8 ms·

Dan Ariely on why online dating is so unsatisfying

97 points by mike 16y ago

amichail 16y ago
Maybe social news sites such as reddit could double as online dating sites. The focus would be on intellectual debate, rather than on more superficial things.
- hugh3 16y ago
  Do you think "interestingness of intellectual debates" is the most important quality of a partner?
  - amichail 16y ago
    It's probably a better starting point than more superficial things.
    - paulgb 16y ago
      As superficial as some attributes may be, you don't ultimately decide who you're physically attracted to. I think "superficial" is an arbitrary distinction anyway. Who is to say that intelligence is a more worthy attribute than physical attractiveness?
      - tedunangst 16y ago
        Who is to say that intelligence is a more worthy attribute than physical attractiveness? Ugly people who think they're smarter than everybody else. :)
davidedicillo 16y ago
I can see his point, but I have very good friends who I'm sure they would say the total opposite. Some found love, some found fun... heck, one even found a Maxim model (and they are still dating).
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  While I can't help but be a little curious and jealous over the last case, outliers always exist. You do need to make sure that your examples are not outliers, as by their very nature they do not represent the whole.
  - HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
    Just curious: would you still be jealous if said Maxim model turned out to be a vapid, brain-dead, moron?
    - sliverstorm 16y ago
      Of course! In that case she wouldn't be long-term material, but it'd be nice to have had the experience just once.
    - davidedicillo 16y ago
      She's an ingegner actually.
blizkreeg 16y ago
How to approach online dating in a novel way does keep me up long hours as this is something I'm trying to solve in my startup, albeit for a niche segment of the population. [Apologies for this next plug] I am very interested in teaming up with a couple of talented and driven hackers and working together if this area interests you. My startup has some initial traction (slightly north of a thousand users) in the two months since launch. My email is in my bio.
ajg1977 16y ago
Good luck in real world dating if you think a coffee date after 5 hours of surfing the web from the comfort of home is a poor ROI.
- nhashem 16y ago
  This sums up my feelings exactly. Ariely says at one point during the interview: "I mean, imagine that you basically had to drive six hours, three hours each way to have coffee with somebody, and, you know, coffee usually ends up with just coffee." This analogy is false, because even if the average is six hours, you're free to allocate them however you want. One hour a day for a week, half an hour on your lunch break here, a couple hours on your laptop while watching TV there, etc. If surfing some profiles and exchanging some e-mails is considered the equivalent of driving from New York to Boston to go on a date, that's absurd.
- mburney 16y ago
  How is it not a poor ROI? My experience of "real world" dating has been: 1) Social or physical activities that I enjoy regardless of how many dates I get 2) Meeting/knowing/connecting with people within those activities 3) Flirting with some of those people, which naturally progresses to something more. It beats wasting 5 hours surfing the web looking for dates.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    Bingo! If you're constantly pretending to be someone else, and doing things you despise, just for the chance of a date, of course you're miserable! If you have no interests with many women in it, cultivate others. I used to be all code code code, and other nerdy endeavors, but that simply won't do. There is so much out there, surely you can discover something that suits your interest AND has a population of women? I moved to Seattle about a year ago - so far as dating goes, this place is a bit of a wasteland (MANY single and desperate software folk here), and while I don't do anything specifically to meet women, I have no qualms about opting for some activities over others. Be yourself - be an optimized version of yourself.
  - nostrademons 16y ago
markbao 16y ago
/ It turns out, women really care about men's height. I’m 5’9”, if I wanted to be as attractive as somebody who’s 5’10”, right, another inch? I would have to make about $35-40,000 more a year. From a 5'7": sorry, what!? Link to paper?
- hugh3 16y ago
  The fact that women like height and money is uncontroversial (sorry dude). I wouldn't believe any exact numbers about how much of one converts to how much of the other. It could be true in this case though due to the nonlinear utility of money. This guy's a professor of computer science at Duke so he's presumably making good money, maybe $150K? The difference between making $150K and $190K is pretty unimportant, like an extra inch in height, whereas the difference between making $40K and $80K is important, like an extra (I dunno) five inches in height. For this particular guy, he could probably increase his attractiveness by an equal amount by spending fifty bucks on a decent haircut.
  - markbao 16y ago
    Hahaha. Oh, yes, I'm aware of that, but the amount he mentioned was strange. But yeah, perhaps he was using a nonlinear comparison as you said, which would make more sense.
    - clay 16y ago
      This link says 1 inch = $30000. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/height-matters-income-vs-height-trade.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/height-matters-income-vs...
      - hugh3 16y ago
        Hmph, well the study is by Dan Airely, so he's just citing himself. Now I want to plot a graph: "Number of papers written about the effect of height on male attractiveness" vs "height of author"
augustflanagan 16y ago
I only ever went on one internet date. It was the best date of my life and I ended up marrying her 4 years later. Obviously this a ridiculous statistical outlier, but one of the reasons I always thought it was successful was because we didn't find each other on a huge site like Match.com or Plenty Of Fish. Instead it was through the online dating section of the Seattle Stranger, which sort of guaranteed that we would at least have a few similar interests right off the bat. To anyone in Seattle I highly recommend it.
- megablast 16y ago
  What, that you both live in Seattle and you are Strangers? I think this is the way to go, big sites attract lots of strange people. Also, from what I have heard, paying sites have better clientele than the free sites, which makes sense, but I have not been game to actually pay for it.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
ambulatorybird 16y ago
I agree wiht a lot of his points. I think people do tend to be more superficial or picky when evaluating profiles, because the photos are really the only thing to go on -- you can't get a sense of a person's body language or speaking style online, and textual data only goes so far. And I found the actual "first dates" to be stressful because they're more like interviews for dates rather than real dates -- much of the spontaneity and chemistry of meeting a person for the first time is gone. Finally, as a non-white male, the odds online are somewhat stacked against me, which is discouraging. I'm intrigued by the guy's idea about creating interactive virtual spaces for dating, rather than searching through textual profiles. I.e., put people together in a rich, dynamic environment, let them observe the complexity of each other's interactions, and they can gravitate toward one another on that basis. Heck, it doesn't even have to be virtual -- you could launch something like a matchmaking amusement park.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  I've thought for a long time that the removal of profiles (that are viewable by the other party) is pretty much the key that will make online dating actually work. People are far too picky, and reject far too many people they would otherwise get along with famously in real life - I've noticed this pattern in myself also. Profiles suck at describing people, not to mention their compatibility with you - yet they have this air of authority and legitimacy about them. If we had a decent matchmaking service that wasn't just a complete crapshoot (i.e., high-scoring matches are actually good matches), I'd say a blind-date system may in fact work better than what we've got now - get people out there and interacting in real life as opposed to a terminal with a bunch of droll readouts of vital statistics.
  - Goosey 16y ago
    This blind date idea is really what interests me. I think profiles create two issues beyond the ones you already pointed out. I am pulling these examples from my experience on OkCupid. 1 - People don't give fully honest answers to personality questions. Instead it seems people craft a personality they think will either get them the most results or get the the specific results they are looking for. So not only the profile, but also the questions become gamed due to the 'aggressive filtering' people do. 2 - People spend obsessive amounts of time crafting their profile, which actually gets read, and very little time answering personality questions, which don't. Assuming the personality question formula is more reliable for matching than making decisions based on someone's profile writing skills, this reverses the emphasis. I think a basic system like OkCupid's could work for matching. I like the way you both give your answer and you give the answer you want your mate to have. It's intuitive and allows for complex dynamics like a submissive person seeking a dominant person. But the profile viewing/filtering gets in the way of the legitimacy. If it was a blind-date popcorn machine I think it would work a lot better (and be a lot more fun!)
rokhayakebe 16y ago
I have started to use an online dating site for the first time about 4-6 weeks ago. It is hard work. It's like having a mini part time job. Advice for startups in this space. Cut your features to the following: Like + Email. If I LIKE someone (judging by the looks), then show me the basic info. If I LIKE the basic info, they get a notification and if they LIKE me then that's it. Let us email each other from OUR OWN client. So I email user345@datingsite.com and you route the email a la Craigslist. Simple as that. Let us take it further. Advice to guys. My first 2 weeks I was pinging everyone I was attracted to. That did not work (for me). It's when I just kick back and decide to wait that I realized it's mostly the women who choose in this game. Also if someone contacts the conversation is usually much easier. My 2 newbie cents.
- kadavy 16y ago
  You're right about the women doing the choosing. There was a study about how when women did the approaching in speed-dating, they became more interested. (PDF: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/eli-finkel/documents/49_FinkelEastwickInPress_PSci.pdf https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://faculty.wcas.north...) So you're at an advantage if they make the first move. So, online, just getting into their sphere of awareness by viewing their profile can help elicit a wink (and using a call-to-action in your profile): http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-whos-viewed-me/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-whos-viewed-me/ When you do finally send a message, it's best to keep it short, specific, and include ONE question: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/
WilliamLP 16y ago
I had my first dating experiences in life online, and then I met a couple of girls "normally". (Relationships are few and far between for me, and I have to work at getting one and it takes a year or two and finding one is by far the hardest problem I've ever had to solve in my life). I'm trying online again, and the contrast is extremely stark. There is nothing in any other experience in life that has made me think of myself as an unwanted commodity item quite so much as this. As a man in my thirties who is below average in height (5'8) I fight against about 25% to 75% numbers, and the women seem almost universally to be working extra carefully to exclude me and almost always come across as extremely entitled, both in written and in unwritten ways. And I can't blame them for it! They just understand the economics of scarcity, apparently. Despite being reasonably successful in life and being in the best physical shape I've ever been (10% bodyfat or so, can barely see my abs, can bench press 185 for 8 reps at bodyweight of 155), I seem completely uninteresting to women in a nearly universal way without much I can do to change this. There are no doubt some men who succeed fantastically in this environment, but it seems that for someone like me to do so, I would need to, very much, be conscious of playing the game and pretty much doing anything but presenting an unashamed and straightforward version of self-expression. Since I consider it to be the core of my character to neither accept or deal out bullshit from anyone, but to seek the direct truth, this is a problem. This is in contrast to where I've actually had success with women in the past - amateur classical singing and opera. There the population is about 75% women, with many of the men being gay. There, I can get a taste of what dating is like for the rest of the world - I didn't have to play some stupid hyper-masculinized pursuer who throws semi-sincere interest at a hundred women until one of them returns a peep, but situations actually can develop somewhat symmetrically and organically. Clearly the answer for me is to get back into a world like that, despite not being very interested anymore for any other reason. (My passion these days is programming and development.) Anyway, this turned into a big rant, but I've been single for a year, face the prospect of a few more, and it does get to me.
- bokonist 16y ago
  There are no doubt some men who succeed fantastically in this environment, but it seems that for someone like me to do so, I would need to, very much, be conscious of playing the game and pretty much doing anything but presenting an unashamed and straightforward version of self-expression. Since I consider it to be the core of my character to neither accept or deal out bullshit from anyone, but to seek the direct truth, this is a problem. If you have attitude that you're not going to make any changes to yourself in order to land women, than you're not going to land women. And why should women want to date you if your not willing to make the step? Women don't want direct and straightforward. They want charm, mystery, excitement. For one trite example, When I'm commenting on some nerdy web forum, and my girlfriend asks me what I'm doing, I don't say, "I'm chatting on a web forum." I say, "I'm engaging in correspondence" and paint the air of some sophisticated 19th century aristocrat. Or I say, "the same thing I do every night, sweetie, try and take over the world". When you can learn to dress up the mundane aspects of life with fun and charm, you'll find women enjoy being around you a lot more. I used to think "game" was just something for cad's and those who wanted only numbers and notches. But even the most cultured, educated, women wants to be charmed, she wants that psychologically dominant rogue to game her. If you want a great, long term affectionate companion, you need to develop both the personal rapport and shared interests, but also the romantic game/charm that makes her tingle for you.
billmcneale 16y ago
One thing that's positive about online dating is that it takes away a lot of the mysterious parameters. Mysterious parameters: you meet a girl (or guy, but let's say girl) at a party, hit it off, exchange phone numbers, call a few days later a get the cold shoulder. Or you go on one or two dates, things still going well and then you never hear back from that person. What probably happened: she had a hang up, she wasn't ready, she met someone else, she wasn't really looking, she was just interested in a few free meals, she was set up by friends but she wasn't really into it, etc... The advantage of online dating is that people who commit to it are usually a bit more ready to get involved with someone else. I found that there is less playing game and more straight-to-the-point "I'm looking for someone, so are you, let's see if this can work".
kadavy 16y ago
Online Dating is Unsatisfying because people suck at communicating. They need to write good profiles by not talking about themselves so much: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-write-an-online-dating-profile/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-write-an-online... They need to write clear and compelling opening messages: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/ They need to speak in specifics to get a conversation flowing: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/conversation-nuggets-in-online-dating/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/conversation-nuggets-i...
- WilliamLP 16y ago
  It's posts like this that make think "forget women". I mean seriously. I would want a relationship where I can be myself, and don't have to craft every bit of what I say according to some stupid protocol when it annoys the fuck out of me to see other people following when I can tell they're not being who they want but just following the rules. Yes I'm single, yes I have been for a long time, yes I will be for a long time further, most likely.
  - kadavy 16y ago
    The "protocol" isn't really for the sake of being someone other than yourself - it's for letting your personality be displayed through the limitations of the medium.
    - roel_v 16y ago
      This is a very good way to describe the 'problem' or rather 'situation', very refreshing.
Goladus 16y ago
Excellent interview. Yes, he mostly ignores the people who've had success, but I don't think it really detracts much from the overall point. I've had some success with online dating but I agree that it's generally an unsatisfying experience much the way he describes it. (3-6 hours of work per cup of coffee pretty much nails it). The points about sharing experience are accurate, except that I would focus in particular on shared experiences with multiple people at once. A big weakness in online dating is that it's tends to be a series of one-on-one interactions. Unless one of you is really good at seducing strangers, and does it right away, it's going to be hard to sustain those one-on-one interactions long enough to turn into a relationship. At least one person has to take the step to integrate into the other's social network, and it has to happen quickly, or else it's not likely to go anywhere. The way offline dating tends to work is that you meet someone in a social situation. You interact with them for a few moments at a time, with frequent breaks while you each socialize with other people. You have opportunities to observe the person discreetly as well as interact with them. You send each other signals and at some point you find some privacy and get more serious. A dating site that encouraged that sort of thing might be more successful. (okcupid tries to encourage a variety of behaviors but ultimately their design still winds up facilitating the one-on-one chat -> date paradigm)
deleted 16y ago
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AaronM 16y ago
I stopped reading this after the first paragraph. Who puts their article in a small 5x5 inch box?
- tome 16y ago
  It's not an article. It's the transcript of the video.
jasonlotito 16y ago
Choosing PHP over Python, Perl, and ASP. Countless hours on #php. Meeting and talking with a girl I met on #php for hours on end on the phone. "Dating" online. Meeting 2 months after we started "dating". Me moving to another country 3 months after that. Marrying 6 years later. Happily married and expecting our second child later this month. =)
- mcantor 16y ago
  You met your love based on a niche common interest/activity--programming in PHP--as opposed to a broad common activity--online dating. Not trying to trivialize anything you said... your story is completely awesome, actually. I just want to point out that even though what you did technically qualifies as "online dating," it's very different from the kind of online dating criticized in this interview!
  - jasonlotito 16y ago
    Oh, I know. However, it's the article and headline that is at fault. Online dating sites are one thing. Meeting online is a completely different thing. =)
motters 16y ago
Online dating is difficult if, like me, you generally dislike superficiality and find the prospect of turning yourself into a sales & marketing guy or a snake oil salesman terrifying.

97 points by mike 16y ago

Maybe social news sites such as reddit could double as online dating sites. The focus would be on intellectual debate, rather than on more superficial things.

hugh3 16y ago
Do you think "interestingness of intellectual debates" is the most important quality of a partner?
- amichail 16y ago
  It's probably a better starting point than more superficial things.
  - paulgb 16y ago
    As superficial as some attributes may be, you don't ultimately decide who you're physically attracted to. I think "superficial" is an arbitrary distinction anyway. Who is to say that intelligence is a more worthy attribute than physical attractiveness?
    - tedunangst 16y ago
      Who is to say that intelligence is a more worthy attribute than physical attractiveness? Ugly people who think they're smarter than everybody else. :)

davidedicillo 16y ago

I can see his point, but I have very good friends who I'm sure they would say the total opposite. Some found love, some found fun... heck, one even found a Maxim model (and they are still dating).

sliverstorm 16y ago
While I can't help but be a little curious and jealous over the last case, outliers always exist. You do need to make sure that your examples are not outliers, as by their very nature they do not represent the whole.
- HeyLaughingBoy 16y ago
  Just curious: would you still be jealous if said Maxim model turned out to be a vapid, brain-dead, moron?
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Of course! In that case she wouldn't be long-term material, but it'd be nice to have had the experience just once.
  - davidedicillo 16y ago
    She's an ingegner actually.

blizkreeg 16y ago

How to approach online dating in a novel way does keep me up long hours as this is something I'm trying to solve in my startup, albeit for a niche segment of the population. [Apologies for this next plug] I am very interested in teaming up with a couple of talented and driven hackers and working together if this area interests you. My startup has some initial traction (slightly north of a thousand users) in the two months since launch. My email is in my bio.

ajg1977 16y ago

Good luck in real world dating if you think a coffee date after 5 hours of surfing the web from the comfort of home is a poor ROI.

nhashem 16y ago
This sums up my feelings exactly. Ariely says at one point during the interview: "I mean, imagine that you basically had to drive six hours, three hours each way to have coffee with somebody, and, you know, coffee usually ends up with just coffee." This analogy is false, because even if the average is six hours, you're free to allocate them however you want. One hour a day for a week, half an hour on your lunch break here, a couple hours on your laptop while watching TV there, etc. If surfing some profiles and exchanging some e-mails is considered the equivalent of driving from New York to Boston to go on a date, that's absurd.
mburney 16y ago
How is it not a poor ROI? My experience of "real world" dating has been: 1) Social or physical activities that I enjoy regardless of how many dates I get 2) Meeting/knowing/connecting with people within those activities 3) Flirting with some of those people, which naturally progresses to something more. It beats wasting 5 hours surfing the web looking for dates.
- potatolicious 16y ago
  Bingo! If you're constantly pretending to be someone else, and doing things you despise, just for the chance of a date, of course you're miserable! If you have no interests with many women in it, cultivate others. I used to be all code code code, and other nerdy endeavors, but that simply won't do. There is so much out there, surely you can discover something that suits your interest AND has a population of women? I moved to Seattle about a year ago - so far as dating goes, this place is a bit of a wasteland (MANY single and desperate software folk here), and while I don't do anything specifically to meet women, I have no qualms about opting for some activities over others. Be yourself - be an optimized version of yourself.
- nostrademons 16y ago

markbao 16y ago

/ It turns out, women really care about men's height. I’m 5’9”, if I wanted to be as attractive as somebody who’s 5’10”, right, another inch? I would have to make about $35-40,000 more a year. From a 5'7": sorry, what!? Link to paper?

hugh3 16y ago
The fact that women like height and money is uncontroversial (sorry dude). I wouldn't believe any exact numbers about how much of one converts to how much of the other. It could be true in this case though due to the nonlinear utility of money. This guy's a professor of computer science at Duke so he's presumably making good money, maybe $150K? The difference between making $150K and $190K is pretty unimportant, like an extra inch in height, whereas the difference between making $40K and $80K is important, like an extra (I dunno) five inches in height. For this particular guy, he could probably increase his attractiveness by an equal amount by spending fifty bucks on a decent haircut.
- markbao 16y ago
  Hahaha. Oh, yes, I'm aware of that, but the amount he mentioned was strange. But yeah, perhaps he was using a nonlinear comparison as you said, which would make more sense.
  - clay 16y ago
    This link says 1 inch = $30000. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/height-matters-income-vs-height-trade.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2010/02/height-matters-income-vs...
    - hugh3 16y ago
      Hmph, well the study is by Dan Airely, so he's just citing himself. Now I want to plot a graph: "Number of papers written about the effect of height on male attractiveness" vs "height of author"

augustflanagan 16y ago

I only ever went on one internet date. It was the best date of my life and I ended up marrying her 4 years later. Obviously this a ridiculous statistical outlier, but one of the reasons I always thought it was successful was because we didn't find each other on a huge site like Match.com or Plenty Of Fish. Instead it was through the online dating section of the Seattle Stranger, which sort of guaranteed that we would at least have a few similar interests right off the bat. To anyone in Seattle I highly recommend it.

megablast 16y ago
What, that you both live in Seattle and you are Strangers? I think this is the way to go, big sites attract lots of strange people. Also, from what I have heard, paying sites have better clientele than the free sites, which makes sense, but I have not been game to actually pay for it.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

ambulatorybird 16y ago

I agree wiht a lot of his points. I think people do tend to be more superficial or picky when evaluating profiles, because the photos are really the only thing to go on -- you can't get a sense of a person's body language or speaking style online, and textual data only goes so far. And I found the actual "first dates" to be stressful because they're more like interviews for dates rather than real dates -- much of the spontaneity and chemistry of meeting a person for the first time is gone. Finally, as a non-white male, the odds online are somewhat stacked against me, which is discouraging. I'm intrigued by the guy's idea about creating interactive virtual spaces for dating, rather than searching through textual profiles. I.e., put people together in a rich, dynamic environment, let them observe the complexity of each other's interactions, and they can gravitate toward one another on that basis. Heck, it doesn't even have to be virtual -- you could launch something like a matchmaking amusement park.

potatolicious 16y ago
I've thought for a long time that the removal of profiles (that are viewable by the other party) is pretty much the key that will make online dating actually work. People are far too picky, and reject far too many people they would otherwise get along with famously in real life - I've noticed this pattern in myself also. Profiles suck at describing people, not to mention their compatibility with you - yet they have this air of authority and legitimacy about them. If we had a decent matchmaking service that wasn't just a complete crapshoot (i.e., high-scoring matches are actually good matches), I'd say a blind-date system may in fact work better than what we've got now - get people out there and interacting in real life as opposed to a terminal with a bunch of droll readouts of vital statistics.
- Goosey 16y ago
  This blind date idea is really what interests me. I think profiles create two issues beyond the ones you already pointed out. I am pulling these examples from my experience on OkCupid. 1 - People don't give fully honest answers to personality questions. Instead it seems people craft a personality they think will either get them the most results or get the the specific results they are looking for. So not only the profile, but also the questions become gamed due to the 'aggressive filtering' people do. 2 - People spend obsessive amounts of time crafting their profile, which actually gets read, and very little time answering personality questions, which don't. Assuming the personality question formula is more reliable for matching than making decisions based on someone's profile writing skills, this reverses the emphasis. I think a basic system like OkCupid's could work for matching. I like the way you both give your answer and you give the answer you want your mate to have. It's intuitive and allows for complex dynamics like a submissive person seeking a dominant person. But the profile viewing/filtering gets in the way of the legitimacy. If it was a blind-date popcorn machine I think it would work a lot better (and be a lot more fun!)

rokhayakebe 16y ago

I have started to use an online dating site for the first time about 4-6 weeks ago. It is hard work. It's like having a mini part time job. Advice for startups in this space. Cut your features to the following: Like + Email. If I LIKE someone (judging by the looks), then show me the basic info. If I LIKE the basic info, they get a notification and if they LIKE me then that's it. Let us email each other from OUR OWN client. So I email user345@datingsite.com and you route the email a la Craigslist. Simple as that. Let us take it further. Advice to guys. My first 2 weeks I was pinging everyone I was attracted to. That did not work (for me). It's when I just kick back and decide to wait that I realized it's mostly the women who choose in this game. Also if someone contacts the conversation is usually much easier. My 2 newbie cents.

kadavy 16y ago
You're right about the women doing the choosing. There was a study about how when women did the approaching in speed-dating, they became more interested. (PDF: https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/eli-finkel/documents/49_FinkelEastwickInPress_PSci.pdf https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://faculty.wcas.north...) So you're at an advantage if they make the first move. So, online, just getting into their sphere of awareness by viewing their profile can help elicit a wink (and using a call-to-action in your profile): http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-whos-viewed-me/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-whos-viewed-me/ When you do finally send a message, it's best to keep it short, specific, and include ONE question: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/

WilliamLP 16y ago

I had my first dating experiences in life online, and then I met a couple of girls "normally". (Relationships are few and far between for me, and I have to work at getting one and it takes a year or two and finding one is by far the hardest problem I've ever had to solve in my life). I'm trying online again, and the contrast is extremely stark. There is nothing in any other experience in life that has made me think of myself as an unwanted commodity item quite so much as this. As a man in my thirties who is below average in height (5'8) I fight against about 25% to 75% numbers, and the women seem almost universally to be working extra carefully to exclude me and almost always come across as extremely entitled, both in written and in unwritten ways. And I can't blame them for it! They just understand the economics of scarcity, apparently. Despite being reasonably successful in life and being in the best physical shape I've ever been (10% bodyfat or so, can barely see my abs, can bench press 185 for 8 reps at bodyweight of 155), I seem completely uninteresting to women in a nearly universal way without much I can do to change this. There are no doubt some men who succeed fantastically in this environment, but it seems that for someone like me to do so, I would need to, very much, be conscious of playing the game and pretty much doing anything but presenting an unashamed and straightforward version of self-expression. Since I consider it to be the core of my character to neither accept or deal out bullshit from anyone, but to seek the direct truth, this is a problem. This is in contrast to where I've actually had success with women in the past - amateur classical singing and opera. There the population is about 75% women, with many of the men being gay. There, I can get a taste of what dating is like for the rest of the world - I didn't have to play some stupid hyper-masculinized pursuer who throws semi-sincere interest at a hundred women until one of them returns a peep, but situations actually can develop somewhat symmetrically and organically. Clearly the answer for me is to get back into a world like that, despite not being very interested anymore for any other reason. (My passion these days is programming and development.) Anyway, this turned into a big rant, but I've been single for a year, face the prospect of a few more, and it does get to me.

bokonist 16y ago
There are no doubt some men who succeed fantastically in this environment, but it seems that for someone like me to do so, I would need to, very much, be conscious of playing the game and pretty much doing anything but presenting an unashamed and straightforward version of self-expression. Since I consider it to be the core of my character to neither accept or deal out bullshit from anyone, but to seek the direct truth, this is a problem. If you have attitude that you're not going to make any changes to yourself in order to land women, than you're not going to land women. And why should women want to date you if your not willing to make the step? Women don't want direct and straightforward. They want charm, mystery, excitement. For one trite example, When I'm commenting on some nerdy web forum, and my girlfriend asks me what I'm doing, I don't say, "I'm chatting on a web forum." I say, "I'm engaging in correspondence" and paint the air of some sophisticated 19th century aristocrat. Or I say, "the same thing I do every night, sweetie, try and take over the world". When you can learn to dress up the mundane aspects of life with fun and charm, you'll find women enjoy being around you a lot more. I used to think "game" was just something for cad's and those who wanted only numbers and notches. But even the most cultured, educated, women wants to be charmed, she wants that psychologically dominant rogue to game her. If you want a great, long term affectionate companion, you need to develop both the personal rapport and shared interests, but also the romantic game/charm that makes her tingle for you.

billmcneale 16y ago

One thing that's positive about online dating is that it takes away a lot of the mysterious parameters. Mysterious parameters: you meet a girl (or guy, but let's say girl) at a party, hit it off, exchange phone numbers, call a few days later a get the cold shoulder. Or you go on one or two dates, things still going well and then you never hear back from that person. What probably happened: she had a hang up, she wasn't ready, she met someone else, she wasn't really looking, she was just interested in a few free meals, she was set up by friends but she wasn't really into it, etc... The advantage of online dating is that people who commit to it are usually a bit more ready to get involved with someone else. I found that there is less playing game and more straight-to-the-point "I'm looking for someone, so are you, let's see if this can work".

kadavy 16y ago

Online Dating is Unsatisfying because people suck at communicating. They need to write good profiles by not talking about themselves so much: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-write-an-online-dating-profile/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/how-to-write-an-online... They need to write clear and compelling opening messages: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/match-messages/ They need to speak in specifics to get a conversation flowing: http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/conversation-nuggets-in-online-dating/ http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/conversation-nuggets-i...

WilliamLP 16y ago
It's posts like this that make think "forget women". I mean seriously. I would want a relationship where I can be myself, and don't have to craft every bit of what I say according to some stupid protocol when it annoys the fuck out of me to see other people following when I can tell they're not being who they want but just following the rules. Yes I'm single, yes I have been for a long time, yes I will be for a long time further, most likely.
- kadavy 16y ago
  The "protocol" isn't really for the sake of being someone other than yourself - it's for letting your personality be displayed through the limitations of the medium.
  - roel_v 16y ago
    This is a very good way to describe the 'problem' or rather 'situation', very refreshing.

Goladus 16y ago

Excellent interview. Yes, he mostly ignores the people who've had success, but I don't think it really detracts much from the overall point. I've had some success with online dating but I agree that it's generally an unsatisfying experience much the way he describes it. (3-6 hours of work per cup of coffee pretty much nails it). The points about sharing experience are accurate, except that I would focus in particular on shared experiences with multiple people at once. A big weakness in online dating is that it's tends to be a series of one-on-one interactions. Unless one of you is really good at seducing strangers, and does it right away, it's going to be hard to sustain those one-on-one interactions long enough to turn into a relationship. At least one person has to take the step to integrate into the other's social network, and it has to happen quickly, or else it's not likely to go anywhere. The way offline dating tends to work is that you meet someone in a social situation. You interact with them for a few moments at a time, with frequent breaks while you each socialize with other people. You have opportunities to observe the person discreetly as well as interact with them. You send each other signals and at some point you find some privacy and get more serious. A dating site that encouraged that sort of thing might be more successful. (okcupid tries to encourage a variety of behaviors but ultimately their design still winds up facilitating the one-on-one chat -> date paradigm)

deleted 16y ago

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AaronM 16y ago

I stopped reading this after the first paragraph. Who puts their article in a small 5x5 inch box?

tome 16y ago
It's not an article. It's the transcript of the video.

jasonlotito 16y ago

Choosing PHP over Python, Perl, and ASP. Countless hours on #php. Meeting and talking with a girl I met on #php for hours on end on the phone. "Dating" online. Meeting 2 months after we started "dating". Me moving to another country 3 months after that. Marrying 6 years later. Happily married and expecting our second child later this month. =)

mcantor 16y ago
You met your love based on a niche common interest/activity--programming in PHP--as opposed to a broad common activity--online dating. Not trying to trivialize anything you said... your story is completely awesome, actually. I just want to point out that even though what you did technically qualifies as "online dating," it's very different from the kind of online dating criticized in this interview!
- jasonlotito 16y ago
  Oh, I know. However, it's the article and headline that is at fault. Online dating sites are one thing. Meeting online is a completely different thing. =)

motters 16y ago

Online dating is difficult if, like me, you generally dislike superficiality and find the prospect of turning yourself into a sales & marketing guy or a snake oil salesman terrifying.