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The biggest problem with these sites is that people lie all the time, to themselves and others. The things that people claim are dealbreaks ("She's a Republica

The biggest problem with these sites is that people lie all the time, to themselves and others. The things that people claim are dealbreaks ("She's a Republican!", "He lives with his parents!", "I would never engage in casual sex!") tend not to be in practice, once the opportunity presents itself. But when asked point-blank? Oh yeah, I totally couldn't date somebody who supported cruelty to animals in lab test (one sec, gotta adjust my makeup), or who voted conservative (hold on, lemme claim my tax exemptions), or who's a virgin (well, everybody's gotta learn sometime). There's AI and control theory that seeks to reason about an uncertain world--but in dating, it's active delusion and misinformation. People don't know themselves, and even if they do know themselves, they invent bullshit reasons why obviously good pairings aren't. That's before you even get into the economics of those sites and why helping people date successfully isn't profitable.

visarga 10y ago
I think being in a relationship requires a kind of giving up of control, a "surrender" to the flow of the relationship, and many people are just too inflexible and want everything to fit perfectly to their pet peeves. So they pass good opportunities while waiting for the "perfect match" which never comes.
baccheion 10y ago
That's a large part of my interest in this area. That is, using accumulated knowledge, global awareness, inference, etc to help buffer against lies, lack of self-knowledge, uncertainty, hidden dealbreakers (finding out 5 years down the road about some fundamental thing that ruins the relationship), etc. Also, it would be cool to be able to understand fully many of the intricacies and nuances of relationships and compatibility, then being able to do some of the heavy lifting using information provided by the user. That is, maybe some things are known to users in general, but they are either too time consuming or too difficult to do, so they end up not doing it (or it's to the point it's clear the site should be taking care of such things).

visarga 10y ago

I think being in a relationship requires a kind of giving up of control, a "surrender" to the flow of the relationship, and many people are just too inflexible and want everything to fit perfectly to their pet peeves. So they pass good opportunities while waiting for the "perfect match" which never comes.

baccheion 10y ago

That's a large part of my interest in this area. That is, using accumulated knowledge, global awareness, inference, etc to help buffer against lies, lack of self-knowledge, uncertainty, hidden dealbreakers (finding out 5 years down the road about some fundamental thing that ruins the relationship), etc. Also, it would be cool to be able to understand fully many of the intricacies and nuances of relationships and compatibility, then being able to do some of the heavy lifting using information provided by the user. That is, maybe some things are known to users in general, but they are either too time consuming or too difficult to do, so they end up not doing it (or it's to the point it's clear the site should be taking care of such things).