For someone who has been happily married for seventeen years, I am strangely fascinated by online dating websites. A number of my friends use Match.com. My neice and my nephew are the product of that website. I am addicted to other social media applications. Being rather boy-obssessed in my youth, a younger version of myself would be all over those websites. Perhaps it is not so strange.
Tinder sounds particularly interesting. Instead of reading though essays and plugging in all sorts of variables about dating preferences, you swipe through pictures of potential partners. It has nearly 50 million users. I was talking about this application with some 20-somethings a few weeks ago, and they all whipped out their phones to show me the app.
There is something offensive about judging people simply on appearances. People aren’t dresses that you flip through on a rack in Macy’s. How can really tell if someone is cool or not based on a five second swipe on a dating website? But maybe Tinder is onto something.
An article in the New York Times said that appearances matter more than other variables that can be plugged into a database. Appearances can give you thousands of subconscious clues about a person’s identity.
Services like eHarmony, OKCupid and Match.com have proclaimed that their proprietary algorithms could calculate true love, or that math equations could somehow pluck two strangers to live happily ever after. That appears to be more fiction than fact.
All that really matters, according to scientific researchers I spoke with from Northwestern University and Illinois State University, at least in the beginning of relationship, is how someone looks. (Of course, these companies disagree.)
About twenty years ago, I sat down at a table in the grad school library with my friend Tracy. She said “hey” to a guy across the table, and they chatted and laughed about something long forgotten. Later, I passed her a note, “blue eyes, wow.” Of course, just by being in a grad school library together, we had a lot in common. But the blue eyes. They hooked me. And I married him.
Apt. 11d 
Hmm, see I met my boyfriend on OKcupid, and I have to say his pictures weren’t flattering. He was funny, he had a hobby (theatre) the I liked and he went to grad school. So many of them had answered “some college” that I was intrigued by the grad school graduate on a dating site. I could tell he was charming by the way he wrote. We corresponded for a week (several times a day) before meeting in person. I was relieved when I met him. So I would say I really did fall in love with “him” not his image.
However, there are other guys I dated before I met him that I went out with because they were attractive. Cute didn’t seem appealing for more than one date though.
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I have an email buddy who (in part) scooped up her awesome husband on an online dating forum because he had bad pictures and nobody but her could see past that.
I think a lot of people are different in pictures versus when you see them in motion in real life.
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I’m newly divorced and spent a bunch of time playing with OKCupid and Tinder this summer. SO INTERESTING. I had dates w/ guys from both, and the throughline was the many dudes who were kind yet boring. (There were also a few sad or angry ones.) I ended up meeting my boyfriend on OKC — great pictures (but he’s a photographer, so they better be), funny/real profile info. His online banter was good, and he had a fantastic idea for our first date. We both deactivated our profiles within a week.
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I’ve bee married for 26 years and met my spouse in college. I detest the idea of dating/forming a relationship with someone I don’t know already. But, I’ve noticed that many people like me (who are unpartnered for some reason) are turning to online dating sites.
The insight I got from the NY Times article is that people use the information that’s available at the site, and in particular information that’s more likely to be accurate. Pictures (unlike life history, . . .). The pictures might not be accurate, but that’s easily detectable when you meet the person. The rest of it (sense of humor, kindness, . . .) are harder to measure. In the long run, though, does it make a difference how you found the person? My guess is that most of whether the relationship ends up successful is that after a few criterion are met, what matters most is whether the two want to be in a relationship or not.
Do people really use TInder to find partners? Without having looked at it in any detail, I thought it was for finding casual, temporary relationships. Are there people who have found their spouse with Tinder?
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Yes, that was my impression of Tinder, too.
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” (who are unpartnered for some reason)”
Of course, I mean like me except for being unpartnered.
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So, those of you who have used multiple sites, are they different?
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Match- people more likely looking for a relationship than a fling, also more educated and financially stable people. My guess is because it is like $30 a month ( I honestly can’t remember, I only did it for a month).
OkCupid- I think you have a lot more people interested in sex. You can put so much information out there. There are like 500 questions, and you can answer as many as you want and make them public or keep them private. I chose to answer a question on sex publicly that I think probably got me a lot of traffic. I actually liked the site. You could pay or get the premium for like $15 a month. I found more funny people and more liberals, also younger people than on match. Two guys much younger than I am asked me out there. I actually went out with one of them.
Plenty of Fish- POF- Free. Lots and lots of traffic. Lower end demographics both education and income wise. Since it was free there were people that left their profiles up for a long time. However, I met two really nice guys there.
I keep meaning to resurrect my blog to write some posts about online dating. It was fun, and I met a really wonderful man who really is my perfect match.
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Hey Lisa, I’m glad Laura wrote this post so you could share that! 🙂 I miss your blog!
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Definitely differences. Tinder skews younger than OKC, and is definitely more oriented toward — but not exclusively — hookups. OKC contains multitudes, which is both good (lots of options) and bad (kind of overwhelming).
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It seems to be somewhat regional, what groups flock to which sites. I was in a conversation recently where the singles from Dallas were having all kinds of luck with OKCupid (I think, maybe Plenty of FIsh?), while the Northeasterners were shaking their heads and swearing by Match.
I met my SO when he called me for business reasons. I looked him up on LinkedIn and no way would I have thought he was a potential date from his picture. He looked arrogant and uptight and turned out to be very much the opposite, as well as smart and kind. I’m dubious about what you can tell from a picture.
If Tinder works well, I suspect it’s because the proximity thing makes it possible to have a large number of low-stakes meet-ups (if you are both in the financial district, it doesn’t take a lot of planning to meet for a cup of coffee or a beer) and because the location is a proxy for some other things.
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What do they mean whey they say that appearances matter more? That people that meet traditional beauty standards do better in the dating market (duh)? Or, that people are drawn to a specific physical type (which could be wildly different from the traditional beauty standard) that they find appealing first, and that makes them want to get to know a person better? I guess I could actually read the article, but that would be no fun.
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Laura said:
“For someone who has been happily married for seventeen years, I am strangely fascinated by online dating websites.”
I’ve been married 16 years and have a similar attraction to dating advice columns. I read Dear Wendy, Captain Awkward, and Dr. Nerdlove. I also give lonely single guys pep talks on a big Catholic forum.
I’m happy with how things have turned out for me, but there are so many resources today that would have been helpful and encouraging to younger me.
I do have the excuse with regard to keeping up to date that the kids will be dating soon, and it’s important to have a sense of what the environment looks like. For instance, knowing how bad the college setting can be for dating, I would feel free to encourage a college junior or senior kid to do online dating LOCALLY, bearing in mind appropriate safety precautions. I think freshman and probably sophomores should be making an effort on campus, and that it’s best to exhaust local options before starting some sort of huge long distance relationship with people on the opposite coast. The latter is very popular among young people today. A common thing to have to tell young people on dating forums who announce that they’ve been dating somebody for 2 years that they’ve never met is that the clock starts once you actually meet in person, and not a minute earlier.
“An article in the New York Times said that appearances matter more than other variables that can be plugged into a database. Appearances can give you thousands of subconscious clues about a person’s identity.”
There’s some research that says that appearance is important for initial judgment of attractiveness, but as you grow to know more about the person, your judgment of their attractiveness is going to change based on your knowledge of them. (My favorite example of this is Steve Carell’s character on The Office. He is really good looking, but the more you know about him, the less of an impact the looks have–they’re swamped by the knowledge of his bad judgment, impulsivity, selfishness and laziness.)
“About twenty years ago, I sat down at a table in the grad school library with my friend Tracy. She said “hey” to a guy across the table, and they chatted and laughed about something long forgotten. Later, I passed her a note, “blue eyes, wow.” Of course, just by being in a grad school library together, we had a lot in common. But the blue eyes. They hooked me. And I married him.”
Awww.
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You are not seriously planning to be involved in your kids’ dating life in college??!!
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Well, bear in mind that over the last year or two, I’ve read so many I’m-so-lonely-no-one-wants-me-I’ve-never-been-on-a-date-etc. forum posts from early 20-somethings that my current thinking is that dating needs to be on the home pre-college curriculum, right along with SAT prep and laundry skills.
I went to college thinking that I’d get married to somebody I met there, as that’s what my parents had done in the late 1960s. I was so disappointed at the time when that did not materialize! But had I looked around a little harder, I would have realized that almost nobody at my college in the early 90s had an on-campus boyfriend or girlfriend. 20 years later, I see a lot of posts from 20 or 21-year-olds who are wondering why they don’t have a boyfriend and nobody has ever asked them out. It’s a kindness to kids before they go off to college to remind them that there really isn’t a lot of dating on campus these days and a lot of people do not have boyfriends and girlfriends during college, so if they don’t wind up having one, it’s not necessarily because they’re unlovable trolls (which is what a lot of people come to believe). And it really does get better.
And then there the just plain socially awkward/inappropriate, who have the same issues, but 100X worse.
I give you the University of Waterloo grabber:
http://uwimprint.ca/article/4660-two-incidents-involving-suspicious-persons-on
So, no, I think it is responsible parenting to talk about college dating before kids head off. Also, a few friendly pointers on gentlemanly conduct might help our kids avoid becoming an Instapundit blog post.
People in the 1950s taught dating etiquette explicitly (you’ve seen the old PSAs)–it’s not very nice or safe to release kids into the wild without a few pointers.
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Another thing–even on non-red pill dating advice sites (like Dr. Nerdlove) there are invariably lots of red pill/MRA/PUA posters. And I run into the critters elsewhere a lot, too.
If one doesn’t want one’s son to go red pill, it behooves one to have a talk about that sort of thing well before college.
(Easy for me to say–my son is 9 and is (thank goodness) quite innocent of all of the elaborate red pill mythology of alphas and betas and carousels and walls and so forth. But I can imagine how enjoyably doom-and-gloom it is to decide that the answer is that the alphas get all the women and one is oneself not an alpha, so one is doooooomed.)
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Amy P, I would worry about a boy going to college if he seemed to have no female friends and couldn’t start a conversation with someone he didn’t know. I had to search online for the term “red pill.” The description on Business Insider was interesting, but I’m not convinced that the supposed 15,000 participants are all really participants. I’d suspect a fair number to be anthropology researchers and the sorts of people who slow down to look at car crashes.
A part of the hooking up culture stems from individual choices. I wonder about the role of online, ah, four letter word that starts with p and rhymes with corn. The descriptions of conversations at the red pill site, well, I think the men need to get out of their rooms and mix with people for a while. Stop looking at people as commodities. And it would be really good if the emerging adults would stop pre-gaming social events. Grain alcohol before a party does not help.
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“Grain alcohol before a party does not help.”
In the late 1980s it was grain alcohol *at* the party. And it certainly did help. From the collegiate point of view. For varying values of the word “help.”
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“Amy P, I would worry about a boy going to college if he seemed to have no female friends and couldn’t start a conversation with someone he didn’t know.”
Yes, that would be a matter of concern. See Elliot Rodger, et al.
“I had to search online for the term “red pill.” The description on Business Insider was interesting, but I’m not convinced that the supposed 15,000 participants are all really participants. I’d suspect a fair number to be anthropology researchers and the sorts of people who slow down to look at car crashes.”
The manosphere is bigger than that and much more influential than that would suggest. Instapundit, for instance, has gone to more or less 24/7 manosphere themes and he used to be reasonably mainstream say 10 years ago.
“A part of the hooking up culture stems from individual choices. I wonder about the role of online, ah, four letter word that starts with p and rhymes with corn.”
Yes. I think there is a belief that everything with sex and relationships should be as simple, easy and inexpensive as ordering pizza.
“The descriptions of conversations at the red pill site, well, I think the men need to get out of their rooms and mix with people for a while. Stop looking at people as commodities.”
Yes, that’s such a double-edged sword. Because on the one hand, there’s a belief that women can be easily bought, but on the other hand, experience keeps demonstrating that the people who believe that can’t afford what they want, so it leads to a lot of self-loathing. So there’s both other-commodification and self-commodification going on.
“And it would be really good if the emerging adults would stop pre-gaming social events. Grain alcohol before a party does not help.”
Heck, I’d be happy if they went to social events at all.
I’ve had so many conversations with the lonely socially awkward single guys where they whine about how they can’t get a woman and I ask, “So, have you asked anybody out in the last 90 days?” and crickets. There’s so much loneliness and alienation.
Just this morning, I was on a Catholic site I spend a lot of time on and having the dawning horrified realization that when a guy was complaining about women and women having physical boundaries that they don’t defend, he wasn’t even talking about boyfriend-girlfriend stuff, he was talking about friend group creeper stuff (with him being a creeper). Blech!
The social rituals are fascinating.
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You’re supposed to mix the grain alcohol at least 50/50 with something else. Something not alcohol.
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That was MH. I’m borrowing a computer.
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Here’s another thing that might prove helpful for college prep: providing daughters a little inoculating exposure to PUA techniques.
Possible material for the curriculum, the xkcd negging cartoon:
http://xkcd.com/1027/
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“You’re supposed to mix the grain alcohol at least 50/50 with something else. Something not alcohol.”
“That was MH. I’m borrowing a computer.”
Mixing grain with a computer is a new one to me.
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I think Reddit is what you get from mixing grain alcohol with a computer.
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D’oh. Literature!
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“You’re supposed to mix the grain alcohol at least 50/50 with something else. Something not alcohol.”
You haven’t seen my grandmother’s glögg recipes. Unless wine counts as ‘not alcohol.’
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Why mix it with anything? Way to spoil a good buzz.
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I’d be interested to hear from people who used “Farmers Only”(*) or “Christian Mingle”. I have a hard time not believing that people on Christian Mingle get swindled more than others. If you could really believe that god is helping you out on the dating site (as their ads suggest) you can probably believe all sorts of hog-wash that will end up with you getting took for a ride.
(*) Farmers Only loses a few points in my book by adding, in sub-script as it were, that it also allows in ranchers. Standards, people!
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“I’d be interested to hear from people who used “Farmers Only”(*) or “Christian Mingle”. I have a hard time not believing that people on Christian Mingle get swindled more than others. If you could really believe that god is helping you out on the dating site (as their ads suggest) you can probably believe all sorts of hog-wash that will end up with you getting took for a ride.”
I’ve heard good things about 2 or 3 of the Catholic dating sites (namely from people who found their spouses there). Given the Niagara-like volume of traffic on the big online dating sites, it’s a great labor saver to not have to deal with quite as many of the obligatory-sex-after-third-date crowd.
“(*) Farmers Only loses a few points in my book by adding, in sub-script as it were, that it also allows in ranchers. Standards, people!”
Funny!
Both Dr. Nerdlove and Captain Awkward have some very helpful online dating advice, as I recall, and I believe Dr. Nerdlove’s commenters will occasionally trouble shoot dating profiles for people, which is really nice.
Speaking of specialized sites, Dr. Nerdlove had a great take down of fake dating sites. There was one he dealt with that was purportedly a gamers’ dating site, but it was just a facade for a low-quality general dating site, with no particular connection to gaming. So, yeah, there are a number of scammy specialized dating sites.
Here it is:
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2012/09/fake-gamer/
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One of the people having her profile analyzed that I’ve seem recently was (and I’m not making this up) some sort of goth libertarian.
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I would have thought those subgroups would work, for the most part. Yeah, there will be people who are scamming financially, but, on the other hand, I doubt that many people go to Christian Mingle looking for casual hookups (unlike Tinder). I know that JDate seems to fill a nitch (if you click there now, the tagline is “Matzo ball recipes don’t survive on their own: Browse JDaters near you who truly understand what it means to be Jewish.” Oh, and their motto is “Get Chosen” (Ha Ha). Computer sites have now become a pretty big part of Indian arranged marriages (recently heard about them on a discussion about big data, in which the academic who studies them says there’s a remarkable amount of information there, enough to uncover the identities of many of the participants).
This article was a fun read: http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/02/okcupid-most-desired-people-in-new-york.html (as an old person, hearing about the dating habits of a group of people are far enough out of my realm of experience that I could just as well be reading about the mating habit of voles).
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Here’s what I can tell you about Christian Mingle: I have a distant friend who has been using that site for about five years. In how I worded that, you can infer that it hasn’t been very successful. She has met around 12-15 guys over the years and all but 2 turned out to be duds. And I mean duds. From the guy who flew in from out of state and as she was driving him to his hotel said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. I have an STD. Can you stop at a convenience store for some chew?” to the man she went to visit and wanted to make him supper (she’s a fantastic cook), but he said the oven couldn’t be on for more than 60 minutes because it would have an effect on his gas bill….to the guy who she dated for several months who said he wanted to marry her very much, but was it OK if they never had s*x…to the guy who she met for dinner and as soon as she took her last bite was asked, “OK, are you ready? Should we go upstairs?” (they were eating at a hotel). Let’s just say she wasn’t thrilled about spending one more minute with a guy who was ready to sleep with her after just 60 minutes.
I could continue, but I’ll stop there.
Also, my friend found out that just because someone registers on Christian Mingle, it doesn’t mean they have an ounce of Christian faith or belief. 🙂
I have known a handful of people IRL here in the rural Midwest who have met their spouse online. Not one of them used CM.
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“Oh, I forgot to tell you. I have an STD. Can you stop at a convenience store for some chew?”
I think antibiotics work better.
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“I have known a handful of people IRL here in the rural Midwest who have met their spouse online. Not one of them used CM.”
I’ve also known a number of married couples online who’ve met through the Catholic Answers forums. (That probably doesn’t work for the guys posting on their compulsive masturbation problems.)
Ann Althouse, the law blogger, famously married a commentor.
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“Reader? She married him.”
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Well, the farmer and the cowman *should* be friends….
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Well, the farmer and the cowman *should* be friends….
I thought that cartoons and the like had taught me that ranchers and farmers could never be friends. Please don’t deprive me of my illusions.
As for various “specialty” sites, I can certainly see their value. If you are a religious Jew, and are looking only to date other religious Jews, a site that at least purports to only have those has its obvious advantages. (The people on the Christian Mingle TV adds are just so obviously asking to be taken advantage of, though, that it makes me think it must be a top target for grifters.)
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“I thought that cartoons and the like had taught me that ranchers and farmers could never be friends. Please don’t deprive me of my illusions.”
Musicals have taught me otherwise. Also, in case you hadn’t heard, everything is up to date in Kansas City.
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Here’s Dr. Nerdlove’s latest on online dating:
http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2014/11/troubleshoot-online-dating/
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There’s a Dr. Nerdlove fan forum and this thread is devoted to crowd-sourcing advice for tweaks to online dating profiles:
http://nerdlounge.forumotion.ca/t44p150-the-same-old-stories-dating-profile-message-advice
A lot of people seem to be getting good help. Then there’s this guy:
Helpful Dr. Nerdlove Fan: “One bit [from your online dating profile] that hit me was this “What, apart from my looming gut and the pervasive stench of arrogance that clings to me like a nasty bit of sticky tape? My positive body image and compassion towards others, of course!” Because it sounds like you would be as critical of my appearance as you are of yours since you body snark yourself and declare lack of compassion for others.”
Negative Nerdy Know-It-All: “No, you’re reading into this way too deeply. How is my criticising my own appearance in any way related to whether I would criticise others or not, and if so, how I would do it?”
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SPAM
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“I have every respect for people who go out there, opening themselves to a lot of risk to possibly meet a potential partner. Investing one’s time, money and effort is evidence enough that they’re after something meaningful and important.
I think it’s great that there’s a lot of online dating sites out there. It’s a matter of choosing a select few that closely match our preferences, ideals and values. “
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