4 ms·

I met people on OK Cupid and match.com way back when before I met my partner - 15-20 years ago - and I know a guy who met his eventual wife on plenty of fish.

I met people on OK Cupid and match.com way back when before I met my partner - 15-20 years ago - and I know a guy who met his eventual wife on plenty of fish. OK Cupid had a lot of potential as an idea but required a lot of investment up front. The traditional profile apps seemed to be full of people gaming and I sensed that a lot of the profiles I was looking at as a straight man of straight women were fake. When I heard about the swiping apps, I thought "well that keeps it simpler I guess" - the anti-OK Cupid - but also felt it would mean that the things that actually make chemistry work beneath the surface would be completely absent. In the article, there is mention of somebody finding a click with somebody who was setup as "a friend of a friend". This is how humans have been doing it for hundreds of thousands of years, with a slant towards family involvement for most of that period (and today in some communities), for a reason. Knowing two people and seeing the "overlap" in humour, personalities and interests means you can suggest they should hang out. That is far more likely to work - even for an interesting hook-up - than two people who find each other physically attractive with zero common ground emotionally or personality overlap. There's some idea in here for an app where your friends and family help you using their networks. If you socialise a lot, this will happen anyway (particularly if you get on with that one person nearly every social circle has who loves to connect people up), but if you don't, there is room for some help, maybe. In the meantime, don't read the books, don't "peacock", don't assume the apps will save you. Go do some hobbies that have social clubs (running, reading groups, a local adult education centre), just go meet people. You might not meet "the one" there, but they might have a friend...

ben_w 2y ago
Just on the chance your name isn't a coincidence: did I grow up 3 doors from you, in Havant? (I have stranger connections than that if so — duskwuff won't recognise this username, but I recognise theirs).
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  I did not. I'm in the UK, and the last time I checked there were over 2500 of us on the electoral register in the UK alone. My surname is the 2nd most common surname in England, and the 1st most common in the North West where I grew up. :)
carom 2y ago
I actually think OK Cupid is a pretty bad idea. It allows people to make things that are pretty superficial when you are together, e.g. politics, deal breakers. An example of this is that I am allergic to cats and would always set that as a deal breaker. It turns out, the woman I met and married has cats. We make it work. The swipe apps are even worse and the whole online dating order is backward. You sort people on very superficial metrics, agree to a date, then see if you have common ground and get along. Social hobbies are the way to go. It is much more natural order where you get to know someone, see if you get along, and then go on a date once it is already established that you like each other.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- PaulRobinson 2y ago
  But that's why OK Cupid can work. It's a Bayesian prior being updated with new data, not hardline deal breakers. You and your partner made it work, but if somebody who was exactly the same as your partner in every other respect but who also had cat allergies (and I know this is not possible, never mind feasible to prove), you would from a Bayesian perspective be more compatible than you are with your partner. Also, I don't know where you live, but I'd love to live somewhere where differing politics isn't a deal breaker in a relationship - it must be a pretty settled and stable place. Canada maybe? Switzerland? New Zealand? I'm in the UK, and I (and I think everyone I know), absolutely 100% could not be in a relationship with somebody on the other side of the UK political spectrum any more - it's too divisive, too much has happened, it's not in the slightest bit superficial, and with all the other stuff that needs to go well to make a relationship work over the long term, throwing that in the mix as something to "make work" feels like too high a burden for me. As such, a dating app that gets that out of the way to avoid the awkward and angry second date seems essential in this country at least.

ben_w 2y ago

Just on the chance your name isn't a coincidence: did I grow up 3 doors from you, in Havant? (I have stranger connections than that if so — duskwuff won't recognise this username, but I recognise theirs).

PaulRobinson 2y ago
I did not. I'm in the UK, and the last time I checked there were over 2500 of us on the electoral register in the UK alone. My surname is the 2nd most common surname in England, and the 1st most common in the North West where I grew up. :)

carom 2y ago

I actually think OK Cupid is a pretty bad idea. It allows people to make things that are pretty superficial when you are together, e.g. politics, deal breakers. An example of this is that I am allergic to cats and would always set that as a deal breaker. It turns out, the woman I met and married has cats. We make it work. The swipe apps are even worse and the whole online dating order is backward. You sort people on very superficial metrics, agree to a date, then see if you have common ground and get along. Social hobbies are the way to go. It is much more natural order where you get to know someone, see if you get along, and then go on a date once it is already established that you like each other.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
PaulRobinson 2y ago
But that's why OK Cupid can work. It's a Bayesian prior being updated with new data, not hardline deal breakers. You and your partner made it work, but if somebody who was exactly the same as your partner in every other respect but who also had cat allergies (and I know this is not possible, never mind feasible to prove), you would from a Bayesian perspective be more compatible than you are with your partner. Also, I don't know where you live, but I'd love to live somewhere where differing politics isn't a deal breaker in a relationship - it must be a pretty settled and stable place. Canada maybe? Switzerland? New Zealand? I'm in the UK, and I (and I think everyone I know), absolutely 100% could not be in a relationship with somebody on the other side of the UK political spectrum any more - it's too divisive, too much has happened, it's not in the slightest bit superficial, and with all the other stuff that needs to go well to make a relationship work over the long term, throwing that in the mix as something to "make work" feels like too high a burden for me. As such, a dating app that gets that out of the way to avoid the awkward and angry second date seems essential in this country at least.