8 ms·

How to Make Online Dating Work

45 points by timr 11y ago

J_Darnley 11y ago
Step 1: be attractive.
- azdle 11y ago
  Step 2: don't be unattractive
  - edwhitesell 11y ago
    Step 3: Avoid profiles of other attractive people. Those are most likely fake.
    - yummyfajitas 11y ago
      In my limited experience (been on the internet about a month), this is totally backwards. The 7-9s have all been exactly as advertised, it's the 5s and 6s who were actually 3-4s with clever angles and ancient pics. If there is no bikini or crop top in the pics, don't bother. I feel bad for the real 5-6s, it's quite a lemon market out there for them.
  - amelius 11y ago
    Or just pretend to be attractive. People seem to like being fooled (we often fool ourselves to feel good, see self-serving bias) so why not?
    - invisible_dust 11y ago
      MySpace angle, check.
kriro 11y ago
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. ;)
- ourmandave 11y ago
  Do not go on a date with anyone with the on-line handle "Kobayashi Maru".
  - notNow 11y ago
    Or Lennay Kekua for that matter
auganov 11y ago
I wonder how many of the couples that "met online" actually met on a dating site/app. It sounds rather native to reduce the discussion to these. People that use these are probably a self-selecting group that's not representative of the whole population. Pretty much everybody I know that met someone online [in a romantic context] was through regular social sites (facebooks, instagrams, tumblrs etc).
jacques_chester 11y ago
Some problems aren't really solvable. All you can do is move the suckiness around. Here's the problem: attraction is highly asymmetric. Many are attracted to few. Shrink a pool of heterosexual individuals to a pool to 3 men and 3 women -- the outcomes will still be asymmetric, with the majority of participants not getting who they preferred. No scheme, no twist, no app, no idea can change this, until the cyberpunk vision of affordable beauty is a reality.
- yummyfajitas 11y ago
  ...until the cyberpunk vision of affordable beauty is a reality. That vision is here - it's called eat right, exercise and act like a man/woman. The outcomes will be asymmetric but the inequality will be lower. The current situation is tall hairy muscular guy dating pretty skinny blonde, while short fat bald guy is lucky to get fat brunette ugly girl. The delta in utility between the latter couple and the former could be massive. If everyone improved themselves you'd have short bald confident ball of muscle dating hot brunette butterface. Asymmetric, but the delta is pretty small.
  - jacques_chester 11y ago
    Sure, I agree that individuals can improve their outcomes through looking after themselves -- I already do that and it's made a remarkable difference. It's the advice I give everyone. The cyberpunk concept went further, though. Cheap, flawless, scarless cosmetic surgery. Tissue remodelling. Gene editing. It was a reflection on the 80s, when cosmetic surgery was in its optimistic dawn. Taking the short bald confident ball of muscle and turning him into a tall, striking slab of muscle, dating the brunette with cheekbones that could shave wood. A world of meandering, alienated beauties. That's part of what cyberpunk was exploring.
  - fweespeech 11y ago
    Someone has never heard of chubby chasers XD Some people actually prefer heavier people. So, no, that doesn't actually solve the problem.
elorant 11y ago
The main problem of online dating is that men usually are looking for sex while women for long-term relationships. Add to that the fact that in most dating sites the analogy of men to women is at least 3 to 1 and you realize pretty soon that it's a lose-lose game for most people.
- mathgeek 11y ago
  > The main problem of online dating is that men usually are looking for sex while women for long-term relationships. I don't think this is the actual problem. I believe it's often a problem that people either don't know what they want, or they are willing to accept less in the short term than what they want in the long term (which leads to terrible relationships more often than not). There are also plenty of people, both male and female, who just want short term sex but firmly believe that they should throw up a charade in order to get it.
- nether 11y ago
  > Add to that the fact that in most dating sites the analogy of men to women is at least 3 to 1 I've never actually seen this proven. Did you scrape profiles? OkC staff have repeatedly claimed that the ratio is around 50/50 for major metro areas: http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/older_lover/Age-Distribution-With-Ratio.png http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/older_lover/Age-Distribution-With... https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-male-female-ratio-on-big-five-dating-websites-Match-com-eHarmony-PlentyofFish-Zoosk-and-OKCupid/answer/Tom-Jacques/comment/1085741 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-male-female-ratio-on-big-f...
  - tasqa 11y ago
    Heads up I'm not familiar with these kind of sites. But to quote the Adultfriender hack article of last month: Among the 26,939 users with a UK email address, for example, there are just 1,596 who identified as female: a ratio of one woman to every 16 men.[1] [1] http://www.channel4.com/news/adult-friendfinder-dating-hack-internet-dark-web http://www.channel4.com/news/adult-friendfinder-dating-hack-...
    - 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
ndomin 11y ago
This article reads a lot different if you look at the authors first.
sgt101 11y ago
There's no science of attraction, once you realize that the whole thing is easier. Who "rocks your world" will be defined by a very complex and impossible to control set of interactions. Remember both sides (you and the other) like to have a fantasy to invest in. Leave room for the fantasy, be a little daring and a little assertive, do not self sabotage, emphasize your value as a mate so that your partner will be able to emphasize it to themselves and their friends. Hopefully you will see something in your counterpart, if you do, don't go out of your way to snuff it out - instead invest in it - what's wrong with focusing on his/her eyes and not her ears? On the other hand, neither side likes a jerk, don't be horrid, don't be rude, be kind, be sensible, be gentle. Don't quite be yourself, but mostly be yourself. Be the self you wish you were - the movie version of yourself crossed with your mothers version of yourself. Then - see what happens.
Thiz 11y ago
I have a humble idea not tried yet in match making, no profiles, no personality tests, just one simple fact I won't disclose. I don't need money, I can do it all myself, what I need is users. How do I get users once my MVP is ready? Perhaps a cofounder expert in marketing is the right solution?
- downandout 11y ago
  If you need users, then you do need money. The online dating app scene is insanely competitive. The last one to go naturally viral was Tinder, but the odds of duplicating that success are infinitesimal.
  - Thiz 11y ago
    Sure, money for marketing is needed, plenty of it. I meant for development, you know, funding. The odds are not infinitesimal. Matchmaking is like a fad, you can come up with ideas every year and people will flock to your site, because not all of them work. Of course you have to break the profile/test mentality and try new venues.
  - volaski 11y ago
    Tinder didn't go viral naturally, it was pure hustle
- volaski 11y ago
  You may not want to believe it but getting users is 90% of what it takes to succeed with dating apps. It's much more severe than any other types of services out there due to the nature of what it does. To succeed you should either have: 1. a plan to succeed at getting critical mass of users; 2. a plan to make it work even with a small set of users. If your clever idea doesn't involve any of those, you will fall into the trap of what tons of other unsuccessful dating app entrepreneurs fall into
gregpilling 11y ago
I met my wife on Match in 2000, we have been together 15 years and have 4 kids. Online dating was fun, especially if you use a little D.R.Y. and keep a text file of all the things you would say over and over again. It becomes very easy to 'mail merge' the best response to the ad you are looking at while still sounding original. Fun times, it was great to meet all sorts of women every week. I am still friends with a 5 of them today. For me, the internet enabled me to meet 100x more women that I would find interesting than otherwise.
- puranjay 11y ago
  I used the exact opposite approach with online dating. I would write whatever comes into my head with zero filtering. I didn't care if I got laid or not. I just wanted to have fun. My brain is better at coming up with quips than I realized. Once the mental barriers were gone, I discovered a new ability to make people laugh
  - dzhiurgis 11y ago
    I find it much easier to be funny IRL. Introductions look so templated and difficult to get right. Also my friend noticed something about 90s - it was much nicer to start talking with a person before seeing their entire life summarised, categorised and carefully documented in picture feed.
nadams 11y ago
I have experiences and opinions on this but to keep it short: It should really be split into several phases: 1) Take away profiles, pictures, zodiac signs, advanced algorithms and just put some basic constraints and have a blind chatroulette type system. Algorithms could be used for matching people like determining if they both like the same movies or something. It might be good to give them a mutual topic to talk about (same school, movies, games etc) - otherwise every chat will start with "what is your favorite movie?" 2) Then let them decide if they want to share more information like sharing their profile, pictures, zodiac signs. 3) If they still want to continue - have each independently check boxes of if they want to see a movie and/or dinner and what movie/restaurant they would be interested in (also include possible locations) and figure out a mutual date based on those selections. Much better than a cold approach and you know instantly that you are talking with somebody on the other end (verification might be an interesting feature).
- lnanek2 11y ago
  That would be fine for men, but women would just be flooded. They already get thousands of messages on dating apps. They aren't going to go for something that doesn't let them weed people out without a conversation first. That just doesn't scale. Genetically men have evolved to get as many women pregnant as possible, women have evolved to be picky and decide which is best to spend 9 months having the baby of. You aren't going to get a successful dating site only appealing to men like your design where everyone is forced to have a conversation before they can be picky.
  - nadams 11y ago
    > That would be fine for men, but women would just be flooded. Can you explain what you mean by that - chatroulette style is that you randomly are paired with one other person. And once the chat ends you have to click a button to be paired again. The way I would see is that individuals would login and click "pair me" and it would search pair with one and only one other person (I think I would even go so far as to restrict them to one conversation). I suppose someone might not be paired with someone for some time but that is the "risk" I suppose. Perhaps a timeout could help or a notification saying "people are online that match what you are looking for".
somberi 11y ago
I am married and one thing I hear from many of single Male friends is that, dating is expensive. I am talking from a narrow PoV of Manhattan, NYC. A significant majority of dates end up by the man picking up the tab for a dinner / drinks. This normally runs to $100 a night, if not more. If the social custom of having to meet in a nice, but not necessarily swanky place, takes a back seat, and if both pitch in for a reasonable meal, I think more relationships will flourish.
camgunz 11y ago
Aziz Ansari wrote this? What doesn't that guy do?

45 points by timr 11y ago

J_Darnley 11y ago

Step 1: be attractive.

azdle 11y ago
Step 2: don't be unattractive
- edwhitesell 11y ago
  Step 3: Avoid profiles of other attractive people. Those are most likely fake.
  - yummyfajitas 11y ago
    In my limited experience (been on the internet about a month), this is totally backwards. The 7-9s have all been exactly as advertised, it's the 5s and 6s who were actually 3-4s with clever angles and ancient pics. If there is no bikini or crop top in the pics, don't bother. I feel bad for the real 5-6s, it's quite a lemon market out there for them.
- amelius 11y ago
  Or just pretend to be attractive. People seem to like being fooled (we often fool ourselves to feel good, see self-serving bias) so why not?
  - invisible_dust 11y ago
    MySpace angle, check.

kriro 11y ago

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. ;)

ourmandave 11y ago
Do not go on a date with anyone with the on-line handle "Kobayashi Maru".
- notNow 11y ago
  Or Lennay Kekua for that matter

auganov 11y ago

I wonder how many of the couples that "met online" actually met on a dating site/app. It sounds rather native to reduce the discussion to these. People that use these are probably a self-selecting group that's not representative of the whole population. Pretty much everybody I know that met someone online [in a romantic context] was through regular social sites (facebooks, instagrams, tumblrs etc).

jacques_chester 11y ago

Some problems aren't really solvable. All you can do is move the suckiness around. Here's the problem: attraction is highly asymmetric. Many are attracted to few. Shrink a pool of heterosexual individuals to a pool to 3 men and 3 women -- the outcomes will still be asymmetric, with the majority of participants not getting who they preferred. No scheme, no twist, no app, no idea can change this, until the cyberpunk vision of affordable beauty is a reality.

yummyfajitas 11y ago
...until the cyberpunk vision of affordable beauty is a reality. That vision is here - it's called eat right, exercise and act like a man/woman. The outcomes will be asymmetric but the inequality will be lower. The current situation is tall hairy muscular guy dating pretty skinny blonde, while short fat bald guy is lucky to get fat brunette ugly girl. The delta in utility between the latter couple and the former could be massive. If everyone improved themselves you'd have short bald confident ball of muscle dating hot brunette butterface. Asymmetric, but the delta is pretty small.
- jacques_chester 11y ago
  Sure, I agree that individuals can improve their outcomes through looking after themselves -- I already do that and it's made a remarkable difference. It's the advice I give everyone. The cyberpunk concept went further, though. Cheap, flawless, scarless cosmetic surgery. Tissue remodelling. Gene editing. It was a reflection on the 80s, when cosmetic surgery was in its optimistic dawn. Taking the short bald confident ball of muscle and turning him into a tall, striking slab of muscle, dating the brunette with cheekbones that could shave wood. A world of meandering, alienated beauties. That's part of what cyberpunk was exploring.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Someone has never heard of chubby chasers XD Some people actually prefer heavier people. So, no, that doesn't actually solve the problem.

elorant 11y ago

The main problem of online dating is that men usually are looking for sex while women for long-term relationships. Add to that the fact that in most dating sites the analogy of men to women is at least 3 to 1 and you realize pretty soon that it's a lose-lose game for most people.

mathgeek 11y ago
> The main problem of online dating is that men usually are looking for sex while women for long-term relationships. I don't think this is the actual problem. I believe it's often a problem that people either don't know what they want, or they are willing to accept less in the short term than what they want in the long term (which leads to terrible relationships more often than not). There are also plenty of people, both male and female, who just want short term sex but firmly believe that they should throw up a charade in order to get it.
nether 11y ago
> Add to that the fact that in most dating sites the analogy of men to women is at least 3 to 1 I've never actually seen this proven. Did you scrape profiles? OkC staff have repeatedly claimed that the ratio is around 50/50 for major metro areas: http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/older_lover/Age-Distribution-With-Ratio.png http://cdn.okcimg.com/blog/older_lover/Age-Distribution-With... https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-male-female-ratio-on-big-five-dating-websites-Match-com-eHarmony-PlentyofFish-Zoosk-and-OKCupid/answer/Tom-Jacques/comment/1085741 https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-male-female-ratio-on-big-f...
- tasqa 11y ago
  Heads up I'm not familiar with these kind of sites. But to quote the Adultfriender hack article of last month: Among the 26,939 users with a UK email address, for example, there are just 1,596 who identified as female: a ratio of one woman to every 16 men.[1] [1] http://www.channel4.com/news/adult-friendfinder-dating-hack-internet-dark-web http://www.channel4.com/news/adult-friendfinder-dating-hack-...
  - 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

ndomin 11y ago

This article reads a lot different if you look at the authors first.

sgt101 11y ago

There's no science of attraction, once you realize that the whole thing is easier. Who "rocks your world" will be defined by a very complex and impossible to control set of interactions. Remember both sides (you and the other) like to have a fantasy to invest in. Leave room for the fantasy, be a little daring and a little assertive, do not self sabotage, emphasize your value as a mate so that your partner will be able to emphasize it to themselves and their friends. Hopefully you will see something in your counterpart, if you do, don't go out of your way to snuff it out - instead invest in it - what's wrong with focusing on his/her eyes and not her ears? On the other hand, neither side likes a jerk, don't be horrid, don't be rude, be kind, be sensible, be gentle. Don't quite be yourself, but mostly be yourself. Be the self you wish you were - the movie version of yourself crossed with your mothers version of yourself. Then - see what happens.

Thiz 11y ago

I have a humble idea not tried yet in match making, no profiles, no personality tests, just one simple fact I won't disclose. I don't need money, I can do it all myself, what I need is users. How do I get users once my MVP is ready? Perhaps a cofounder expert in marketing is the right solution?

downandout 11y ago
If you need users, then you do need money. The online dating app scene is insanely competitive. The last one to go naturally viral was Tinder, but the odds of duplicating that success are infinitesimal.
- Thiz 11y ago
  Sure, money for marketing is needed, plenty of it. I meant for development, you know, funding. The odds are not infinitesimal. Matchmaking is like a fad, you can come up with ideas every year and people will flock to your site, because not all of them work. Of course you have to break the profile/test mentality and try new venues.
- volaski 11y ago
  Tinder didn't go viral naturally, it was pure hustle
volaski 11y ago
You may not want to believe it but getting users is 90% of what it takes to succeed with dating apps. It's much more severe than any other types of services out there due to the nature of what it does. To succeed you should either have: 1. a plan to succeed at getting critical mass of users; 2. a plan to make it work even with a small set of users. If your clever idea doesn't involve any of those, you will fall into the trap of what tons of other unsuccessful dating app entrepreneurs fall into

gregpilling 11y ago

I met my wife on Match in 2000, we have been together 15 years and have 4 kids. Online dating was fun, especially if you use a little D.R.Y. and keep a text file of all the things you would say over and over again. It becomes very easy to 'mail merge' the best response to the ad you are looking at while still sounding original. Fun times, it was great to meet all sorts of women every week. I am still friends with a 5 of them today. For me, the internet enabled me to meet 100x more women that I would find interesting than otherwise.

puranjay 11y ago
I used the exact opposite approach with online dating. I would write whatever comes into my head with zero filtering. I didn't care if I got laid or not. I just wanted to have fun. My brain is better at coming up with quips than I realized. Once the mental barriers were gone, I discovered a new ability to make people laugh
- dzhiurgis 11y ago
  I find it much easier to be funny IRL. Introductions look so templated and difficult to get right. Also my friend noticed something about 90s - it was much nicer to start talking with a person before seeing their entire life summarised, categorised and carefully documented in picture feed.

nadams 11y ago

I have experiences and opinions on this but to keep it short: It should really be split into several phases: 1) Take away profiles, pictures, zodiac signs, advanced algorithms and just put some basic constraints and have a blind chatroulette type system. Algorithms could be used for matching people like determining if they both like the same movies or something. It might be good to give them a mutual topic to talk about (same school, movies, games etc) - otherwise every chat will start with "what is your favorite movie?" 2) Then let them decide if they want to share more information like sharing their profile, pictures, zodiac signs. 3) If they still want to continue - have each independently check boxes of if they want to see a movie and/or dinner and what movie/restaurant they would be interested in (also include possible locations) and figure out a mutual date based on those selections. Much better than a cold approach and you know instantly that you are talking with somebody on the other end (verification might be an interesting feature).

lnanek2 11y ago
That would be fine for men, but women would just be flooded. They already get thousands of messages on dating apps. They aren't going to go for something that doesn't let them weed people out without a conversation first. That just doesn't scale. Genetically men have evolved to get as many women pregnant as possible, women have evolved to be picky and decide which is best to spend 9 months having the baby of. You aren't going to get a successful dating site only appealing to men like your design where everyone is forced to have a conversation before they can be picky.
- nadams 11y ago
  > That would be fine for men, but women would just be flooded. Can you explain what you mean by that - chatroulette style is that you randomly are paired with one other person. And once the chat ends you have to click a button to be paired again. The way I would see is that individuals would login and click "pair me" and it would search pair with one and only one other person (I think I would even go so far as to restrict them to one conversation). I suppose someone might not be paired with someone for some time but that is the "risk" I suppose. Perhaps a timeout could help or a notification saying "people are online that match what you are looking for".

somberi 11y ago

I am married and one thing I hear from many of single Male friends is that, dating is expensive. I am talking from a narrow PoV of Manhattan, NYC. A significant majority of dates end up by the man picking up the tab for a dinner / drinks. This normally runs to $100 a night, if not more. If the social custom of having to meet in a nice, but not necessarily swanky place, takes a back seat, and if both pitch in for a reasonable meal, I think more relationships will flourish.

camgunz 11y ago

Aziz Ansari wrote this? What doesn't that guy do?