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The dating site story left out the dozens of real losers who emailed her things like "hey ur hot" or "You might think I'm out of your league, and it's true that

by dkarl 17y ago

The dating site story left out the dozens of real losers who emailed her things like "hey ur hot" or "You might think I'm out of your league, and it's true that I make a lot of money, but I'm actually really into chicks with big legs." I don't buy the scenario that she got eight well-written, nice, well-targeted messages in a single day and didn't get at least that many messages from jerks. Unless she's got some kind of bizarrely good filtering set up, or is on a really, really niche site, those kinds of messages outnumber the earnest well-spoken ones. This is a case where tidying up an anecdote for dramatic effect completely changes its meaning. Her comment was probably aimed at the real losers in her inbox rather than the appealing ones mentioned in the story. Plus, for a woman, being on a dating site is all about volume control. She probably only has time to go out with one new guy every week or month, so she picks the best guy out of the dozens of men who contact her every week. The rest are just noise. They're a boring and pointless part of her day. Calling them "losers" is unjustified, but none of them heard her, and she isn't obligated to spend an hour a day responding personally to every guy who emails her so he doesn't get his feelings hurt.

derefr 17y ago
If by "really, really niche site" you mean "any site that charges money," that's about how it works, I believe. The point of her story, though, is that she deleted all the messages, and implied that she regularly deletes all the messages—she's not going out with any of them; she's fishing with no hook.
- dkarl 17y ago
  Let's assume her womanly duty obligates her to go out with one new guy from the dating site per week. To accomplish that, she'll have to respond to approximately... one guy per week. Heck, let's be generous and say two. That's eight guys per month out of three hundred emails. Even assuming she never responds to two guys on the same day, she'll delete every single email over 70% percent of the time. That also assumes that she chooses her dates exclusively from the guys who contact her, forgoing her right to contact any men proactively.
  - derefr 17y ago
    That's an unsound strategy—what if the perfect guy comes along moments after you make arrangements to see someone else for the week? You just delete the message without reading it? The better strategy is to always read the messages, filtering some out as irrelevant to your interests, and then putting the rest into a priority queue based on appeal. That way, a better guy will jump to the head of the queue, and be contacted the next week. Come to think of it, is there a dating site that automates this? "Getting Things Dated?"

by dkarl 17y ago

derefr 17y ago

If by "really, really niche site" you mean "any site that charges money," that's about how it works, I believe. The point of her story, though, is that she deleted all the messages, and implied that she regularly deletes all the messages—she's not going out with any of them; she's fishing with no hook.

dkarl 17y ago
Let's assume her womanly duty obligates her to go out with one new guy from the dating site per week. To accomplish that, she'll have to respond to approximately... one guy per week. Heck, let's be generous and say two. That's eight guys per month out of three hundred emails. Even assuming she never responds to two guys on the same day, she'll delete every single email over 70% percent of the time. That also assumes that she chooses her dates exclusively from the guys who contact her, forgoing her right to contact any men proactively.
- derefr 17y ago
  That's an unsound strategy—what if the perfect guy comes along moments after you make arrangements to see someone else for the week? You just delete the message without reading it? The better strategy is to always read the messages, filtering some out as irrelevant to your interests, and then putting the rest into a priority queue based on appeal. That way, a better guy will jump to the head of the queue, and be contacted the next week. Come to think of it, is there a dating site that automates this? "Getting Things Dated?"