cholantesh• 9 years ago

I've also never posted pictures of myself (though I have sent them upon request).

Recently I tried creating a profile and was told a picture was required to proceed. Is this a newer requirement?

vacri2• 9 years ago

Open your age range to include women who are older than you are (try as much as a decade, not just 1-2 years).

I remember an OKCupid stats review where they were talking about the age ranges opened for the genders. Women tended to do 5 years over to 5 years under, and men tended to do 5 years over to 10-15 years under. The analyst admonished the men for being ageist and not opening up higher to match... despite the women having the same range for higher ages.

Age is a weird one when it comes to love.

rak00n3• 9 years ago

I don't want to put water down your enthusiasm but Portland and San Francisco have entirely different dating scene. What you did to be successful in Portland, won't make you successful in San Francisco or another city.

flukus• 9 years ago

I was able to average 2-3 dates per week

That sounds like a part time job by itself.

rabboRubble• 9 years ago

As a woman, no longer in my 20s, my take on your 5 tips.

1. I sort of did the same.

2. I like to banter a bit with Tinder matches. I like to see if you can write. Writing shows personality, hopefully humor, and level of education. I tend towards wordiness, but I too had to pare back my texts otherwise I seemed wordy and overeager.

3. If I got a sense you could spell, had decent grammar, a brief exchange would be OK but I'd be hesitant to meet with somebody straight out the gate without some banter. Banter is the fun part of meeting new people.

4. Agree!

5. Thank you from all the older women on Tinder :-)

thisrod• 9 years ago

Note that this title has a queer reading, which is almost the opposite of the straight one. I find it about equally funny and true.

ENTP• 9 years ago

Happily married to a girl I met on a dating site. It's not always futile but acknowledge I'm probably the 1%

pyre2• 9 years ago

Should say [2013]. I tried to go to the author's blog (rosiesays.com), and I get redirected to some domain auction site.

Touche2• 9 years ago

Ugh, well, if the roles were reversed here and the author were a man speaking for women this article would be derided. I think there's even a word for this, "mansplaining", no? Isn't that exactly what is happening here?

I'm just one man and don't pretend to speak for every man in the world but my experience with online dating was much better than what she describes. I don't recall what my "success" rate was but it had to of been at least 33%? Maybe more?

Maybe the author should talk to men about their experiences rather than assuming that her own behavior is the norm.

evincarofautumn• 9 years ago

Male here. I did online dating for a couple of years. Based on my narrow experience, it seems the odds are indeed dramatically stacked against men—I ended up generally not expecting a response from anyone.

When I changed my profile to “bisexual” (which I am), I saw one reason why—scads of creepy, low-effort messages from men, sometimes with their profile set to “female” to attract more responses. The imbalance leads to slimy game tactics and drives down the quality of experience for everybody.

The only real women who ever messaged me first had qualities that I guess some people consider dealbreakers, such as being big, disabled, trans, non-white, or just not “conventionally pretty”. Curiously, for me and most of my male friends, none of those things would even be a problem, as long as there were basic chemistry and lifestyle compatibility.

In the end, I made a few good friends, and I think that’s actually a very good use case—OkCupid’s “match percentage” for example is a pretty good metric of how much you agree on basic politics, demeanour, and so on. It just falls short of predicting a “spark” in real life—I went on dates with “99% match” women who turned out to share many of what I consider my worst qualities.

Ironically, soon after I gave up on online dating, I met my lovely partner at an internet meetup—so you really never know!

ThrustVectoring3• 9 years ago

OKCupid's match percentage is highly gameable. You've got two kinds of people - those that might work out, and the "oh hell no". Answer anything that has an obvious answer for the first kind as highly important, decline to answer questions with high variance, repeat until enough people have high enough percentages.

epx• 9 years ago

I found my wife in a chat that was mostly used for dating. I won her because I was the only guy in the virtual room that did not start the conversation in the line "nice shoes, wanna fuck?".

Yes, online dating may be a bad experience for average-looking guys, but sometimes it is so easy to stand out.

ThrustVectoring3• 9 years ago

Reading up on market design made me realize:

A) Tinder et al should probably be some sort of "sort the people you're interested in and run Gale-Shapley to figure out who you're meeting with on Friday Night"

B) The actual design of the app hardly matters for success, only your ability to market it and get people to adopt it. Oh, and I don't have any advantage here, so the entire thing is a mess not worth fixing.

I miiight have an out by making the Gale-Shapley version of Tinder, writing a bunch of content marketing aimed at programmers/nerds, aggressively promoting it at meetups. That only really gets the male side of the matching market, which means I'd want funding and a marketing position for women-who-are-into-nerds.

inlined• 9 years ago

I don't understand some of this advice like "keep your profile short. You'll offend someone and miss out on a date."

Unless you're just looking for hookups, the goal isn't dating, it's long term matching. I probably have gone on dates with 1 in 20 matches and aside from my ego, I'd be better off being more selective.

houds• 9 years ago

I am an Indian man with distasteful dating experience. I am 31, above average by American means and very much in shape. I weigh 150 lbs having height of 5'7".

I think premature baldness killed it for me in my 20s. I had low confidence for a long time. I have been shaving my head for 2 yrs now. But, 9 out 10 women here in SF/Seattle/Portland prefer either white or black men.

I haven't been on a date for 2 yrs now. I think TINDER and alike hookup apps pretty much killed it for men like me. Women used to depend on men for resources. We have reverse situation now with women outnumering men in terms of employment rate and graduation rate.

What's worst, Indian women prefer white men if they are in US and master's degree and 100k or more salary is must for Indian/Asian women. I have first hand experience of Indian/Asian women telling me that if I don't have masters then don't bother talking to us.

I deleted tinder profile 3 months back. Nowadays, I spend time just by myself. I felt bad for a long time, but then I realized nobody cares. Like it or not, women care about looks, status and resources most. Miss 2 out 3 and you are done.

I used to blame myself but now I don't. I know I am a competent man, i contribute to the society in my capacity and this is only life I have. I now spend Fridays and Saturdays being very relaxed and doing nothing virtually.

Hookup culture is real. That's all I can say.

b6• 9 years ago

It sucks for everyone. For women, it sucks because they're being bombarded and spammed. For men, it sucks because it can be nearly impossible to break through the noise.

I'm a guy. I'm extraordinarily serious about relationships. I never spam women because I'd hate to have it done to me, and I hate anything that makes humans dread talking to each other, anything that degrades the glue that allows humans to get along with empathy. Before I write to anyone, I've read everything they provided, and genuinely think we could get along.

But writing to women is an absolute tightrope. Do too much to demonstrate literacy and general quality as a human being, and the message may come off as weird or boring. The vast majority of the time, you won't receive feedback of any kind, so you tend to start trying to anticipate their reservations -- but if you write anything about your guesses as to why they might not be interested, you start sounding weird. And you get one chance per person. Writing again would be weird.

Get nothing back ten times? Twenty? Fifty? You can never ever let it get to you. You can never get a chip on your shoulder or allow any resentment to show through.

I accept a lot of this as just The Way It Is. The one thing I would hope to change in the minds of women, the one memo to women I would send, if I could, is: we have the internet and airplanes. Please don't write me off because I don't happen to be in the same city right now! A lot of women seem to want to cripple OKCupid to be, e.g., OKCupid NYC.

In my last successful relationship, we met on OKC, talked there, and then on another online chatting thing, and then in calls and texts and emails, and then I drove several hundred miles to see her. We knew we loved each other before I left. We were together for a few years. We have internet and airplanes! This could be a good thing for women.

Every time I disable my OKC account, I feel like it's for the last time, and the amount of time before I try again gets longer and longer. I feel like I'm being trained in a bad way.

I'm OK with how things are, but I wish things were better, because the world would be better if it were filled with people in healthy relationships that allow them to love and be loved.

projektir3• 9 years ago

I accept a lot of this as just The Way It Is. The one thing I would hope to change in the minds of women, the one memo to women I would send, if I could, is: we have the internet and airplanes. Please don't write me off because I don't happen to be in the same city right now! A lot of women seem to want to cripple OKCupid to be, e.g., OKCupid NYC.

I dunno if this is a women specific thing. Location-based matching seems to just be a "feature" of pretty much every dating website out there, so people get used to it.

donatj• 9 years ago

I was on OKCupid for something like 10 years. 5 years ago a girl messaged me first. Probably the 3rd time that happened in the ten years. I am now happily married to that girl. She's on the couch a few feet from me.

Judgmentality• 9 years ago

I haven't read the article, but around 5 years ago I had a great experience with OkCupid. I've never had trouble meeting girls in real life though, and I guess that carried over to the internet. I almost never initiated the conversation with girls but just responded when they sent me a message. I met lots of terrific women (and some not-so-terrific women), including my girlfriend who I'm still with. I had a lot more fun meeting girls with OkCupid than I did at bars/parties/etc.

toodlebunions2• 9 years ago

It's a total sausage fest, your competition is extreme, and the quality of possible mates is usually very low. Avoid if at all possible.

Find something offline and social instead, do that and meet likeminded people. You will almost certainly have better luck.

nether3• 9 years ago

Dating fits a common dyad in which a power imbalance exists. Women vs. men (in heterosexual dating), men vs. women (in many male-dominated careers), police vs. civilians, whites vs. non-whites, and so on. In such cases, these points of view are expressed:

More Power:

- Cooperate in order to reach a successful outcome

- Lay out your intents explicitly, attempt nothing verging on deception

- Be yourself, we just want to help you

- Work hard to better yourself, we haven't done anything wrong. In the vast majority of cases, you have.

(Overall assertion is that of equality, and denial of a power/privilege imbalance, and that you should take responsibility for yourself.)

Less Power:

- Compete with the other party to reach an outcome desirable to you

- Strategically reveal information in order to effect the above

- Be yourself, but realize that the other party may not have your best interests in mind. They prioritize their best interests.

- Work hard to better yourself, but understand that the other side makes mistakes, misjudgments and may just as well be as error prone as you.

In any relationship where an imbalance exists we should be aware that both sides will have sharply differing views. But dating in particular, the concept of female privilege is a huge minefield. OP article's ideas have been tacitly admitted to me in person by women, but the large audience online suppresses women from admitting anything that might not reflect well upon themselves. I think she's speaking for a large amount of women who deny their privilege via silence. The general idea might be that privileged deny their privilege, whether it's through physical attributes, wealth, legislated authority, etc.

known• 9 years ago

Relevant https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13867590

reggieband• 9 years ago

I definitely fall in the less than average response rate category. Probably closer to 30/1 for a message response and worse for getting a date.

30 well crafted messages takes a lot of effort. The women that respond to me and progress towards a date are usually the ones that I am least interested in. In cold terms, the effort to result ratio makes online dating practically useless for me.

I don't blame the women as I expect that the ones I would most like to date get a lot of messages. The ones that are willing to progress with me I expect get less, to put it politely. At a certain point I make the cut and I just don't like that point.

I suggest everyone reading the advice of people here that says "Here's how I get ~25% of my messages read and end up with 2-3 dates per week" ignore the well-meaning advice and instead read Malcom Gladwell's article "The New-Boy Network" [0]. What applies to jobs in the essay applies to women in online dating.

[0] http://gladwell.com/the-new-boy-network/

sergiotapia• 9 years ago

In a single picture: http://i.imgur.com/G9sr4Cl.jpg

bananarama2000• 9 years ago

Top 5% of men crush it online.

Better start lifting more weights boys! (and girls!)

speaking as someone who is crushing it (100 dates in past year alone)

It would be impolite to say anything more than that

ilaksh2• 9 years ago

The short version is that there are significantly more men than women and the women receive many messages, so they can just pick the best looking/most wealthy/stable-seeming men to reply to and almost have to ignore the rest as spam.

The problem for me has been that most years I haven't made a lot of money and I am somewhat unattractive. There are some issues with facial asymmetry that I was actually unaware of until recently -- and the funny thing is that when I went on a dating forums site and asked about it, they were quite rude in dismissing my concern, suggesting I was average or above average.

But after years of real-life attempts and online messaging never receiving replies from attractive women and rarely receiving replies at all, I have slowly realized over the years that I am a little bit ugly, and not having the good solid job or good height, means that attractive women do not have time for me. Which makes sense for them, its just hard for me to deal with since just because one is unattractive does not mean that they are attracted to _other_ unattractive people. I am attracted to attractive women and repelled by unattractive women. Which the same is probably happening the other way too.

So I have stopped trying to meet women and my new plan is to become independently wealthy and improve my face with surgery.

vecter6• 9 years ago

and the funny thing is that when I went on a dating forums site and asked about it, they were quite rude in dismissing my concern, suggesting I was average or above average.

I think you should open your mind and understand why they think or believe that. If you do, you'll probably save yourself an incredible amount of pain, suffering, and frustration.

ilaksh2• 9 years ago

I wanted to believe them and acted on those assertions, but after another 4 or 5 years of the same situation and then finally doing some analysis of my face in photos, I realized they were wrong. So after about 3 decades of believing I was normal and either having relationships only occasionally with very few unattractive women or none (almost entirely alone), I now have accepted an explanation.

szatkus• 9 years ago

I met my GF on Adopt a Guy (I think it operates in few european countries). Women have to start conversations so SNR there is slightly higher than on traditional dating sites.

Why Online Dating Sucks for Men (2013)

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