4 ms·

>"Most men get somewhere like 0-4 matches a week and most women get somewhere like 100-1000. That’s a 25x difference best-case scenario and often it’s over 100x

>"Most men get somewhere like 0-4 matches a week and most women get somewhere like 100-1000. That’s a 25x difference best-case scenario and often it’s over 100x. Which is kind of insane considering there are about 50/50 men to women ratio in real life." I always suspected something similar. Is this documented anywhere though that I could look? My response to this was to simply get rid of that app and quit. Why would anyone continue putting in the hours a week for something that led to 0-4 matches a week? How is the platform not a total failure based on this? Doesn't everyone of the guys not in that top 20 percentile turn around and tell everyone it is garbage?

mrwh 4y ago
A few matches a week seems... fine though, right? Unless one wants to go on a first date every day of the week, and really who has time for that? If anything, hundreds of low-quality matches (because men just say yes to everyone) seem worse than a few considered ones.
- mrwh 4y ago
  That said, I have heard that a large percentage of men get zero matches, just none at all. At that point yes it's a poor proposition.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    >That said, I have heard that a large percentage of men get zero matches, just none at all. At that point yes it's a poor proposition. I've heard that is true in real life, too. Women have it easier and are more picky.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  But a match with a new person who is getting hundreds of matches is still not likely to turn into a first date.
  - DeathArrow 4y ago
    In my experience it wasn't too hard to convert most matches I was interested in in dates. Once I have someone on the hook it's easy to get the fish out of the water.
- bogomipz 4y ago
  I think the ratio of a match to an actual date though is much much worse. I'm convinced a lot of people use those apps simply as a convenient source of ego boost.
superfrank 4y ago
> I always suspected something similar. Is this documented anywhere though that I could look? The book Dataclysm and the OkCupid blog have a lot of analysis about things like this. Both are about a decade old now and were written by one of the guys who founded OkCupid, so it focuses on dating sites instead of apps, but I would assume the trends are the same (or even amplified). It's been a while since I've read either, so I don't remember exact data, but it's true that women get way more men reaching out to them than the reverse. Here's a random OkCupid blog post that focuses on it a little bit: https://theblog.okcupid.com/a-womans-advantage-82d5074dde2d https://theblog.okcupid.com/a-womans-advantage-82d5074dde2d. I think the book has more detailed data though.
jseban 4y ago
> How is the platform not a total failure based on this? Doesn't everyone of the guys not in that top 20 percentile turn around and tell everyone it is garbage? Yeah it is total garbage. Even when you put in all the work to get matches and arrange dates (which takes a ton of work), it's still basically a blind date, so when you actually meet there's still only a small chance that you will actually match. And you always get worse matches, as a man, through the apps compared to real life. You will pay a price for that convenience of swiping. There's an increased risk for women when they let men bypass that filter of being sociable and brave enough to befriend people in real life social situations. If a woman can already go to a bar and easily pick out a guy, and easily judge the men, why would they use a dating app? It only makes sense if they somehow would get better matches there, so the men will have to lower their standards as a result of that convenience. I just see online dating, and classified ads in the paper before that, as a way for people who don't fit the social norm to meet. And that's fine. But I don't see any reason for everyone to start doing that, and people who are normally sociable will just have a worse experience.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  >it's still basically a blind date, so when you actually meet there's still only a small chance that you will actually match. The chance is small only if you are very picky or don't know how to optimize for the outcomes. Dating can be seen as anything else in life: a game or a competition. Some people are naturally better, some people can learn to really do it good.
DeathArrow 4y ago
>Why would anyone continue putting in the hours a week for something that led to 0-4 matches a week? Because, in my experience, I can convert half of those matches in dates. And some of the dates I can convert in other things like relations or sex.

mrwh 4y ago

A few matches a week seems... fine though, right? Unless one wants to go on a first date every day of the week, and really who has time for that? If anything, hundreds of low-quality matches (because men just say yes to everyone) seem worse than a few considered ones.

mrwh 4y ago
That said, I have heard that a large percentage of men get zero matches, just none at all. At that point yes it's a poor proposition.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  >That said, I have heard that a large percentage of men get zero matches, just none at all. At that point yes it's a poor proposition. I've heard that is true in real life, too. Women have it easier and are more picky.
sokoloff 4y ago
But a match with a new person who is getting hundreds of matches is still not likely to turn into a first date.
- DeathArrow 4y ago
  In my experience it wasn't too hard to convert most matches I was interested in in dates. Once I have someone on the hook it's easy to get the fish out of the water.
bogomipz 4y ago
I think the ratio of a match to an actual date though is much much worse. I'm convinced a lot of people use those apps simply as a convenient source of ego boost.

superfrank 4y ago

> I always suspected something similar. Is this documented anywhere though that I could look? The book Dataclysm and the OkCupid blog have a lot of analysis about things like this. Both are about a decade old now and were written by one of the guys who founded OkCupid, so it focuses on dating sites instead of apps, but I would assume the trends are the same (or even amplified). It's been a while since I've read either, so I don't remember exact data, but it's true that women get way more men reaching out to them than the reverse. Here's a random OkCupid blog post that focuses on it a little bit: https://theblog.okcupid.com/a-womans-advantage-82d5074dde2d https://theblog.okcupid.com/a-womans-advantage-82d5074dde2d. I think the book has more detailed data though.

jseban 4y ago

> How is the platform not a total failure based on this? Doesn't everyone of the guys not in that top 20 percentile turn around and tell everyone it is garbage? Yeah it is total garbage. Even when you put in all the work to get matches and arrange dates (which takes a ton of work), it's still basically a blind date, so when you actually meet there's still only a small chance that you will actually match. And you always get worse matches, as a man, through the apps compared to real life. You will pay a price for that convenience of swiping. There's an increased risk for women when they let men bypass that filter of being sociable and brave enough to befriend people in real life social situations. If a woman can already go to a bar and easily pick out a guy, and easily judge the men, why would they use a dating app? It only makes sense if they somehow would get better matches there, so the men will have to lower their standards as a result of that convenience. I just see online dating, and classified ads in the paper before that, as a way for people who don't fit the social norm to meet. And that's fine. But I don't see any reason for everyone to start doing that, and people who are normally sociable will just have a worse experience.

DeathArrow 4y ago
>it's still basically a blind date, so when you actually meet there's still only a small chance that you will actually match. The chance is small only if you are very picky or don't know how to optimize for the outcomes. Dating can be seen as anything else in life: a game or a competition. Some people are naturally better, some people can learn to really do it good.

DeathArrow 4y ago

>Why would anyone continue putting in the hours a week for something that led to 0-4 matches a week? Because, in my experience, I can convert half of those matches in dates. And some of the dates I can convert in other things like relations or sex.