7 ms·

That's our excuse, but in practice when you find yourself swiping left simply because they're not the right age only 5 minutes after you set the age filter, you

That's our excuse, but in practice when you find yourself swiping left simply because they're not the right age only 5 minutes after you set the age filter, you start wondering if maybe there's a difference between your stated and revealed preferences. I know I do.

csa 4y ago
> but in practice when you find yourself swiping left simply because they're not the right age only 5 minutes after you set the age filter, you start wondering if maybe there's a difference between your stated and revealed preferences. Meh… I almost always set a really wide band on age on dating apps. The catch is that the folks at the extremes have to be exceptional in one or more ways in order to get a positive reaction from me. Typically it’s: - Really young people (I’m in the middle aged dating pool) have to show some maturity — I don’t want to date a kid, and I don’t want to date someone with a daddy complex. - Older ladies need to show some youthfulness. Some people have clearly given up in middle age in terms of taking care of themselves and doing interesting things. I’m not interested in these folks — they seem like they have one foot in the grave to me. For reference, my dating range has been -15 to +7, so I don’t think I’m being overly narrow in my band. That said, most of my dates are in the -5 to -10 range.
- Nifty3929 4y ago
  >> The catch is that the folks at the extremes have to be exceptional in one or more ways in order to get a positive reaction from me. I think this is the crux of the issue - we don't have absolute, binary requirements, we have weighted preferences. "He's a bit older, but then again he looks youthful. OTOH he doesn't have any hobbies. But then again we're aligned politically. Okay, I'll chance it." A better way would be to allow you to set these weights and have a scoring system, and then you can set a numerical threshold.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    >A better way would be to allow you to set these weights and have a scoring system, and then you can set a numerical threshold. That would be great, but it won't work. Too many people will answer questions incorrectly or not at all, and almost no one will be able to even use the app effectively even if the app designers implemented it. And I have no confidence the app developers would even be able to implement it properly.
- mock-possum 4y ago
  Yep that’s where I’m at too, more or less - I’ve given up on imposing strict boundaries on potential matches, I just meet people and see if I like them. One of my buddies is real outraged about it, she thinks I’m wasting people’s time, but I don’t see it that way - I’m consistently surprised at who I end up vibing with, and i don’t know how to set rules for myself that would still allow me to meet those people, while excluding everyone else with no potential. I’d rather just try stuff on and see what fits. At this point the best I can do for ‘my type’ is weirdos who like me.
  - csa 4y ago
    > I’m consistently surprised at who I end up vibing with, and i don’t know how to set rules for myself that would still allow me to meet those people, while excluding everyone else with no potential. I’d rather just try stuff on and see what fits. Great observation. I’m basically a “look at profile, send a dm if interesting, schedule a meeting if they reply” type of guy. The first few minutes of a “coffee date” tells me more about the person than any amount of detailed profile or DMing can.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I mostly like this approach too, but the main problem I've found is that I've frequently found that I wished I could end the date within 5 minutes, and feel like I've wasted my time. But I couldn't tell this before actually meeting them in person, and I haven't found a way of gracefully aborting the date early.
      - csa 4y ago
        Schedule something immediately after. It’s easy to leave if you want, and it’s also easy to make it clear that you’re interested in spending more time together. “Hey, I’m meeting some friends at 6. I really enjoyed talking with you today. Would you like to go to $ACTIVITY on $DATE?”
        midoridensha 4y ago
daniel_reetz 4y ago
Profound statement. Online dating reveals a whole lot to a careful self-observer- most of it quite uncomfortable or counter to self-image. I'd bet there are many analogs in advertising and other surveillance/tracking heavy industries. "They say they want this, but they consistently click on that"...
MuffinFlavored 4y ago
What would the online dating scene look like if apps let people filter by: * race / ethnicity / religion * weight / body type / body measurements * height * income / salary / net worth / debt
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
  OKCupid back in the day gave you most of those knobs, but they got removed eventually. The problem with spreadsheet-style filtering of humans is that in the real world that's not how you fall in love with someone. Someone can be too short, too chubby, of the "wrong" religion or political affiliation, but you still fall in love with them because of their energy, their warmth, their selflessness, their consistency, their presence and so on. In theory more knobs = more better, but in practice I suspect it backfires by going against the grain of an authentic human mating experience. I can't imagine anything good coming out of the self-commodification and self-objectification that apps push us towards, even as someone who has more than extensive experience playing that game.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Teever 4y ago
    I was under the impression that the reason that the UI of OKCupid has been radically dumbed down is because it was bought by the Match group who wanted the app to look and act more like the rest of their apps.
  - erenyeager 4y ago
    This is backwards to human history. marriage within the tribe, caste, religion, etc. was preferred. The “knobs” were set by the families and matchmakers. The “love” marriage is more of an anomaly. Rather I’d say many people can make a relationship work and love is effort, not just “click”.
    - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
      I actually agree with you if we look at this throughout the entire human history. Mating and romance being a necessary pairing seems like a recent phenomenon, the last 200 years or so?
wodenokoto 4y ago
I wish I could hide their age. Instead I can pay to hide my own. Sigh.
opportune 4y ago
Dating apps have minimum allowed age ranges. So a lot of people probably do this but only because they can’t set a smaller range. You may think 4 years is plenty wide for most people, but as a 26 year old male I really only am interested in eg 24-26 or even 25-26. There is also an “Elo”/mmr aspect where even if you are ok with dating someone 27-28, the reality of dating is that those women users will reject you at much higher rates than in 25-26, so including them in your range will lower the frequency with which you’re presented even to women that you do want to date due to lowering your “MMR”. Agreed with other commenters that there are weighted preferences. While I may be ok seeing 22 or 23 year olds and in principle open to dating people in that range, in practice the rate of people I want to date in that range is much lower (but not 0). Same with people older than me. I’d say including people beyond your actually revealed preferences actually indicates that you are open minded, assuming there are at least some people in that cohort that you are actually interested in, because it shows that you are willing to go through a much higher reject rate to find people who you are interested in.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > Dating apps have minimum allowed age ranges. It's been a long time since I've used dating apps, but when I used them, you could set any arbitrary upper and lower age boundaries. Has this changed?

csa 4y ago

> but in practice when you find yourself swiping left simply because they're not the right age only 5 minutes after you set the age filter, you start wondering if maybe there's a difference between your stated and revealed preferences. Meh… I almost always set a really wide band on age on dating apps. The catch is that the folks at the extremes have to be exceptional in one or more ways in order to get a positive reaction from me. Typically it’s: - Really young people (I’m in the middle aged dating pool) have to show some maturity — I don’t want to date a kid, and I don’t want to date someone with a daddy complex. - Older ladies need to show some youthfulness. Some people have clearly given up in middle age in terms of taking care of themselves and doing interesting things. I’m not interested in these folks — they seem like they have one foot in the grave to me. For reference, my dating range has been -15 to +7, so I don’t think I’m being overly narrow in my band. That said, most of my dates are in the -5 to -10 range.

Nifty3929 4y ago
>> The catch is that the folks at the extremes have to be exceptional in one or more ways in order to get a positive reaction from me. I think this is the crux of the issue - we don't have absolute, binary requirements, we have weighted preferences. "He's a bit older, but then again he looks youthful. OTOH he doesn't have any hobbies. But then again we're aligned politically. Okay, I'll chance it." A better way would be to allow you to set these weights and have a scoring system, and then you can set a numerical threshold.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >A better way would be to allow you to set these weights and have a scoring system, and then you can set a numerical threshold. That would be great, but it won't work. Too many people will answer questions incorrectly or not at all, and almost no one will be able to even use the app effectively even if the app designers implemented it. And I have no confidence the app developers would even be able to implement it properly.
mock-possum 4y ago
Yep that’s where I’m at too, more or less - I’ve given up on imposing strict boundaries on potential matches, I just meet people and see if I like them. One of my buddies is real outraged about it, she thinks I’m wasting people’s time, but I don’t see it that way - I’m consistently surprised at who I end up vibing with, and i don’t know how to set rules for myself that would still allow me to meet those people, while excluding everyone else with no potential. I’d rather just try stuff on and see what fits. At this point the best I can do for ‘my type’ is weirdos who like me.
- csa 4y ago
  > I’m consistently surprised at who I end up vibing with, and i don’t know how to set rules for myself that would still allow me to meet those people, while excluding everyone else with no potential. I’d rather just try stuff on and see what fits. Great observation. I’m basically a “look at profile, send a dm if interesting, schedule a meeting if they reply” type of guy. The first few minutes of a “coffee date” tells me more about the person than any amount of detailed profile or DMing can.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I mostly like this approach too, but the main problem I've found is that I've frequently found that I wished I could end the date within 5 minutes, and feel like I've wasted my time. But I couldn't tell this before actually meeting them in person, and I haven't found a way of gracefully aborting the date early.
    - csa 4y ago
      Schedule something immediately after. It’s easy to leave if you want, and it’s also easy to make it clear that you’re interested in spending more time together. “Hey, I’m meeting some friends at 6. I really enjoyed talking with you today. Would you like to go to $ACTIVITY on $DATE?”
      - midoridensha 4y ago

daniel_reetz 4y ago

Profound statement. Online dating reveals a whole lot to a careful self-observer- most of it quite uncomfortable or counter to self-image. I'd bet there are many analogs in advertising and other surveillance/tracking heavy industries. "They say they want this, but they consistently click on that"...

MuffinFlavored 4y ago

What would the online dating scene look like if apps let people filter by: * race / ethnicity / religion * weight / body type / body measurements * height * income / salary / net worth / debt

8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
OKCupid back in the day gave you most of those knobs, but they got removed eventually. The problem with spreadsheet-style filtering of humans is that in the real world that's not how you fall in love with someone. Someone can be too short, too chubby, of the "wrong" religion or political affiliation, but you still fall in love with them because of their energy, their warmth, their selflessness, their consistency, their presence and so on. In theory more knobs = more better, but in practice I suspect it backfires by going against the grain of an authentic human mating experience. I can't imagine anything good coming out of the self-commodification and self-objectification that apps push us towards, even as someone who has more than extensive experience playing that game.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Teever 4y ago
  I was under the impression that the reason that the UI of OKCupid has been radically dumbed down is because it was bought by the Match group who wanted the app to look and act more like the rest of their apps.
- erenyeager 4y ago
  This is backwards to human history. marriage within the tribe, caste, religion, etc. was preferred. The “knobs” were set by the families and matchmakers. The “love” marriage is more of an anomaly. Rather I’d say many people can make a relationship work and love is effort, not just “click”.
  - 8f2ab37a-ed6c 4y ago
    I actually agree with you if we look at this throughout the entire human history. Mating and romance being a necessary pairing seems like a recent phenomenon, the last 200 years or so?

wodenokoto 4y ago

I wish I could hide their age. Instead I can pay to hide my own. Sigh.

opportune 4y ago

Dating apps have minimum allowed age ranges. So a lot of people probably do this but only because they can’t set a smaller range. You may think 4 years is plenty wide for most people, but as a 26 year old male I really only am interested in eg 24-26 or even 25-26. There is also an “Elo”/mmr aspect where even if you are ok with dating someone 27-28, the reality of dating is that those women users will reject you at much higher rates than in 25-26, so including them in your range will lower the frequency with which you’re presented even to women that you do want to date due to lowering your “MMR”. Agreed with other commenters that there are weighted preferences. While I may be ok seeing 22 or 23 year olds and in principle open to dating people in that range, in practice the rate of people I want to date in that range is much lower (but not 0). Same with people older than me. I’d say including people beyond your actually revealed preferences actually indicates that you are open minded, assuming there are at least some people in that cohort that you are actually interested in, because it shows that you are willing to go through a much higher reject rate to find people who you are interested in.

JohnFen 4y ago
> Dating apps have minimum allowed age ranges. It's been a long time since I've used dating apps, but when I used them, you could set any arbitrary upper and lower age boundaries. Has this changed?