5 ms·

I don't see why the trend described in the article shouldn't apply to other forms of online dating/matchmaking as well. "But I have a wonderful personality" wil

I don't see why the trend described in the article shouldn't apply to other forms of online dating/matchmaking as well. "But I have a wonderful personality" will know no one ever, as long as your mug is ugly. Consider this: at least in the bar you have your chance to make a good impression. In online dating you're one click away from being ignored forever.

golergka 11y ago
> "But I have a wonderful personality" will know no one ever, as long as your mug is ugly. Hm. So, how come average and below-average looking people with good personalities have stable and happy long-term relationships after thirty, when gorgeous and sexy party animals and drama queens (of any gender and sexual orientation) keep marrying, divorcing, and end up being mostly single after 40?
- neverminder 11y ago
  What does attractiveness have to do with stability of relationship? If anything, attractive people will always have more attention/choices/distractions that is a negative factor in relationship and the opposite will be beneficial for the not attractive ones.
  - golergka 11y ago
    > What does attractiveness have to do with stability of relationship? That's exactly my point, so I'm surprised that you phrase your comment as if you're arguing with me.
    - neverminder 11y ago
      I may have misunderstood you, since now I realized your comment is a single very long question.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      Your point is not arguing with the article however. The article is not about how hot people find eternal stable relationships, but how they have more chances to get into relationships. That you noticed them often break an older relationship and get into a new one corroborates the article, doesn't negate it. And if we take away the stigma of divorce, which is supposed to mean some kind of personal failure, that's good for them. It could also entail "ugly" people also wanting to divorce/play around more, but as they fear not having the same chances, they play it safe (and miserably). So, yeah, it might not be that a less attractive person will "know no one ever" (absolute), but it will probably be that they'll have limited chances to get to know other people, and when they do, they'll tend to stick with them.
- blowski 11y ago
  I'm assuming that you mean some ugly people end up in happy relationships while some attractive people end up unhappily single in their 40s. Clearly this is not true of all people in either group, and the proportions could be broadly similar or quite different - I have no data at all.
  - golergka 11y ago
    I wasn't talking about ugly people — I was talking about "ugly" (in quotes) people with good personalities. And almost all of those people after 30 that I know have great, stable relationships, often with more attractive people.
    - sokoloff 11y ago
      I suspect two issues. There's some observational bias at play. You notice the cases where the guy (usually) has "outkicked his coverage" and you may notice the very attractive singles and wonder about it. You don't notice the plain singles or the perfectly matched couples, but you notice the woman in the red dress from the Matrix. Second, some people make a conscious decision to have a stable relationship. I'm not saying it's 100% choice, but it's well over half IMO. I sought [and found] a partner who came from a stable family, who was educated and valued education, who wanted kids, and who wanted a stable relationship. Did that contribute to me being one of "those people"? Probably.
    - forgetsusername 11y ago
      >often with more attractive people Since there are two sides to the transaction, the number of people marrying more attractive people is exactly equal to the number marrying less attractive people.
      - golergka 11y ago
        Once again, I was comparing two groups: ugly w good personality vs beautiful vs difficult personality. I didn't cover ugly w difficul personality and beautiful w good personality, hence the disparity.
- VLM 11y ago
  Clearly there's no or very little correlation between similarity of attractiveness levels and relationship stability because ignoring the whole internet dating topic, people have lived in communities ranging in size over at least 5 orders of magnitude if not more, yet actual divorce stats of small rural villages vs megacities are not separated by anything near 5 orders of magnitude. Or whatever other measure of stability you'd like to use, none of them approach the incredible variation in size of the dating pool and therefore similarity in first impression rating. A physics analogy would be that no matter how strong the theoretical argument, its widely observed that over many human accessible orders of magnitude in mass of the object, gravity makes things fall at the same rate. Leading to the (actually inaccurate) theory that the force of gravity has no correlation with the masses of the objects. Given that there's observationally no correlation between two variables and not much theory either, then observed variation in one variable is by the above, unsurprisingly not correlated to the other variable.

golergka 11y ago

> "But I have a wonderful personality" will know no one ever, as long as your mug is ugly. Hm. So, how come average and below-average looking people with good personalities have stable and happy long-term relationships after thirty, when gorgeous and sexy party animals and drama queens (of any gender and sexual orientation) keep marrying, divorcing, and end up being mostly single after 40?

neverminder 11y ago
What does attractiveness have to do with stability of relationship? If anything, attractive people will always have more attention/choices/distractions that is a negative factor in relationship and the opposite will be beneficial for the not attractive ones.
- golergka 11y ago
  > What does attractiveness have to do with stability of relationship? That's exactly my point, so I'm surprised that you phrase your comment as if you're arguing with me.
  - neverminder 11y ago
    I may have misunderstood you, since now I realized your comment is a single very long question.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    Your point is not arguing with the article however. The article is not about how hot people find eternal stable relationships, but how they have more chances to get into relationships. That you noticed them often break an older relationship and get into a new one corroborates the article, doesn't negate it. And if we take away the stigma of divorce, which is supposed to mean some kind of personal failure, that's good for them. It could also entail "ugly" people also wanting to divorce/play around more, but as they fear not having the same chances, they play it safe (and miserably). So, yeah, it might not be that a less attractive person will "know no one ever" (absolute), but it will probably be that they'll have limited chances to get to know other people, and when they do, they'll tend to stick with them.
blowski 11y ago
I'm assuming that you mean some ugly people end up in happy relationships while some attractive people end up unhappily single in their 40s. Clearly this is not true of all people in either group, and the proportions could be broadly similar or quite different - I have no data at all.
- golergka 11y ago
  I wasn't talking about ugly people — I was talking about "ugly" (in quotes) people with good personalities. And almost all of those people after 30 that I know have great, stable relationships, often with more attractive people.
  - sokoloff 11y ago
    I suspect two issues. There's some observational bias at play. You notice the cases where the guy (usually) has "outkicked his coverage" and you may notice the very attractive singles and wonder about it. You don't notice the plain singles or the perfectly matched couples, but you notice the woman in the red dress from the Matrix. Second, some people make a conscious decision to have a stable relationship. I'm not saying it's 100% choice, but it's well over half IMO. I sought [and found] a partner who came from a stable family, who was educated and valued education, who wanted kids, and who wanted a stable relationship. Did that contribute to me being one of "those people"? Probably.
  - forgetsusername 11y ago
    >often with more attractive people Since there are two sides to the transaction, the number of people marrying more attractive people is exactly equal to the number marrying less attractive people.
    - golergka 11y ago
      Once again, I was comparing two groups: ugly w good personality vs beautiful vs difficult personality. I didn't cover ugly w difficul personality and beautiful w good personality, hence the disparity.
VLM 11y ago
Clearly there's no or very little correlation between similarity of attractiveness levels and relationship stability because ignoring the whole internet dating topic, people have lived in communities ranging in size over at least 5 orders of magnitude if not more, yet actual divorce stats of small rural villages vs megacities are not separated by anything near 5 orders of magnitude. Or whatever other measure of stability you'd like to use, none of them approach the incredible variation in size of the dating pool and therefore similarity in first impression rating. A physics analogy would be that no matter how strong the theoretical argument, its widely observed that over many human accessible orders of magnitude in mass of the object, gravity makes things fall at the same rate. Leading to the (actually inaccurate) theory that the force of gravity has no correlation with the masses of the objects. Given that there's observationally no correlation between two variables and not much theory either, then observed variation in one variable is by the above, unsurprisingly not correlated to the other variable.