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How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love

506 points by daw___ 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
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- jsnk 13y ago
  Yes it does. That's why his bots were getting banned.
kqr2 13y ago
Link to the guy's website: http://christophermckinlay.net/ http://christophermckinlay.net/ Also a link to the kindle edition of his analysis: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2
- beamer99 13y ago
  r Read the foreword to his book. Something I should have done before buying the book. It is not about the statistical methods he used and how he collected the web data. It's more of an online dating manual. If Christopher is on HN, an article on your site about your methodology would be great.m
- beamer99 13y ago
  r Read the foreword to his book. Something I should have done before buying the book. It is not about the statistical methods he used and how he collected the web data. It's more of an online dating manual. If Christopher is on HN, an article on your site about your methodology would be great.m
vellum 13y ago
There was a woman who did something similar: http://forward.com/articles/170925/hacking-jdate-to-find-the-perfect-jewish-hubby/?p=all http://forward.com/articles/170925/hacking-jdate-to-find-the...
a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
Isn't the whole concept of matching on a bunch of survey questions BS? 90% of attraction is butt-sniffing DNA match stuff you only get in person.
- TillE 13y ago
  The questions are an excellent initial filter if you've flagged a few obvious deal breakers. It's the FizzBuzz of dating. Then you move on to personally examining the profiles of people who have passed that test, contact them, and so on. It's certainly not an optimal system for casual sex, but it does a reasonable job of finding candidates for any relationship more serious than that.
  - a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
    But people are totally full of it on what their deal breakers are. They'll thoughtfully answer a survey one way but then behave very differently in smelly meatspace.
    - gweinberg 13y ago
      Hey, if you can come up with something better, there's a market opportunity. Matching people up by scent isn't the worst idea I've heard.
      - deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
      - klipt 13y ago
        I think something better already exists - it's called speed dating. It was invented by a rabbi as a Jewish matchmaking event where you meet many people over a short space of time (maximising the chance of finding mutual attraction). But most cities have very few events which are consequently overpriced due to lack of competition.
- aestra 13y ago
  They are good for some things. They ask you about for example your views on religion and drug use, potential deal breakers you want to filter out from the get go. Thats what they are best for.
birken 13y ago
I'll give the guy credit for coming up with a creative idea [1], but for a guy who was overly concerned with efficiency, going on 55 first dates and only 3 second dates strikes me as absolutely insane and a waste of time. It would be similar to having 55 in-person interviews and only making 3 offers. Something is going wrong in the funnel. I don't see how his system was better than just using the site as it is intended, nor do I think it should be romanticized as much as it is in this article. [1]: Though it fails the categorical imperative. If everybody did this okcupid would be much worse off.
- mgraczyk 13y ago
  This is a little bit off topic, but although I agree that [1] does fail the categorical imperative, it isn't because "If everybody did this okcupid would be much worse off." The categorical imperative is not a consequentialist motivation. It doesn't say, "Don't do X if doing so would make Y worse off."
  - barrkel 13y ago
    The guy you're replying to didn't say "Don't do X if doing so would make Y worse off" for any values of X or Y.
- tunesmith 13y ago
  Those numbers didn't surprise me - in my online dating marathon, not aided by big data, I had roughly 100 first dates and less than a dozen second dates, before meeting my now-wife (via okcupid). Hard to say the process didn't improve things for him, though - maybe he's distinct enough that compatibility for him is more rare than average.
hcarvalhoalves 13y ago
> It was first date number 88. A second date followed, then a third. After two weeks they both suspended their OkCupid accounts. You know... there's a damn big chance you find someone worth having a relationship after 88 dates. Something tells me his technique was no better than just dating at random.
- jchung 13y ago
  This is a testable hypothesis.
- gedrap 13y ago
  Or, let's admit it, he sucked in real life human relationships. I mean we all sucked in first X dates, just, hopefully, took less than 88 to realize that whatever you are doing is just wrong :)
- diminoten 13y ago
  No better? Arguably much worse, if it took 88 attempts...
- technotony 13y ago
  I think you are missing the point of his strategy. Before this he had 6 dates in nine months, his primary problem was the top of the funnel. I don't think this strategy helped him improve quality, but it did lead to quantity which at the end of the day got him this result. And I think with online dating quantity matters as the signals you are using to select are so poor.
- cperciva 13y ago
  He wasn't optimizing for "finding a good match". He was optimizing for "get dates with the type of people who might turn out to be good matches".
  - izaidi 13y ago
    Even so, it speaks poorly of his method (or maybe just his personality?) that it took 90 dates to actually find a good match.
asnyder 13y ago
This is a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098563 Also, here's my .02 re-posted from the comments section: Rather than answer the questions that were important to him he decided to find a set of people he thought he would like then only answer the questions they care about, and not even the way he would naturally answer them, rather he used an algorithm to determine the weight that would be best to get the highest match %. The fact of the matter is he could've spent a fraction of the time just answering all the questions honestly and with his honest weights and he would've found high matches too. Furthermore, he could've narrowed it down to just the kind of people he wanted through a normal search and then filter their questions based on what's important to them (which is a normal question filter on OkCupid). So in fact what he did was pretty bad, violates OkCupid's TOS in numerous ways and at the end of the day wasn't honest to himself as he created specific profiles for his targets. Honestly, we should not be celebrating this. To recap what he did: 1. Didn't want to answer questions, so let's find all the questions that are important to everybody from the categories of people he thinks he likes based on clustering and then browsing a profile or two of people in that cluster. (He did this by creating numerous fake profiles and having those bots answer all the questions so he could scrape his targets question) 3. Create specific profile for his targeted group. With words and information that he knew they would like. 2. Answer ONLY the set of questions deemed important to those people. He answered these with weights determined by an algorithm that determined the best weight to achieve the highest match% rather than honestly. 3. WIth new found 99% matches go on dates with these people and follow normal dating process. Now that we see the above broken down we can see that it's really not good. In fact, he was only answering what they wanted, and created profiles for them. But he wasn't being honest with himself or with his answers. If we're trying to match with everyone, which is essentially what he did, it's not that difficult to do. The fact that he eventually found someone is great, but the information used was faulty. Obviously there's no way he would be 99% with that many people normally.
- cocoflunchy 13y ago
  Yeah, I feel like all he did in the end is find a way of getting a lot of people interested in his profile (by tweaking the score so that it would be as close as 100% as possible) and then go on a lot of dates.The real issue here is probably the asymmetry in male/female messages and requests rates on OkCupid...
pella 13y ago
TED: Amy Webb: How I hacked online dating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wG_sAdP0U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wG_sAdP0U "Amy Webb was having no luck with online dating. The dates she liked didn't write her back, and her own profile attracted crickets (and worse). So, as any fan of data would do: she started making a spreadsheet. Hear the story of how she went on to hack her online dating life -- with frustrating, funny and life-changing results."
- monksy 13y ago
  Man... I kept listening to her go on and I couldn't help but to think "I'm picky, but why am I so lonely." "I don't want to do anything, its everyone else's fault."
mehkcupid 13y ago
I did something similar 4 years ago. My OkCupid profile was receiving about 3-10 visits/week from women, and I had only a small handful that I matched 90+% with. I deleted all my answers and answered just the minimum required with complete honesty but zero possibility of controversy. My match % was 95+% with everyone and my inbound views turned into 100+/week. The match percentage was useless as a filter, but who cares? The new filter was my profile, and women who liked it messaged me. Within a few weeks I'd been on several dates — I'm now married to the last woman I dated from then. She messaged me.
- Pxtl 13y ago
  ...so wait, their system treats you like dirt if you provide more information? Somewhere out there a data miner is laughing his ass off.
kimonos 13y ago
True love sometimes comes unexpectedly! Best wishes to this couple!
crazygringo 13y ago
It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences. Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second dates" means his filter wasn't even that great -- he probably would have done better just simply browsing on the site, and only directly messaging the girls he found interesting in the first place. But the real interesting thing here is the clustering into 7 types of women -- that's fantastic! I'd love to read more about that -- if he could write it up in a blog, OkTrends-style, I feel like it could get a huge number of hits. I think tons of people, including myself, would be interested in the details, especially if he did it for both men and women.
- jcc80 13y ago
  Well, he did it the standard way but was only able to go on 6 first dates in 9 months of trying. By hacking the match % he was able to have more women view him and then message him and go on 55 dates. Article also states that when he messaged a woman it took 3-5 messages to get to where he could set up a date but when the women messaged him first it was as easy as a single reply to begin setting up a date.
- com2kid 13y ago
  > The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. That I disagree with, 4 years and hundreds upon hundreds of hours sunk into OKC, and I've had maybe 2 dozen dates from it. Knowing how to optimize the site would be very useful. From pictures (OKC has MyBestFace that helps with that) to profile text. This guy obviously had good pictures (great pictures alone can make a profile, for either male or females), a decent profile, and the ability to write good opening messages. Without at least 2 out of 3 of those, online dating becomes nearly impossible.
  - justinsteele 13y ago
    Have you had an opposite gender friend review your profile?
deleted 13y ago
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- asnyder 13y ago
  From the looks of it the reason she wasn't offered in the first place is that he didn't really answer many questions at first. You have to answer at least a few hundred for it to be useful. It sounds like rather than actually trying to use the service he didn't feel it was worth the time and rather spent enormous effort to figure out what questions he should answer and how best to fill out the profile.
- klipt 13y ago
  > (I believe most people could find an interesting match even just by randomly selecting 88 people that fit their criteria) Sure, but it's a lot easier to meet those 88 people if you can get them to message you. For most guys to meet 88 women via OkCupid they'd have to send thousands of messages, which would probably take years.
fatjokes 13y ago
If only one out of 55 first dates ended up in a 3rd date, sorry buddy, sounds like he may be the problem, not his profile.
Paul12345534 13y ago
Once upon a time, I was seeking a Filipina gf. At the time, DateInAsia didn't have any good search interface but it was a good place to meet people if you weeded out the scammers. I was looking for very specific things (Catholic, educated, no kids, 25 or older, etc). I scrapped (slowly) the site content and threw all the fields in a database so I could query it locally :) I filled out my profile as complete as possible about myself and who I was looking for. DateInAsia lets people know when you viewed their profile... so my Python script automatically viewed all the profiles that matched my search queries. Many of them viewed my profile in return and those who were interested messaged me. I met some nice ladies that way but it turned out to be a Filipina lady I met in an unrelated chatroom who I fell in love with. My own more humble attempt at mixing geekdom with love :) but love comes in unexpected places not ruled by math
- 70forty 13y ago
  My current girlfriend is Cambodian, and we met via OkCupid. I noticed that of the ~1000 Cambodian girls using the site, none of them matched above 80% with me. I disregarded this and I'm really glad I did. Personally, I was searching for someone who seemed sweet, adventurous, and spoke English well. I think I read through just about every one of those 1000 profiles, but my girlfriend's stood out... in a way that I could not have discerned computationally. Our match percentage was around 60%, for instance. She was the first/only girl I messaged. Things are still going great!
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
    I'm gonna assume you and Paul12345534 aren't white dudes b/c that'd be a behavior for creeps.
    - 70forty 13y ago
      I'm a white dude. Why is that creepy? Because I'm dating someone of a different race/culture? She's exactly my age, college educated, speaks excellent English, makes more money than me, etc. I was explicitly trying to minimize any sort of power differential (which is part of why I looked online in the first place, the subset of women who are computer literate tend to be more affluent / socially mobile). By the way, I live in Cambodia... what the fuck am I supposed to do? Not date anyone? I guarantee you I would be more likely to end up with a mismatch of power if I stuck strictly to IRL dating.
programminggeek 13y ago
I think the most interesting part of this is that an algorithm told people they are 99% compatible and that changed their behavior enough to make it easy for them to go on a date. Funny that an artificially high number on a computer screen completely changed people's behavior and perception of the world.
- kazagistar 13y ago
  See things like fashion, subcultures, etc.
thrush 13y ago
Everyone, this is a pivotal moment. This is when online dating becomes like the trading algorithms of the stock market. You could even say that the stock exchange is like a dating site but for investors.
auctiontheory 13y ago
I appreciate (admire) his ingenuity, although even at a distance I can see two or three problems with the actual relationship.
socrates1998 13y ago
I applaud his effort, but that is not a very good % of second dates. I say his problem wasn't his process, it was his ability to get/want a second date. I am glad it worked out for him, but I would recommend people to just focus on connecting with people when they are on a first date rather than worry about if they are a "match".
x0054 13y ago
Though unrelated to this post in particular, I figured I would post a method of finding dates that worked particularly well for me. Post a "Blind Date" message in the M4W section of CL. In the message describe your self as honestly as you can, while still being interesting and flattering to yourself. Ask the women to describe themselves to you in the reply. Say one or two interesting things about your self, and what you are looking for. Request that the responding girl does NOT send you a picture, and wait for the messages to roll in :) I picked up quite a few dates that way, all the girls were beautiful, smart, and very interesting to talk to. Because we weren't a "100%" match, we actually had some different points of view, which lead to fun conversations. You might think this would lead to you perhaps going out with girls who are not very good looking. First of all, you can have lot's of fun with a girl, even if you are not sexually attracted to her. But in reality, only girls who are very beautiful and confident in their appearance would actually reply to this message. In any case, it worked great for me. I met lot's of cool girls, and eventually found the love of my life.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
simik 13y ago
They should make a movie out of it.
abus 13y ago
How about meeting people from the site at random and then finding patterns in the answered questions of the ones you liked?
acqq 13y ago
I am feeling sorry for all the women subjected to all that spam, not only by this guy. And talking about this guy, let's be honest, he was different from other "spam" contacts by implementing a bot-assisted spamming, nothing he should be praised for. Math genius? More a spambot writer, but not for money, for an advantage.
- beachstartup 13y ago
  don't kid yourself. women are people too, just like men. they love the validation of receiving tons of messages, even if it's spammy.
morgante 13y ago
It's a happy story, and I'm sad to see all the naysayers in this thread. I really don't see what's unethical about his behavior. He never lied about his views and his fiancee knows the whole story. It seems like a totally rational response to the insanities of online dating. Especially as a guy, you have to message hundreds of women to even get a handful of replies. Through automation, he's equalized the playing field so that, like women, he has the opportunity to filter only amongst those who have already expressed interested in him. No more time/effort wasted on women who never reply. I actually was working on an automated framework for batch messaging and a/b testing on OKCupid (https://github.com/morgante/abcupid https://github.com/morgante/abcupid) before realizing I don't have time for a relationship.
CmonDev 13y ago
I am confused, what is English for an 'actual genius' these days?
chalgo 13y ago
He would have had better luck finding a partner by getting away from the computer, sleeping in a real bed, improving his lifestyle and learning to be a better conversationalist. Sounds like he was a recluse "Sleeping at his computer cubicle" and spending no time actually going out and enjoying life.
bwhmather 13y ago
Mandatory link to http://blog.okcupid.com/ http://blog.okcupid.com/ Less story, more analysis.
quenlinlom 13y ago
Does anyone think that this is really creepy? I mean, men using dating sites like OkCupid are mostly creepy people already, but actually writing programs to automate stuff on OkCupid? That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex.
- iso-8859-1 13y ago
  Why does have anything to do with sex? It's just confirming that people get discouraged too quickly by imperfect profiles and that men want to meet women.
- versk 13y ago
  > That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex. How in god's name did you reach that conclusion?
- Crake 13y ago
  >Does anyone think that this is really creepy? No. >I mean, men using dating sites like OkCupid are mostly creepy people already, Wow. >but actually writing programs to automate stuff on OkCupid? Do you realize what site you're on? >That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex. Uh...how, exactly?
S4M 13y ago
What I take from this article: - OkCupid is good for finding a one night stand - their matching algorithm could be improved Disclaimer: I'm married and never used OkCupid or any dating site.
- mohamedzahid 13y ago
  This article explains what could be improved in OKCupid's algorithm: http://proofmathisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/13186514242/whats-wrong-with-okcupids-matching-algorithm http://proofmathisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/13186514242/what...
abhi3188 13y ago
Wow, I wish he open sources his scraping script and algos.
azernik 13y ago
What's interesting to me is how this guy inverted the gender roles on OkCupid. Normally (says OkTrends data) men take the initiative, and women filter incoming messages. In the later stages of this setup, the guy set up bots to get himself in the "inboxes" (list of profile views) of lots of women, getting enough incoming messages that he could take the normally female role in this online dating dance.
llasram 13y ago
At least one useful take-away: k-modes clustering. I initially thought it was a typo/miscommunication, but the soybean reference seemed bizarrely specific. It apparently actually exists, and is an extension of k-means to categorical data, using Hamming distance instead of Euclidean distance.
- wjnc 13y ago
  Good answer on stats.stackexchange [1] regarding k-means, standardization and discrete or categorical data [1] http://stats.stackexchange.com/a/58920 http://stats.stackexchange.com/a/58920
acd 13y ago
I think that was a really cool hack and nerdy as hell :).
ceautery 13y ago
OkCupid is how my wife and I met. She was one of two women I exchanged messages with, and the only one I met in person. We've been married for 5 years and have had two children. I have no idea what our match percentage was, and there were a few things in my profile that were turn-offs for her, all of which appeared in my only picture on the site: Me, with a fresh buzz-cut, jogging up a hill with my dog. She's allergic to dogs, doesn't run because of her asthma, and prefers long hair. All of that was superficial, and she was able to look past it. She engaged me mainly because of the descriptive content in my profile. I just went nuts explaining who I was, in a chatty, stream of consciousness manner. In the end, I re-homed my dog with her own parents, and let my hair grow to 21", which I started growing out again after we'd been married for a year. That wasn't all her; I had hair that length in high school and chopped it off to help me stay employed. What's my point? The content matters most. You can optimize your approach to searching for matches, and you can go on lots of dates, but you can't force a good real-world match. If it's there, you'll know. No mathematical model of searching, nor red-pill-esque approach to building self confidence will be more effective than an open exchange of ideas between a couple. Get to the messaging. Give her a chance to be disinterested, because that's a hurdle you'll need to cross at some point in the relationship... assuming, that is, that you're looking for love.
hs 13y ago
i did something like it 6-7 years ago with friendster when it got 'who looked at me' new feature then. i scrapped million ids of teenagers to below-age-30 women. my friend list went from below hundred to full 3000 (the max at the time) in a week or two. facebook was not popular in my country (not usa) the scrapper was written in newlisp (save search result pages with curl, use regex to match and collect the ids). it's probably easier to write in other languages, but that's what i knew. i used wget and curl to loop over the ids but it's too slow because they download the whole page. later i found out about 'curl -i' (header only) and a million ids was done in about hour or two (i moved my operation from my home's 64kbps to my colo datacenter mbps internet). my account is no longer exist (probably banned); however, i do still have a screenshot of me having 3000 female-only-friends and 70000 non-hidden-females 'look back at my profile' initially, i talked to any interesting woman; however, later i made a strict rule to only respond to women who wrote at me. there were just too many fake female-accounts. i got a couple of dates from this feat; however, i met my wife in a traditional catholic youth retreat. when i let her know about this friendster thingy, she just laughed. now i'm happily married with a 15-months-old boy.
BornInTheUSSR 13y ago
I have a feeling that approach is no better when compared with going on dates with a random sample of 88 women (within some range of compatible age/attractiveness), but I don't have the data to prove it.
vph 13y ago
A white guy, tall, decent looking, math professor, rock climber, guitarist. He didn't need to hack OKCupid to end up with an Asian girl of his dream.
- normloman 13y ago
  Everyone has interesting talents that can attract mates. And most people can look good if they dress well and develop proper grooming habits. Cheer up.
fjabre 13y ago
It might be nice if people put down their dating apps for a little while and went out into the actual physical world to meet people by chance i.e. at line in a Starbucks, on a flight back home, or dare I say it: a bar - preferably during happy hour. Level of attraction in these real world situations is instantly assessed and doesn't take days or weeks of back & forth messaging before even meeting up. Also, anecdotally I believe men far outnumber women on these sites so that clearly skews the ratio in women's favor which means by law of supply and demand women choose on these sites and not men in most cases. I've gone on dates with women I met online and many of them told me it was not uncommon for them to receive hundreds of messages a day and here we have a brilliant PhD student happy with 20. Just sayin
EGreg 13y ago
There are other ways to hack dating sites that use other means completely. Have several friends on the site, all with their real profiles. When you like a girl, have a friend with the most compatibility message her, and introduce you two. If such a "cool" guy vouches for you, how great must you be? She is intrigued. She hasnt gotten messages like this. And you go out w her. Not only that but you start w a warm introduction and something to talk about. And if she doesn't respond to him, you can message her yourself, and bam - double your chances.
ajays 13y ago
I've dated around on OKC since the early days. His lack of success on first dates points to a problem with him; maybe he was too picky or had some other issues which turned women off. If he was looking for that Hollywood-style instant spark, he was mistaken; that doesn't always happen. When I was on OKC, about 1 in 20 messages would result in a first date; but you bet that more than 50% of first dates turned into second dates. When women first meet you, it's almost like they're going through a checklist in their heads: is this guy a creep? A rapist? A jerk? etc. etc. (this is just the impression I got). If you don't trigger any of the alerts, you're golden. One of the biggest mistakes nerds (like myself) make on their profiles and on dates is that we try to impress the woman with our encyclopedic knowledge of some esoteric subject. That's a sure turnoff. Maybe we should have an "ask HN" on dating ... :-)
ben010783 13y ago
> McKinlay had popped up in her search for 6-foot guys with blue eyes near UCLA... I find it interesting that he did so much analysis based on interests, beliefs, etc. and he ended up getting messaged because of a search that was pretty superficial.
marincounty 13y ago
I couldn't imagine 55 "What do you do?"--Ugh. I look back at all the women whom I would drop everything for and marry, and there was just one; I met her on fourth street, and regret not saying yes to a request in 2007. She had beautiful green eyes and dirty cuticles(don't ask). I hope you are doing well, and I have always felt bad for not doing more(I did refer to Mills Street). I couldn't do more because I was a pussy at the time. I still think about you and hope you are doing well. She was beautiful on the outside and inside. She was not jaded, and seemed like her own version of "Zooey and Fran" with Sylvia Plath mixed in?
lazyant 13y ago
"McKinlay had popped up in her search for 6-foot guys with blue eyes", I'm completely out of touch with dating but is it normal or accepted nowadays to search for narrow physical attributes? to me this is an example of shallowness.
Noelkd 13y ago
Is this legal?
underlines 13y ago
TED Talk: Amy Webb - How I hacked online dating http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_webb_how_i_hacked_online_dating.html http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_webb_how_i_hacked_online_dating...
wat0 13y ago
Wasn't there a ted talk by a Jewish woman who did this already? Edit:yes Amy Webb ted talk http://tinyurl.com/ktrb2f4 http://tinyurl.com/ktrb2f4

506 points by daw___ 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

jsnk 13y ago
Yes it does. That's why his bots were getting banned.

kqr2 13y ago

Link to the guy's website: http://christophermckinlay.net/ http://christophermckinlay.net/ Also a link to the kindle edition of his analysis: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2

beamer99 13y ago
r Read the foreword to his book. Something I should have done before buying the book. It is not about the statistical methods he used and how he collected the web data. It's more of an online dating manual. If Christopher is on HN, an article on your site about your methodology would be great.m
beamer99 13y ago
r Read the foreword to his book. Something I should have done before buying the book. It is not about the statistical methods he used and how he collected the web data. It's more of an online dating manual. If Christopher is on HN, an article on your site about your methodology would be great.m

vellum 13y ago

There was a woman who did something similar: http://forward.com/articles/170925/hacking-jdate-to-find-the-perfect-jewish-hubby/?p=all http://forward.com/articles/170925/hacking-jdate-to-find-the...

a8da6b0c91d 13y ago

Isn't the whole concept of matching on a bunch of survey questions BS? 90% of attraction is butt-sniffing DNA match stuff you only get in person.

TillE 13y ago
The questions are an excellent initial filter if you've flagged a few obvious deal breakers. It's the FizzBuzz of dating. Then you move on to personally examining the profiles of people who have passed that test, contact them, and so on. It's certainly not an optimal system for casual sex, but it does a reasonable job of finding candidates for any relationship more serious than that.
- a8da6b0c91d 13y ago
  But people are totally full of it on what their deal breakers are. They'll thoughtfully answer a survey one way but then behave very differently in smelly meatspace.
  - gweinberg 13y ago
    Hey, if you can come up with something better, there's a market opportunity. Matching people up by scent isn't the worst idea I've heard.
    - deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    - klipt 13y ago
      I think something better already exists - it's called speed dating. It was invented by a rabbi as a Jewish matchmaking event where you meet many people over a short space of time (maximising the chance of finding mutual attraction). But most cities have very few events which are consequently overpriced due to lack of competition.
aestra 13y ago
They are good for some things. They ask you about for example your views on religion and drug use, potential deal breakers you want to filter out from the get go. Thats what they are best for.

birken 13y ago

I'll give the guy credit for coming up with a creative idea [1], but for a guy who was overly concerned with efficiency, going on 55 first dates and only 3 second dates strikes me as absolutely insane and a waste of time. It would be similar to having 55 in-person interviews and only making 3 offers. Something is going wrong in the funnel. I don't see how his system was better than just using the site as it is intended, nor do I think it should be romanticized as much as it is in this article. [1]: Though it fails the categorical imperative. If everybody did this okcupid would be much worse off.

mgraczyk 13y ago
This is a little bit off topic, but although I agree that [1] does fail the categorical imperative, it isn't because "If everybody did this okcupid would be much worse off." The categorical imperative is not a consequentialist motivation. It doesn't say, "Don't do X if doing so would make Y worse off."
- barrkel 13y ago
  The guy you're replying to didn't say "Don't do X if doing so would make Y worse off" for any values of X or Y.
tunesmith 13y ago
Those numbers didn't surprise me - in my online dating marathon, not aided by big data, I had roughly 100 first dates and less than a dozen second dates, before meeting my now-wife (via okcupid). Hard to say the process didn't improve things for him, though - maybe he's distinct enough that compatibility for him is more rare than average.

hcarvalhoalves 13y ago

> It was first date number 88. A second date followed, then a third. After two weeks they both suspended their OkCupid accounts. You know... there's a damn big chance you find someone worth having a relationship after 88 dates. Something tells me his technique was no better than just dating at random.

jchung 13y ago
This is a testable hypothesis.
gedrap 13y ago
Or, let's admit it, he sucked in real life human relationships. I mean we all sucked in first X dates, just, hopefully, took less than 88 to realize that whatever you are doing is just wrong :)
diminoten 13y ago
No better? Arguably much worse, if it took 88 attempts...
technotony 13y ago
I think you are missing the point of his strategy. Before this he had 6 dates in nine months, his primary problem was the top of the funnel. I don't think this strategy helped him improve quality, but it did lead to quantity which at the end of the day got him this result. And I think with online dating quantity matters as the signals you are using to select are so poor.
cperciva 13y ago
He wasn't optimizing for "finding a good match". He was optimizing for "get dates with the type of people who might turn out to be good matches".
- izaidi 13y ago
  Even so, it speaks poorly of his method (or maybe just his personality?) that it took 90 dates to actually find a good match.

asnyder 13y ago

This is a duplicate of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7098563 Also, here's my .02 re-posted from the comments section: Rather than answer the questions that were important to him he decided to find a set of people he thought he would like then only answer the questions they care about, and not even the way he would naturally answer them, rather he used an algorithm to determine the weight that would be best to get the highest match %. The fact of the matter is he could've spent a fraction of the time just answering all the questions honestly and with his honest weights and he would've found high matches too. Furthermore, he could've narrowed it down to just the kind of people he wanted through a normal search and then filter their questions based on what's important to them (which is a normal question filter on OkCupid). So in fact what he did was pretty bad, violates OkCupid's TOS in numerous ways and at the end of the day wasn't honest to himself as he created specific profiles for his targets. Honestly, we should not be celebrating this. To recap what he did: 1. Didn't want to answer questions, so let's find all the questions that are important to everybody from the categories of people he thinks he likes based on clustering and then browsing a profile or two of people in that cluster. (He did this by creating numerous fake profiles and having those bots answer all the questions so he could scrape his targets question) 3. Create specific profile for his targeted group. With words and information that he knew they would like. 2. Answer ONLY the set of questions deemed important to those people. He answered these with weights determined by an algorithm that determined the best weight to achieve the highest match% rather than honestly. 3. WIth new found 99% matches go on dates with these people and follow normal dating process. Now that we see the above broken down we can see that it's really not good. In fact, he was only answering what they wanted, and created profiles for them. But he wasn't being honest with himself or with his answers. If we're trying to match with everyone, which is essentially what he did, it's not that difficult to do. The fact that he eventually found someone is great, but the information used was faulty. Obviously there's no way he would be 99% with that many people normally.

cocoflunchy 13y ago
Yeah, I feel like all he did in the end is find a way of getting a lot of people interested in his profile (by tweaking the score so that it would be as close as 100% as possible) and then go on a lot of dates.The real issue here is probably the asymmetry in male/female messages and requests rates on OkCupid...

pella 13y ago

TED: Amy Webb: How I hacked online dating http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wG_sAdP0U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wG_sAdP0U "Amy Webb was having no luck with online dating. The dates she liked didn't write her back, and her own profile attracted crickets (and worse). So, as any fan of data would do: she started making a spreadsheet. Hear the story of how she went on to hack her online dating life -- with frustrating, funny and life-changing results."

monksy 13y ago
Man... I kept listening to her go on and I couldn't help but to think "I'm picky, but why am I so lonely." "I don't want to do anything, its everyone else's fault."

mehkcupid 13y ago

I did something similar 4 years ago. My OkCupid profile was receiving about 3-10 visits/week from women, and I had only a small handful that I matched 90+% with. I deleted all my answers and answered just the minimum required with complete honesty but zero possibility of controversy. My match % was 95+% with everyone and my inbound views turned into 100+/week. The match percentage was useless as a filter, but who cares? The new filter was my profile, and women who liked it messaged me. Within a few weeks I'd been on several dates — I'm now married to the last woman I dated from then. She messaged me.

Pxtl 13y ago
...so wait, their system treats you like dirt if you provide more information? Somewhere out there a data miner is laughing his ass off.

kimonos 13y ago

True love sometimes comes unexpectedly! Best wishes to this couple!

crazygringo 13y ago

It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences. Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second dates" means his filter wasn't even that great -- he probably would have done better just simply browsing on the site, and only directly messaging the girls he found interesting in the first place. But the real interesting thing here is the clustering into 7 types of women -- that's fantastic! I'd love to read more about that -- if he could write it up in a blog, OkTrends-style, I feel like it could get a huge number of hits. I think tons of people, including myself, would be interested in the details, especially if he did it for both men and women.

jcc80 13y ago
Well, he did it the standard way but was only able to go on 6 first dates in 9 months of trying. By hacking the match % he was able to have more women view him and then message him and go on 55 dates. Article also states that when he messaged a woman it took 3-5 messages to get to where he could set up a date but when the women messaged him first it was as easy as a single reply to begin setting up a date.
com2kid 13y ago
> The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. That I disagree with, 4 years and hundreds upon hundreds of hours sunk into OKC, and I've had maybe 2 dozen dates from it. Knowing how to optimize the site would be very useful. From pictures (OKC has MyBestFace that helps with that) to profile text. This guy obviously had good pictures (great pictures alone can make a profile, for either male or females), a decent profile, and the ability to write good opening messages. Without at least 2 out of 3 of those, online dating becomes nearly impossible.
- justinsteele 13y ago
  Have you had an opposite gender friend review your profile?

deleted 13y ago

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asnyder 13y ago
From the looks of it the reason she wasn't offered in the first place is that he didn't really answer many questions at first. You have to answer at least a few hundred for it to be useful. It sounds like rather than actually trying to use the service he didn't feel it was worth the time and rather spent enormous effort to figure out what questions he should answer and how best to fill out the profile.
klipt 13y ago
> (I believe most people could find an interesting match even just by randomly selecting 88 people that fit their criteria) Sure, but it's a lot easier to meet those 88 people if you can get them to message you. For most guys to meet 88 women via OkCupid they'd have to send thousands of messages, which would probably take years.

fatjokes 13y ago

If only one out of 55 first dates ended up in a 3rd date, sorry buddy, sounds like he may be the problem, not his profile.

Paul12345534 13y ago

Once upon a time, I was seeking a Filipina gf. At the time, DateInAsia didn't have any good search interface but it was a good place to meet people if you weeded out the scammers. I was looking for very specific things (Catholic, educated, no kids, 25 or older, etc). I scrapped (slowly) the site content and threw all the fields in a database so I could query it locally :) I filled out my profile as complete as possible about myself and who I was looking for. DateInAsia lets people know when you viewed their profile... so my Python script automatically viewed all the profiles that matched my search queries. Many of them viewed my profile in return and those who were interested messaged me. I met some nice ladies that way but it turned out to be a Filipina lady I met in an unrelated chatroom who I fell in love with. My own more humble attempt at mixing geekdom with love :) but love comes in unexpected places not ruled by math

70forty 13y ago
My current girlfriend is Cambodian, and we met via OkCupid. I noticed that of the ~1000 Cambodian girls using the site, none of them matched above 80% with me. I disregarded this and I'm really glad I did. Personally, I was searching for someone who seemed sweet, adventurous, and spoke English well. I think I read through just about every one of those 1000 profiles, but my girlfriend's stood out... in a way that I could not have discerned computationally. Our match percentage was around 60%, for instance. She was the first/only girl I messaged. Things are still going great!
- GFK_of_xmaspast 13y ago
  I'm gonna assume you and Paul12345534 aren't white dudes b/c that'd be a behavior for creeps.
  - 70forty 13y ago
    I'm a white dude. Why is that creepy? Because I'm dating someone of a different race/culture? She's exactly my age, college educated, speaks excellent English, makes more money than me, etc. I was explicitly trying to minimize any sort of power differential (which is part of why I looked online in the first place, the subset of women who are computer literate tend to be more affluent / socially mobile). By the way, I live in Cambodia... what the fuck am I supposed to do? Not date anyone? I guarantee you I would be more likely to end up with a mismatch of power if I stuck strictly to IRL dating.

programminggeek 13y ago

I think the most interesting part of this is that an algorithm told people they are 99% compatible and that changed their behavior enough to make it easy for them to go on a date. Funny that an artificially high number on a computer screen completely changed people's behavior and perception of the world.

kazagistar 13y ago
See things like fashion, subcultures, etc.

thrush 13y ago

Everyone, this is a pivotal moment. This is when online dating becomes like the trading algorithms of the stock market. You could even say that the stock exchange is like a dating site but for investors.

auctiontheory 13y ago

I appreciate (admire) his ingenuity, although even at a distance I can see two or three problems with the actual relationship.

socrates1998 13y ago

I applaud his effort, but that is not a very good % of second dates. I say his problem wasn't his process, it was his ability to get/want a second date. I am glad it worked out for him, but I would recommend people to just focus on connecting with people when they are on a first date rather than worry about if they are a "match".

x0054 13y ago

Though unrelated to this post in particular, I figured I would post a method of finding dates that worked particularly well for me. Post a "Blind Date" message in the M4W section of CL. In the message describe your self as honestly as you can, while still being interesting and flattering to yourself. Ask the women to describe themselves to you in the reply. Say one or two interesting things about your self, and what you are looking for. Request that the responding girl does NOT send you a picture, and wait for the messages to roll in :) I picked up quite a few dates that way, all the girls were beautiful, smart, and very interesting to talk to. Because we weren't a "100%" match, we actually had some different points of view, which lead to fun conversations. You might think this would lead to you perhaps going out with girls who are not very good looking. First of all, you can have lot's of fun with a girl, even if you are not sexually attracted to her. But in reality, only girls who are very beautiful and confident in their appearance would actually reply to this message. In any case, it worked great for me. I met lot's of cool girls, and eventually found the love of my life.

deleted 13y ago
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simik 13y ago

They should make a movie out of it.

abus 13y ago

How about meeting people from the site at random and then finding patterns in the answered questions of the ones you liked?

acqq 13y ago

I am feeling sorry for all the women subjected to all that spam, not only by this guy. And talking about this guy, let's be honest, he was different from other "spam" contacts by implementing a bot-assisted spamming, nothing he should be praised for. Math genius? More a spambot writer, but not for money, for an advantage.

beachstartup 13y ago
don't kid yourself. women are people too, just like men. they love the validation of receiving tons of messages, even if it's spammy.

morgante 13y ago

It's a happy story, and I'm sad to see all the naysayers in this thread. I really don't see what's unethical about his behavior. He never lied about his views and his fiancee knows the whole story. It seems like a totally rational response to the insanities of online dating. Especially as a guy, you have to message hundreds of women to even get a handful of replies. Through automation, he's equalized the playing field so that, like women, he has the opportunity to filter only amongst those who have already expressed interested in him. No more time/effort wasted on women who never reply. I actually was working on an automated framework for batch messaging and a/b testing on OKCupid (https://github.com/morgante/abcupid https://github.com/morgante/abcupid) before realizing I don't have time for a relationship.

CmonDev 13y ago

I am confused, what is English for an 'actual genius' these days?

chalgo 13y ago

He would have had better luck finding a partner by getting away from the computer, sleeping in a real bed, improving his lifestyle and learning to be a better conversationalist. Sounds like he was a recluse "Sleeping at his computer cubicle" and spending no time actually going out and enjoying life.

bwhmather 13y ago

Mandatory link to http://blog.okcupid.com/ http://blog.okcupid.com/ Less story, more analysis.

quenlinlom 13y ago

Does anyone think that this is really creepy? I mean, men using dating sites like OkCupid are mostly creepy people already, but actually writing programs to automate stuff on OkCupid? That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex.

iso-8859-1 13y ago
Why does have anything to do with sex? It's just confirming that people get discouraged too quickly by imperfect profiles and that men want to meet women.
versk 13y ago
> That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex. How in god's name did you reach that conclusion?
Crake 13y ago
>Does anyone think that this is really creepy? No. >I mean, men using dating sites like OkCupid are mostly creepy people already, Wow. >but actually writing programs to automate stuff on OkCupid? Do you realize what site you're on? >That's basically fulfilling the prophecy that men are just in for the sex. Uh...how, exactly?

S4M 13y ago

What I take from this article: - OkCupid is good for finding a one night stand - their matching algorithm could be improved Disclaimer: I'm married and never used OkCupid or any dating site.

mohamedzahid 13y ago
This article explains what could be improved in OKCupid's algorithm: http://proofmathisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/13186514242/whats-wrong-with-okcupids-matching-algorithm http://proofmathisbeautiful.tumblr.com/post/13186514242/what...

abhi3188 13y ago

Wow, I wish he open sources his scraping script and algos.

azernik 13y ago

What's interesting to me is how this guy inverted the gender roles on OkCupid. Normally (says OkTrends data) men take the initiative, and women filter incoming messages. In the later stages of this setup, the guy set up bots to get himself in the "inboxes" (list of profile views) of lots of women, getting enough incoming messages that he could take the normally female role in this online dating dance.

llasram 13y ago

At least one useful take-away: k-modes clustering. I initially thought it was a typo/miscommunication, but the soybean reference seemed bizarrely specific. It apparently actually exists, and is an extension of k-means to categorical data, using Hamming distance instead of Euclidean distance.

wjnc 13y ago
Good answer on stats.stackexchange [1] regarding k-means, standardization and discrete or categorical data [1] http://stats.stackexchange.com/a/58920 http://stats.stackexchange.com/a/58920

acd 13y ago

I think that was a really cool hack and nerdy as hell :).

ceautery 13y ago

OkCupid is how my wife and I met. She was one of two women I exchanged messages with, and the only one I met in person. We've been married for 5 years and have had two children. I have no idea what our match percentage was, and there were a few things in my profile that were turn-offs for her, all of which appeared in my only picture on the site: Me, with a fresh buzz-cut, jogging up a hill with my dog. She's allergic to dogs, doesn't run because of her asthma, and prefers long hair. All of that was superficial, and she was able to look past it. She engaged me mainly because of the descriptive content in my profile. I just went nuts explaining who I was, in a chatty, stream of consciousness manner. In the end, I re-homed my dog with her own parents, and let my hair grow to 21", which I started growing out again after we'd been married for a year. That wasn't all her; I had hair that length in high school and chopped it off to help me stay employed. What's my point? The content matters most. You can optimize your approach to searching for matches, and you can go on lots of dates, but you can't force a good real-world match. If it's there, you'll know. No mathematical model of searching, nor red-pill-esque approach to building self confidence will be more effective than an open exchange of ideas between a couple. Get to the messaging. Give her a chance to be disinterested, because that's a hurdle you'll need to cross at some point in the relationship... assuming, that is, that you're looking for love.

hs 13y ago

i did something like it 6-7 years ago with friendster when it got 'who looked at me' new feature then. i scrapped million ids of teenagers to below-age-30 women. my friend list went from below hundred to full 3000 (the max at the time) in a week or two. facebook was not popular in my country (not usa) the scrapper was written in newlisp (save search result pages with curl, use regex to match and collect the ids). it's probably easier to write in other languages, but that's what i knew. i used wget and curl to loop over the ids but it's too slow because they download the whole page. later i found out about 'curl -i' (header only) and a million ids was done in about hour or two (i moved my operation from my home's 64kbps to my colo datacenter mbps internet). my account is no longer exist (probably banned); however, i do still have a screenshot of me having 3000 female-only-friends and 70000 non-hidden-females 'look back at my profile' initially, i talked to any interesting woman; however, later i made a strict rule to only respond to women who wrote at me. there were just too many fake female-accounts. i got a couple of dates from this feat; however, i met my wife in a traditional catholic youth retreat. when i let her know about this friendster thingy, she just laughed. now i'm happily married with a 15-months-old boy.

BornInTheUSSR 13y ago

I have a feeling that approach is no better when compared with going on dates with a random sample of 88 women (within some range of compatible age/attractiveness), but I don't have the data to prove it.

vph 13y ago

A white guy, tall, decent looking, math professor, rock climber, guitarist. He didn't need to hack OKCupid to end up with an Asian girl of his dream.

normloman 13y ago
Everyone has interesting talents that can attract mates. And most people can look good if they dress well and develop proper grooming habits. Cheer up.

fjabre 13y ago

It might be nice if people put down their dating apps for a little while and went out into the actual physical world to meet people by chance i.e. at line in a Starbucks, on a flight back home, or dare I say it: a bar - preferably during happy hour. Level of attraction in these real world situations is instantly assessed and doesn't take days or weeks of back & forth messaging before even meeting up. Also, anecdotally I believe men far outnumber women on these sites so that clearly skews the ratio in women's favor which means by law of supply and demand women choose on these sites and not men in most cases. I've gone on dates with women I met online and many of them told me it was not uncommon for them to receive hundreds of messages a day and here we have a brilliant PhD student happy with 20. Just sayin

EGreg 13y ago

There are other ways to hack dating sites that use other means completely. Have several friends on the site, all with their real profiles. When you like a girl, have a friend with the most compatibility message her, and introduce you two. If such a "cool" guy vouches for you, how great must you be? She is intrigued. She hasnt gotten messages like this. And you go out w her. Not only that but you start w a warm introduction and something to talk about. And if she doesn't respond to him, you can message her yourself, and bam - double your chances.

ajays 13y ago

I've dated around on OKC since the early days. His lack of success on first dates points to a problem with him; maybe he was too picky or had some other issues which turned women off. If he was looking for that Hollywood-style instant spark, he was mistaken; that doesn't always happen. When I was on OKC, about 1 in 20 messages would result in a first date; but you bet that more than 50% of first dates turned into second dates. When women first meet you, it's almost like they're going through a checklist in their heads: is this guy a creep? A rapist? A jerk? etc. etc. (this is just the impression I got). If you don't trigger any of the alerts, you're golden. One of the biggest mistakes nerds (like myself) make on their profiles and on dates is that we try to impress the woman with our encyclopedic knowledge of some esoteric subject. That's a sure turnoff. Maybe we should have an "ask HN" on dating ... :-)

ben010783 13y ago

> McKinlay had popped up in her search for 6-foot guys with blue eyes near UCLA... I find it interesting that he did so much analysis based on interests, beliefs, etc. and he ended up getting messaged because of a search that was pretty superficial.

marincounty 13y ago

I couldn't imagine 55 "What do you do?"--Ugh. I look back at all the women whom I would drop everything for and marry, and there was just one; I met her on fourth street, and regret not saying yes to a request in 2007. She had beautiful green eyes and dirty cuticles(don't ask). I hope you are doing well, and I have always felt bad for not doing more(I did refer to Mills Street). I couldn't do more because I was a pussy at the time. I still think about you and hope you are doing well. She was beautiful on the outside and inside. She was not jaded, and seemed like her own version of "Zooey and Fran" with Sylvia Plath mixed in?

lazyant 13y ago

"McKinlay had popped up in her search for 6-foot guys with blue eyes", I'm completely out of touch with dating but is it normal or accepted nowadays to search for narrow physical attributes? to me this is an example of shallowness.

Noelkd 13y ago

Is this legal?

underlines 13y ago

TED Talk: Amy Webb - How I hacked online dating http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_webb_how_i_hacked_online_dating.html http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_webb_how_i_hacked_online_dating...

wat0 13y ago

Wasn't there a ted talk by a Jewish woman who did this already? Edit:yes Amy Webb ted talk http://tinyurl.com/ktrb2f4 http://tinyurl.com/ktrb2f4