6 ms·

This gets a little into the 'things you can't say' territory, but online dating just isn't very good for most heterosexual men due to selective pressures (it's

This gets a little into the 'things you can't say' territory, but online dating just isn't very good for most heterosexual men due to selective pressures (it's probably better when the population is closer to an even split, but even then there are problems). This does change as men get older and there's less competition (online dating is bad for men in their 20s and good in their 30s). Dataclysm - Christian Rudder's book (cofounder of okcupid) has a ton of data you can look at to see some of the problems. One is solved by Tinder, Hinge etc. which is women getting too many messages (making things better for heterosexual women) but the other issue is the response graph itself. There's a graph in that book that shows number of messages received based on attractiveness, for women there is a massive spike at the right end of the attractiveness scale and it gets lower at the lower end, but is still around 4-5 messages a week. This means there are opportunities to at least go on dates if interested and get better at selection/what you like and don't. For men it's a flat line at zero until the extreme right of the attractiveness scale where it goes up to 1-2 messages. For men not in the top 10% of attractiveness online dating is not viable so things trend towards a broken state where women select the same group of highly selected men (which tends to lead to less long term interest on the side of the highly selected men). I think large amounts of men ~80% get very few dating opportunities and so are generally bad at the social skills required for success. For most heterosexual men (those not in the top 10% of attractiveness) you're better off meeting people in real life where you can make a better impression. These issues are compounded in the bay area where there is a large imbalance of men and women (things are less broken in DC and NYC). If I had a suggestion for a new type of dating site it would be less about the matching part and more about how to help men get better at the prerequisites for success (social skills, dressing better, fitness etc.). The pairing part is less important.

JohnFen 7y ago
I don't know... I'm absolutely nowhere near the top 10% of male attractiveness, but I've had good luck getting dates on dating sites. From talking with many women about their experience on such sites, I think that attractiveness is far less important than behavior -- the vast majority of men that women hear from, it seems, are very poorly behaved.
- fossuser 7y ago
  Where do you live? I think city is highly variable. It also gets easier as you get older (for heterosexual men) which could be a factor. This is the kind of thing where you can’t trust what people say since what they say and how they act are very different (the dataclysm book is good for this). For the matching case if you get zero matches you can’t progress to dates (or even chat). The selection happens prior to that. You're probably right though that it's not only attractiveness, there's also a selective pressure where men are generally okay dating 'down' economically and women are generally not. While more women become economically successful (good thing) it further constrains the availability on the dating market. The only reason I focused on the attractiveness stat first is that on apps like Hinge/Tinder it's a prereq to even getting to the economic piece. Diana S. Fleischman (evolutionary psychologist) and Julia Galef discuss some of this and other things on this podcast which I thought was pretty good: http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-216-diana-fleischman-on-being-a-transhumanist-evolutionar.html http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-216-diana-fleis...
  - JohnFen 7y ago
    My experience has covered a number of different areas (in the US), and I've used such sites occasionally for a couple of decades now. I've not noticed a significant difference between areas or age ranges. But I'm working with male sample size of one (me), and a female sample size (women I've talked about this stuff with) of a few dozen, so this isn't anything like a reliable study. It's just anecdotal.
  - lotsofpulp 7y ago
    > The only reason I focused on the attractiveness stat first is that on apps like Hinge/Tinder it's a prereq to even getting to the economic piece. Pictures of exotic vacations and the gear they’re wearing are plenty evidence of economic strength. You have time to go on far flung vacations and money to spend on them and the gear.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Similar here. Nowhere near the top in attractiveness; had pretty good experiences on match; ended up meeting my wife playing beer league level softball, but match absolutely “worked”. In spending time with female friends who were doing online dating, it became fairly clear to me how easy it was to be in the top 10% of articulate and interesting in correspondence.
deleted 7y ago
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onetimeusename 7y ago
So from that data, which I have no reason to doubt, women have the edge, especially more attractive women. Men have a distinct disadvantage which was also apparent from the gender skew. If women have an edge there, especially more attractive ones, I would expect more would join to gain that advantage. Likewise, men having such unfavorable odds, I would expect they would drop out. But AFAICT, the gender skew has remained pretty static across time and across apps. So why don't women (especially more attractive ones) join to get the advantage and why do men keep joining if the odds are against them? Do the apps repel (attractive) women? Do they even need the advantage? I would expect attractive women don't have the problem of needing to find dates but maybe not. Maybe attractiveness is just a relative thing and you need to have such a gender skew for women to filter out who is attractive and who isn't.
- fossuser 7y ago
  Purely speculative and something I haven't thought that much about, but my immediate answer is that men are more desperate and trying everything they can. Women have an easier time getting attention/dates in general so fewer of them bother with online dating at all.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  > I would expect more would join to gain that advantage. Likewise, men having such unfavorable odds, I would expect they would drop out The issue is inelastic demand, especially in the serious dating/non-hookup category. Most people are looking for 1 mate; there's little desire to continue past finding one, and little desire to quit when not finding one. So point-in-time membership of dating sites tends to amplify existing skews. > Do the apps repel (attractive) women? The stereotype is that men are attracted to beauty and women to power. The former is inherently more readily represented on a dating app.
paulddraper 7y ago
> bay area where there is a large imbalance of men and women (things are less broken in DC and NYC) Really? Considering the continual emphasis on social issues I hear out of the Bay Area, I thought it would have been far more evenly distributed than other parts of the country. Or maybe that's just a HN bubble.
- novok 7y ago
  Tech industry is male skewed and immigrant friendly, so there is a constant import effect of economically attractive men with usually not as good social skills. The Tech Industry is the big industry of the bay area, like Hollywood in LA, Finance, Journalism & Fashion in NYC, Law & Non-Profits in DC or Oil in Houston so that causes an issue in the singles market. On top of that, a large amount of the hiring is in the South bay, while the singles tend to live in SF or the north east bay. NYC is known for being female skewed, because fashion & journalism is probably female skewed and finance is neutral. DC is probably female skewed because law is neutral and non-profits are female skewed and so on. If you look at maps of female/male ratios of various age cohorts, you will also notice that the entire west coast is male skewed in the author's age cohort.
  - paulddraper 7y ago
    Thanks for explaining! Makes sense.
  - golemiprague 7y ago
    So many words to say the simple truth, women are not interested in technology and don't want to work at those jobs. Also, the immigrants got perfectly good social skills, the only problem is that American women, especially from the left side of the political map, are racist. Men don't really care and will date anyone, conservative women usually grow up in lower socio economic parts of the country and are less judgmental. But good luck finding a white lefty woman to date if you are Indian or Asian. Not saying it never happens, but it is pretty rare.
    - novok 7y ago

JohnFen 7y ago

I don't know... I'm absolutely nowhere near the top 10% of male attractiveness, but I've had good luck getting dates on dating sites. From talking with many women about their experience on such sites, I think that attractiveness is far less important than behavior -- the vast majority of men that women hear from, it seems, are very poorly behaved.

fossuser 7y ago
Where do you live? I think city is highly variable. It also gets easier as you get older (for heterosexual men) which could be a factor. This is the kind of thing where you can’t trust what people say since what they say and how they act are very different (the dataclysm book is good for this). For the matching case if you get zero matches you can’t progress to dates (or even chat). The selection happens prior to that. You're probably right though that it's not only attractiveness, there's also a selective pressure where men are generally okay dating 'down' economically and women are generally not. While more women become economically successful (good thing) it further constrains the availability on the dating market. The only reason I focused on the attractiveness stat first is that on apps like Hinge/Tinder it's a prereq to even getting to the economic piece. Diana S. Fleischman (evolutionary psychologist) and Julia Galef discuss some of this and other things on this podcast which I thought was pretty good: http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-216-diana-fleischman-on-being-a-transhumanist-evolutionar.html http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-216-diana-fleis...
- JohnFen 7y ago
  My experience has covered a number of different areas (in the US), and I've used such sites occasionally for a couple of decades now. I've not noticed a significant difference between areas or age ranges. But I'm working with male sample size of one (me), and a female sample size (women I've talked about this stuff with) of a few dozen, so this isn't anything like a reliable study. It's just anecdotal.
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  > The only reason I focused on the attractiveness stat first is that on apps like Hinge/Tinder it's a prereq to even getting to the economic piece. Pictures of exotic vacations and the gear they’re wearing are plenty evidence of economic strength. You have time to go on far flung vacations and money to spend on them and the gear.
sokoloff 7y ago
Similar here. Nowhere near the top in attractiveness; had pretty good experiences on match; ended up meeting my wife playing beer league level softball, but match absolutely “worked”. In spending time with female friends who were doing online dating, it became fairly clear to me how easy it was to be in the top 10% of articulate and interesting in correspondence.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

onetimeusename 7y ago

So from that data, which I have no reason to doubt, women have the edge, especially more attractive women. Men have a distinct disadvantage which was also apparent from the gender skew. If women have an edge there, especially more attractive ones, I would expect more would join to gain that advantage. Likewise, men having such unfavorable odds, I would expect they would drop out. But AFAICT, the gender skew has remained pretty static across time and across apps. So why don't women (especially more attractive ones) join to get the advantage and why do men keep joining if the odds are against them? Do the apps repel (attractive) women? Do they even need the advantage? I would expect attractive women don't have the problem of needing to find dates but maybe not. Maybe attractiveness is just a relative thing and you need to have such a gender skew for women to filter out who is attractive and who isn't.

fossuser 7y ago
Purely speculative and something I haven't thought that much about, but my immediate answer is that men are more desperate and trying everything they can. Women have an easier time getting attention/dates in general so fewer of them bother with online dating at all.
paulddraper 7y ago
> I would expect more would join to gain that advantage. Likewise, men having such unfavorable odds, I would expect they would drop out The issue is inelastic demand, especially in the serious dating/non-hookup category. Most people are looking for 1 mate; there's little desire to continue past finding one, and little desire to quit when not finding one. So point-in-time membership of dating sites tends to amplify existing skews. > Do the apps repel (attractive) women? The stereotype is that men are attracted to beauty and women to power. The former is inherently more readily represented on a dating app.

paulddraper 7y ago

> bay area where there is a large imbalance of men and women (things are less broken in DC and NYC) Really? Considering the continual emphasis on social issues I hear out of the Bay Area, I thought it would have been far more evenly distributed than other parts of the country. Or maybe that's just a HN bubble.

novok 7y ago
Tech industry is male skewed and immigrant friendly, so there is a constant import effect of economically attractive men with usually not as good social skills. The Tech Industry is the big industry of the bay area, like Hollywood in LA, Finance, Journalism & Fashion in NYC, Law & Non-Profits in DC or Oil in Houston so that causes an issue in the singles market. On top of that, a large amount of the hiring is in the South bay, while the singles tend to live in SF or the north east bay. NYC is known for being female skewed, because fashion & journalism is probably female skewed and finance is neutral. DC is probably female skewed because law is neutral and non-profits are female skewed and so on. If you look at maps of female/male ratios of various age cohorts, you will also notice that the entire west coast is male skewed in the author's age cohort.
- paulddraper 7y ago
  Thanks for explaining! Makes sense.
- golemiprague 7y ago
  So many words to say the simple truth, women are not interested in technology and don't want to work at those jobs. Also, the immigrants got perfectly good social skills, the only problem is that American women, especially from the left side of the political map, are racist. Men don't really care and will date anyone, conservative women usually grow up in lower socio economic parts of the country and are less judgmental. But good luck finding a white lefty woman to date if you are Indian or Asian. Not saying it never happens, but it is pretty rare.
  - novok 7y ago