5 ms·

I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks. But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, s

I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks. But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you. I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
m463 7y ago
I vaguely recall computerized dating based on punched cards. I guess expectations have gone up.
- boring_twenties 7y ago
  Do you just line them up and see how many of the same holes are punched in both?
- gumby 7y ago
  That's funny because an early computer dating company was indeed called "great expectations". Back in the 80s and early 90s they had an office in the Landmark Complex in MV next to where Google is now.
  - masonic 7y ago
    MAD TV did an ongoing parody of them called "Lowered Expectations".
dlkf 7y ago
> I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out. 100%, well put
- sandoooo 7y ago
  You have a signal for a go/no go decision. You know that the signal is noisy and also biased. You argue that this means you should ignore the signal completely and simply choose 'go' in all cases. Hey, isn't that just the all-swipe?
thereisnospork 7y ago
It doesn't just lack a filter for 'beauty', it has a negative selection bias. People who are 'ugly'[1] will likely think they have better odds relying on their personality and other intangibles. [1]Who view themselves as such, anyway.
asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago
There is also, unfortunately, a moral hazard associated with not having pictures. Such a site will probably tend to attract people who would not be glad to be judged by their appearance, other things being equal. For many, this would decrease the average utility.
- gnicholas 7y ago
  I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard. Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem. When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what they looked like). Not long after, I met my wife, who would have been mobbed with messages had she put up a photo that showed what she actually looks like. I was the first and only person she dated online.
  - Lucadg 7y ago
    Amazing. I'm not sure "contrarian thinking" is the right expression but you both definitely proved that value is often where no one is looking. Your intuition was certainly good but her move was probably even smarter: she found an efficient way to attract the smart ones.
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    Beautiful women face substantial barriers to establishing a real relationship. Much of the world is inclined to treat them as nothing but an object. It's absolutely not all upside (to be beautiful) and it's a problem one cannot complain about. No one will have any sympathy whatsoever.
    - sandoooo 7y ago
      You know what I don't get? Why oh why is it so hard to find any authentic food from <my ancestrial home> in <megacity>? They all seem to serve the same old boring 20 dishes. Last time I went it was so bad I didn't finish my plate. Yes I know there are starving children in Africa.
throwaway485723 7y ago
Why is it if a person is initially attracted to another because of their wealth they are a gold digger, but if it's because of their looks, it's perfectly acceptable? Isn't that just as shallow? Personally, I think being attracted to someone for any singular reason is somewhat shallow.
gamegoblin 7y ago
Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint. That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio. You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.
- Guest0918231 7y ago
  In that case people would swipe on just the attractive users and on every bio without reading them. A simple fix would be to only allow users to swipe on 20% of the photos and 20% of the bios.
  - sandoooo 7y ago
    I am going to defeat your system by swiping on the top 20% looks and bottom 20% bios. And everybody else will follow suit once they realize it's an effective strategy. And you'll have a race to bottom.
    - Guest0918231 7y ago
      What's the bottom 20% of bios? "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best"? Are you suggesting that attractive people have terrible bios? If so, you're probably right and it would be a decent strategy. That being said, it seems silly to try and force people that only care about looks into caring about bios. Who are we to tell them how to select a partner? Maybe they would be most happy with an attractive partner that doesn't share any of their interests. If that's who they want to find, then instead of telling them they're wrong, we should help them do it.
      - im3w1l 7y ago
        He is saying that he only cares for looks, so he'll go for the less in-demand bios to improve chance of a match.
    - isoskeles 7y ago
lsc 7y ago
>But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). For most of us, there's also a very strong mental component to sexual attraction; I mean, sure, there's also a very strong physical component, but I personally think that the text a person generates is a fairly good indicator of how I will feel about the mental component, while dating site photographs, in my experience, tend to be much less representative of how physically attractive I will find the person once we meet. (note, my experience is old, but my experience is that I'm just as likely to find someone way more physically attractive in person than in a photograph as I am to find them way less physically attractive in person. My suspicion is that some people try to present their very best angle, others try to present their most representative side, while others don't put much effort into choosing a photograph at all.) The other problem is that people make certain, ah, assumptions about me based on how I look. Assumptions that, well, probably will lead you to an incorrect idea as to my personality and values, I mean, more so than usual. I mean, this is just my own experience. And mostly pretty old experience; I haven't had an online date in rather a long time, but the best online dates I've had were where we didn't exchange photographs ahead of time, either 'cause we met on a medium that didn't really support them, or because we met on dating sites but without uploading a photo. (and yes, sometimes there was, uh, nothing there, physically, but it was always at least an interesting evening.) - my experience was that on photo-focused sites, often I'd get the sort of 'total miss' - where someone would look at my photo and then make what are really pretty reasonable assumptions from looking at me and, uh, I was not at all what they were expecting.
bartread 7y ago
> With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you. Ha! That's true, but it can also be a really odd experience. E.g., I've found myself questioning how well the organisers really know me.
nr152522 7y ago
I had been building a dating app that matches based on transactional data. It looks for similarity metrics which act as a filter. It then presents you with picture profiles so you can search for people you like the look of. As you say, sexual attraction is important. I’ve had to put it on hold because investor sentiment in the U.K. has been negative with the belief that no one will link their bank accounts to find a match (even if we’re transparent, regulated, etc).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

m463 7y ago

I vaguely recall computerized dating based on punched cards. I guess expectations have gone up.

boring_twenties 7y ago
Do you just line them up and see how many of the same holes are punched in both?
gumby 7y ago
That's funny because an early computer dating company was indeed called "great expectations". Back in the 80s and early 90s they had an office in the Landmark Complex in MV next to where Google is now.
- masonic 7y ago
  MAD TV did an ongoing parody of them called "Lowered Expectations".

dlkf 7y ago

> I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out. 100%, well put

sandoooo 7y ago
You have a signal for a go/no go decision. You know that the signal is noisy and also biased. You argue that this means you should ignore the signal completely and simply choose 'go' in all cases. Hey, isn't that just the all-swipe?

thereisnospork 7y ago

It doesn't just lack a filter for 'beauty', it has a negative selection bias. People who are 'ugly'[1] will likely think they have better odds relying on their personality and other intangibles. [1]Who view themselves as such, anyway.

asdfasgasdgasdg 7y ago

There is also, unfortunately, a moral hazard associated with not having pictures. Such a site will probably tend to attract people who would not be glad to be judged by their appearance, other things being equal. For many, this would decrease the average utility.

gnicholas 7y ago
I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard. Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem. When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what they looked like). Not long after, I met my wife, who would have been mobbed with messages had she put up a photo that showed what she actually looks like. I was the first and only person she dated online.
- Lucadg 7y ago
  Amazing. I'm not sure "contrarian thinking" is the right expression but you both definitely proved that value is often where no one is looking. Your intuition was certainly good but her move was probably even smarter: she found an efficient way to attract the smart ones.
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  Beautiful women face substantial barriers to establishing a real relationship. Much of the world is inclined to treat them as nothing but an object. It's absolutely not all upside (to be beautiful) and it's a problem one cannot complain about. No one will have any sympathy whatsoever.
  - sandoooo 7y ago
    You know what I don't get? Why oh why is it so hard to find any authentic food from <my ancestrial home> in <megacity>? They all seem to serve the same old boring 20 dishes. Last time I went it was so bad I didn't finish my plate. Yes I know there are starving children in Africa.

throwaway485723 7y ago

Why is it if a person is initially attracted to another because of their wealth they are a gold digger, but if it's because of their looks, it's perfectly acceptable? Isn't that just as shallow? Personally, I think being attracted to someone for any singular reason is somewhat shallow.

gamegoblin 7y ago

Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint. That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio. You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.

Guest0918231 7y ago
In that case people would swipe on just the attractive users and on every bio without reading them. A simple fix would be to only allow users to swipe on 20% of the photos and 20% of the bios.
- sandoooo 7y ago
  I am going to defeat your system by swiping on the top 20% looks and bottom 20% bios. And everybody else will follow suit once they realize it's an effective strategy. And you'll have a race to bottom.
  - Guest0918231 7y ago
    What's the bottom 20% of bios? "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best"? Are you suggesting that attractive people have terrible bios? If so, you're probably right and it would be a decent strategy. That being said, it seems silly to try and force people that only care about looks into caring about bios. Who are we to tell them how to select a partner? Maybe they would be most happy with an attractive partner that doesn't share any of their interests. If that's who they want to find, then instead of telling them they're wrong, we should help them do it.
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      He is saying that he only cares for looks, so he'll go for the less in-demand bios to improve chance of a match.
  - isoskeles 7y ago

lsc 7y ago

>But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). For most of us, there's also a very strong mental component to sexual attraction; I mean, sure, there's also a very strong physical component, but I personally think that the text a person generates is a fairly good indicator of how I will feel about the mental component, while dating site photographs, in my experience, tend to be much less representative of how physically attractive I will find the person once we meet. (note, my experience is old, but my experience is that I'm just as likely to find someone way more physically attractive in person than in a photograph as I am to find them way less physically attractive in person. My suspicion is that some people try to present their very best angle, others try to present their most representative side, while others don't put much effort into choosing a photograph at all.) The other problem is that people make certain, ah, assumptions about me based on how I look. Assumptions that, well, probably will lead you to an incorrect idea as to my personality and values, I mean, more so than usual. I mean, this is just my own experience. And mostly pretty old experience; I haven't had an online date in rather a long time, but the best online dates I've had were where we didn't exchange photographs ahead of time, either 'cause we met on a medium that didn't really support them, or because we met on dating sites but without uploading a photo. (and yes, sometimes there was, uh, nothing there, physically, but it was always at least an interesting evening.) - my experience was that on photo-focused sites, often I'd get the sort of 'total miss' - where someone would look at my photo and then make what are really pretty reasonable assumptions from looking at me and, uh, I was not at all what they were expecting.

bartread 7y ago

> With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you. Ha! That's true, but it can also be a really odd experience. E.g., I've found myself questioning how well the organisers really know me.

nr152522 7y ago

I had been building a dating app that matches based on transactional data. It looks for similarity metrics which act as a filter. It then presents you with picture profiles so you can search for people you like the look of. As you say, sexual attraction is important. I’ve had to put it on hold because investor sentiment in the U.K. has been negative with the belief that no one will link their bank accounts to find a match (even if we’re transparent, regulated, etc).