6 ms·

Is anyone surprised that only 1/5 people who are 90% matches have a "conversation"? I don't use dating sites, but I'd think that people who do want to converse,

Is anyone surprised that only 1/5 people who are 90% matches have a "conversation"? I don't use dating sites, but I'd think that people who do want to converse, and who better to converse with than 90% matches? But I guess there's a lot of matches, and you can't talk to everyone, which would explain the low numbers. Still a bit surprising to me. Edit: What you guys said makes sense, thanks. My lack of knowledge of dating sites lead to a bad intuition.

cm2012 12y ago
It's quite possible to have 100 90% matches - can't contact them all!
Someone1234 12y ago
If you want to understand this better I'd recommend going back through that Blog's archives, they talk extensively about this (TL;DR: Women are the minority on the site, and only respond to a small subset of messages, plus matches are personalty not looks and as this article indicates that is only 10% of people's opinions).
javert 12y ago
Women don't respond to most messages, even 90%+. 90%+ match is not that special.
- danudey 12y ago
  90% matches are common because of the huge number of people on the site. And they seem common because those are the kinds of people you're likely to be shown. Either that or they're usually rare and I'm just so generic I get along with everyone.
  - mkr-hn 12y ago
    It might be different for the gay side of the site. It's rare that I get a percentage above 60.
    - akgerber 12y ago
      I'm sure the gay dating pool is pretty much always smaller than the straight, and beyond that the size of the pool depends a lot on the size of the city you're in— there are tons of people in NYC/Chicago/LA/SF.
      - mkr-hn 12y ago
        I'm in a metro of 5.5 million (Atlanta). Very sparse. That's probably why.
        javert 12y ago
        I always heard that Atlanta had a huge gay scene. (But, admittedly, I'm from the South and it's probably true by definition compared to almost any other Southern city.)
        mkr-hn 12y ago
        Metro Atlanta and Atlanta are two different things. The metro is like Atlanta culturally, but it's not dense at all. It's 20-30 minutes to anything, unless you live in one of the bigger cities.
egypturnash 12y ago
Here's a screengrab of my okcupid inbox. http://imgur.com/jsKVyCi http://imgur.com/jsKVyCi One-liners and no picture are instant 'don't bother replying', and most people with more details tend to get weeded out for other reasons.
- adamzerner 12y ago
  Is the gray bar "match %"?
  - zeeed 12y ago
    it masks the username
- searine 12y ago
  It is kinda fascinating how awful most guys are at pickup lines. Be brief, be funny, and always as a question. That's how you do it folks.
  - mkr-hn 12y ago
    Always works for me. But I'm usually too shy to actually send a message, so I end up with an inbox full of boring. Need to work on that.
  - kstenerud 12y ago
    Yeah, and spend hours and hours coming up with funny, witty, engaging prose, individually tailored, for people who are 90% unlikely to even respond. After awhile you start to feel like a putz, switch to simple one-liners, and discover to your surprise that it doesn't really affect the response rate by too much.
    - 67726e 12y ago
      As a guy, this... this is pretty much it. I tried OKC for around half a year, starting out doing just that. After the first half I just said "Fuck it" and switched to bullshit two sentence intros that were fill in the blank types. My response rate was practically the same. Thinking about it now, it seems like the numbers game recruiters play. Send out a lot of semi-decent introductions and hope for a response or two. Your best bet is getting out there and "networking", but in lieu of that, sending out a deluge of messages is the next best, albeit shitty, thing. I'd be interested in hearing how women deal with the deluge of introductions and what makes them decide to respond to someone. Is it the intro? The profile picture? Do they read the person's bio or use that compatibility meter?
mkr-hn 12y ago
90% of the messages I get from 90%ers are dull one-liners.

cm2012 12y ago

It's quite possible to have 100 90% matches - can't contact them all!

Someone1234 12y ago

If you want to understand this better I'd recommend going back through that Blog's archives, they talk extensively about this (TL;DR: Women are the minority on the site, and only respond to a small subset of messages, plus matches are personalty not looks and as this article indicates that is only 10% of people's opinions).

javert 12y ago

Women don't respond to most messages, even 90%+. 90%+ match is not that special.

danudey 12y ago
90% matches are common because of the huge number of people on the site. And they seem common because those are the kinds of people you're likely to be shown. Either that or they're usually rare and I'm just so generic I get along with everyone.
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  It might be different for the gay side of the site. It's rare that I get a percentage above 60.
  - akgerber 12y ago
    I'm sure the gay dating pool is pretty much always smaller than the straight, and beyond that the size of the pool depends a lot on the size of the city you're in— there are tons of people in NYC/Chicago/LA/SF.
    - mkr-hn 12y ago
      I'm in a metro of 5.5 million (Atlanta). Very sparse. That's probably why.
      - javert 12y ago
        I always heard that Atlanta had a huge gay scene. (But, admittedly, I'm from the South and it's probably true by definition compared to almost any other Southern city.)
        mkr-hn 12y ago
        Metro Atlanta and Atlanta are two different things. The metro is like Atlanta culturally, but it's not dense at all. It's 20-30 minutes to anything, unless you live in one of the bigger cities.

egypturnash 12y ago

Here's a screengrab of my okcupid inbox. http://imgur.com/jsKVyCi http://imgur.com/jsKVyCi One-liners and no picture are instant 'don't bother replying', and most people with more details tend to get weeded out for other reasons.

adamzerner 12y ago
Is the gray bar "match %"?
- zeeed 12y ago
  it masks the username
searine 12y ago
It is kinda fascinating how awful most guys are at pickup lines. Be brief, be funny, and always as a question. That's how you do it folks.
- mkr-hn 12y ago
  Always works for me. But I'm usually too shy to actually send a message, so I end up with an inbox full of boring. Need to work on that.
- kstenerud 12y ago
  Yeah, and spend hours and hours coming up with funny, witty, engaging prose, individually tailored, for people who are 90% unlikely to even respond. After awhile you start to feel like a putz, switch to simple one-liners, and discover to your surprise that it doesn't really affect the response rate by too much.
  - 67726e 12y ago
    As a guy, this... this is pretty much it. I tried OKC for around half a year, starting out doing just that. After the first half I just said "Fuck it" and switched to bullshit two sentence intros that were fill in the blank types. My response rate was practically the same. Thinking about it now, it seems like the numbers game recruiters play. Send out a lot of semi-decent introductions and hope for a response or two. Your best bet is getting out there and "networking", but in lieu of that, sending out a deluge of messages is the next best, albeit shitty, thing. I'd be interested in hearing how women deal with the deluge of introductions and what makes them decide to respond to someone. Is it the intro? The profile picture? Do they read the person's bio or use that compatibility meter?

mkr-hn 12y ago

90% of the messages I get from 90%ers are dull one-liners.