6 ms·

I hear this claim alot on social media but is there any solid research backing this up? I want to propose a different hypothesis - men and women lie differentl

by vivekd 3y ago

I hear this claim alot on social media but is there any solid research backing this up? I want to propose a different hypothesis - men and women lie differently. Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain whereas women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get. Maybe men are more likely to blame the site or algorithm whereas women are more likely to blame themselves. Maybe ratios of unsuccessful attempts are roughly evenly distributed and the difference can be explained solely by the fact that men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to.

groestl 3y ago
Annectotal, but the women I know, if anything, try to tone down the number of matches they get, and dates they go on, whereas for the men it's the other way around. You hear of every single match from a male friend.
- vivekd 3y ago
  Women do tend to make that claim in social circumstances but to be fair it's a pretty flattering self portrait. Could these women be exaggerating to make themselves look hot and unobtainable and the women who fail be keeping quiet. I met guys who talk about their successful conquests on these apps and I get the feeling that a lot of that is just guys exaggerating or lying to impress others I can say this I got a lot of dates in dating apps and I'm short and not very hot. My strategy was just ask for dates and play the numbers game - accept nos and just keep asking. I wasn't getting a lot of dates before I tried this strategy. I know another guy similarly situated who successfully used the same strategy. Maybe it's not about the apps themselves but about how they are used and who uses them - eg. Shy guys who are nervous about asking girls on dates for example
  - groestl 3y ago
    It just does not add up for me. > Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain Does not really align with the fact that men tend to brag about their experience (hence: every single match is mentioned to friends) > women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get. But they don't keep quiet, they complain about the quality of the men on display. And the ones who are successful usually don't mention it openly, to avoid negative connotations about promiscuity and such. > Maybe men are more likely to blame the site or algorithm In my experience, men tend to compain about the women (namely their behavior to be too picky). As apparent in this discussion as a whole. > women are more likely to blame themselves As mentioned, they're likely to blame the choice ("the grapes are sour"), or, if they get any matches, the quality of their dates. > men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to. It's the same on Bumble.
- kukkeliskuu 3y ago
  The book Sperm Wars talked about an interesting research about the number of sex partners for men and women. Is is well-known that men report double the amount of sex partners than women. People typically think this can be explained by men bragging i.e. exaggerating their numbers. Researchers repeated the test by hooking men and women to a lie detector. While tge number of sex partners reported by men dropped a little, the interesting thing was that the number of sex partners reported by women raised a lot. Ultimately they were very close to each other. I think the social stigma for women is higher for number of partners in general, and that explains the tendency to downplay numbers.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - bongoman37 3y ago
    [dead]
nickff 3y ago
OKCupid had a blog (I believe it was called “OKData”, which had a few posts that agreed with the parent post. I believe that the blog was removed after an acquisition, but the content was published as a book, which is still available.
- fredthedeadhead 3y ago
  The blog was removed after OkCupid was acquired by Match.com, which is another problem in online dating apps that isn't often mentioned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group#Dating_services_owned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group#Dating_services_... This chokes out competition, and users end up with several apps with some gimmick, but at their core they're designed to keep most users locked into actively dating, either to make the app seem popular, or to squeeze money out of them.
- hypercube33 3y ago
  Do you happen to know what book?
  - wbobeirne 3y ago
    Christian Rudder (main author of the blog) wrote his own book Dataclysm. It's separate from the blog though, that was called OkTrends and you can find the articles on archive.org.
- kukkeliskuu 3y ago
  One of the deleted articles, which I think you refer to, was called "Your Looks and Your Inbox". Apparently some people have made copies of it online, for example: https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinb...
officehero 3y ago
Not solid research but I set up an account with a single scrappy black/white picture of a photo of a woman from the 1940s. Her profile drew an order of magnitude more attention than what I normally get.
- vivekd 3y ago
  I know asking for funding to do research on getting girls is probably going to be a no go. But I feel like it's necessary. It's something a lot of people think is important and bad actors like pick up artists and others with various agendas like past resentment have stepped up to fill the void. The dating pool seems posioned and I think good solid fact finding especially with regard to what works would go a long way towards helping to fix things
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>men and women lie differently. Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain whereas women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get. There's no Tinder-specific data, but it's been very well reported that the rate of matches between men and women on older dating sites was drastic, at least 1:2. So I don't think it's really a "lie" when men say they get no dates. I'm sure with the Tinder age that gap has only widened. You also need to keep in mind that people complain in different places. You're likely not going to find a woman complaining about lack of matches on Hacker News, for example. >Maybe ratios of unsuccessful attempts are roughly evenly distributed and the difference can be explained solely by the fact that men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to. It's possible, but I hear this is even a problem on sites where the woman is expected to make the first move. There's just some element of pickiness men lack compared to women. Be it due to quantity of choice or the bar to meet or whatnot.
- groestl 3y ago
  > some element of pickiness men lack compared to women. From the women I talked to about this, they were not that picky at first. They become picky as soon as they notice that every swipe they do results in a match, and all those matches pressure to meet up soon. When they've become picky, they match only with guys that have no real intention to meet. Presumably because those are the ones who are flooded with matches as well.
kukkeliskuu 3y ago
I have never heard the power law/normal distribution claim on social media and almost never anywhere else either. Do you have some links? I don't know about solid research. The last time I was looking up research about this was around 15 years ago, when I was actually planning to publish a paper about the finding above. I had some data about a series of speed-dating events. Men gave double the amount of +'s (if both give a +, then it is a match) as compared to women, and the distributions were what I claim above. Then there was the OkCupid article and some other research articles on dating sites (no apps at that time) and speed-dating events. I don't remember any research mentioning the different distributions although it was obvious from the graphs on the research papers that all of these followed the same distributions. I think one of the reasons why there is so little research is that there is some taboo around this subject. For example the OkCupid article mentioned was pulled off. I don't know what the taboo is. Perhaps these results hint too much about differences between sexes or our evoluationary past?
throwaway2037 3y ago
This is easy to test. Create 6 dating profiles: Looks: (1) below average, (2) average, and (3) above above. Then, man vs woman. Now watch what happens. There are lots of YouTube videos of people who have done it. It is stunning how much more attention goes to the most attractive men. Average and below attractive men will get almost zero attention. If you go deeper, and continue past the like to a conversation, it becomes more striking.

by vivekd 3y ago

groestl 3y ago

Annectotal, but the women I know, if anything, try to tone down the number of matches they get, and dates they go on, whereas for the men it's the other way around. You hear of every single match from a male friend.

vivekd 3y ago
Women do tend to make that claim in social circumstances but to be fair it's a pretty flattering self portrait. Could these women be exaggerating to make themselves look hot and unobtainable and the women who fail be keeping quiet. I met guys who talk about their successful conquests on these apps and I get the feeling that a lot of that is just guys exaggerating or lying to impress others I can say this I got a lot of dates in dating apps and I'm short and not very hot. My strategy was just ask for dates and play the numbers game - accept nos and just keep asking. I wasn't getting a lot of dates before I tried this strategy. I know another guy similarly situated who successfully used the same strategy. Maybe it's not about the apps themselves but about how they are used and who uses them - eg. Shy guys who are nervous about asking girls on dates for example
- groestl 3y ago
  It just does not add up for me. > Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain Does not really align with the fact that men tend to brag about their experience (hence: every single match is mentioned to friends) > women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get. But they don't keep quiet, they complain about the quality of the men on display. And the ones who are successful usually don't mention it openly, to avoid negative connotations about promiscuity and such. > Maybe men are more likely to blame the site or algorithm In my experience, men tend to compain about the women (namely their behavior to be too picky). As apparent in this discussion as a whole. > women are more likely to blame themselves As mentioned, they're likely to blame the choice ("the grapes are sour"), or, if they get any matches, the quality of their dates. > men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to. It's the same on Bumble.
kukkeliskuu 3y ago
The book Sperm Wars talked about an interesting research about the number of sex partners for men and women. Is is well-known that men report double the amount of sex partners than women. People typically think this can be explained by men bragging i.e. exaggerating their numbers. Researchers repeated the test by hooking men and women to a lie detector. While tge number of sex partners reported by men dropped a little, the interesting thing was that the number of sex partners reported by women raised a lot. Ultimately they were very close to each other. I think the social stigma for women is higher for number of partners in general, and that explains the tendency to downplay numbers.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- bongoman37 3y ago
  [dead]

nickff 3y ago

OKCupid had a blog (I believe it was called “OKData”, which had a few posts that agreed with the parent post. I believe that the blog was removed after an acquisition, but the content was published as a book, which is still available.

fredthedeadhead 3y ago
The blog was removed after OkCupid was acquired by Match.com, which is another problem in online dating apps that isn't often mentioned. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group#Dating_services_owned https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group#Dating_services_... This chokes out competition, and users end up with several apps with some gimmick, but at their core they're designed to keep most users locked into actively dating, either to make the app seem popular, or to squeeze money out of them.
hypercube33 3y ago
Do you happen to know what book?
- wbobeirne 3y ago
  Christian Rudder (main author of the blog) wrote his own book Dataclysm. It's separate from the blog though, that was called OkTrends and you can find the articles on archive.org.
kukkeliskuu 3y ago
One of the deleted articles, which I think you refer to, was called "Your Looks and Your Inbox". Apparently some people have made copies of it online, for example: https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinbox.html https://gwern.net/doc/psychology/okcupid/yourlooksandyourinb...

officehero 3y ago

Not solid research but I set up an account with a single scrappy black/white picture of a photo of a woman from the 1940s. Her profile drew an order of magnitude more attention than what I normally get.

vivekd 3y ago
I know asking for funding to do research on getting girls is probably going to be a no go. But I feel like it's necessary. It's something a lot of people think is important and bad actors like pick up artists and others with various agendas like past resentment have stepped up to fill the void. The dating pool seems posioned and I think good solid fact finding especially with regard to what works would go a long way towards helping to fix things

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>men and women lie differently. Men are more likely to say they got no matches on a dating site and complain whereas women are more likely to keep quiet of they get few to no matches and exaggerate the number they do get. There's no Tinder-specific data, but it's been very well reported that the rate of matches between men and women on older dating sites was drastic, at least 1:2. So I don't think it's really a "lie" when men say they get no dates. I'm sure with the Tinder age that gap has only widened. You also need to keep in mind that people complain in different places. You're likely not going to find a woman complaining about lack of matches on Hacker News, for example. >Maybe ratios of unsuccessful attempts are roughly evenly distributed and the difference can be explained solely by the fact that men must ask and make the first move in most cultures whereas women don't have to. It's possible, but I hear this is even a problem on sites where the woman is expected to make the first move. There's just some element of pickiness men lack compared to women. Be it due to quantity of choice or the bar to meet or whatnot.

groestl 3y ago
> some element of pickiness men lack compared to women. From the women I talked to about this, they were not that picky at first. They become picky as soon as they notice that every swipe they do results in a match, and all those matches pressure to meet up soon. When they've become picky, they match only with guys that have no real intention to meet. Presumably because those are the ones who are flooded with matches as well.

kukkeliskuu 3y ago

I have never heard the power law/normal distribution claim on social media and almost never anywhere else either. Do you have some links? I don't know about solid research. The last time I was looking up research about this was around 15 years ago, when I was actually planning to publish a paper about the finding above. I had some data about a series of speed-dating events. Men gave double the amount of +'s (if both give a +, then it is a match) as compared to women, and the distributions were what I claim above. Then there was the OkCupid article and some other research articles on dating sites (no apps at that time) and speed-dating events. I don't remember any research mentioning the different distributions although it was obvious from the graphs on the research papers that all of these followed the same distributions. I think one of the reasons why there is so little research is that there is some taboo around this subject. For example the OkCupid article mentioned was pulled off. I don't know what the taboo is. Perhaps these results hint too much about differences between sexes or our evoluationary past?

throwaway2037 3y ago

This is easy to test. Create 6 dating profiles: Looks: (1) below average, (2) average, and (3) above above. Then, man vs woman. Now watch what happens. There are lots of YouTube videos of people who have done it. It is stunning how much more attention goes to the most attractive men. Average and below attractive men will get almost zero attention. If you go deeper, and continue past the like to a conversation, it becomes more striking.