
A Million First Dates - Anon84
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/01/a-million-first-dates/309195/2/?single_page=true
======
singular
For a certain subset (perhaps minority) of the population, these sites are
nothing but a bait-and-switch. And I think dating sites attract many of us (as
I am indeed a member of this subset.)

I'm talking about people who lack the pre-requisites women require for mate
selection which if not fulfilled, no other characteristics typically matter.
Firstly - height - if you are significantly below the national average, you
will find obtaining a partner extremely difficult. I am 2 sigma below the
average in my country (5'5", UK). Oh dear. I think those who are not height-
impaired find it hard to believe how much of a factor this is, but it really,
really, really is.

If you lack a certain kind of (I venture to suggest, actually somewhat
unpleasant, cocky) confidence, especially good looks or social standing, then
your odds drop even more significantly.

From what I have read, the general experience of dating sites is that men get
very few replies, and women are inundated, so the task for a man is to do
anything to stand out, and the task for women is to filter. I think this
exaggerates the already heavily filtering criteria listed above for those like
myself.

However, dating sites give people like me hope, the idea that somehow we might
get around this problem, somehow say the right thing or after enough messages
sent we might find somebody. I wonder how many people like me fund these sites
(OK Cupid have a blog with lots of stats, perhaps some data to work with
there.)

I say 'from what I have read', as I have sent > ~150 messages with no reply
whatsoever. After losing vast amounts of weight, optimising profile, following
advice, etc.

Apologies for the rantishness/possibly OT-ness of this post, but obv. quite a
personal issue for me.

UPDATE: Amusing news piece on short men dating -
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LwRe6tyqY8>

~~~
dusing
You should really try a pay site, OKC in my experience has just been for
hookups. People are way more judgemental there. Also I would think a dating
site where you could search for shorter girls would be helpful than real life,
no?

~~~
singular
Have tried many, paid/non-paid, with same outcome. And shorter women
hilariously still generally prefer >= av. height men. It seems to be a major
genetic thing.

I shouldn't gonzo myself into this too much, as I've decided to give up on
relationships altogether, so this isn't about me finding some site that'll
work (not feasible IMHO, since real life is equally impossible), but rather
whether people like me are being baited-and-switched much by these sites...

~~~
jules
Remember that dating works much like a market. There is supply and demand, and
since there are about as many men as women, the supply and demand is roughly
equal. But in some places this ratio is not equal. I'm not sure about dating
sites, but that could be such a place. Simplifying a lot: if there are 1000
women and 2000 men then the women will date the 1000 most attractive men, and
the rest have basically no chance. You need to find a place where the numbers
are reversed.

The good thing about dating being a market is that you _can_ find somebody.
The thing is that you have to place your standards around your level of
attractiveness or lower. Contrary to the popular romantic image of a non
attractive male dating a very attractive female, almost all relationships
happen between people of very similar attractiveness. You may be less popular
height wise, so you might need to compromise on an attribute that makes a
woman less popular (e.g. weight or age). Perhaps you have decided that the
compromises you would have to make are too great, and you'll rather stay
single instead. That's fine too, but it's a choice.

You also have some control over your attractiveness. You have some control
over physical attractiveness with clothes, sport and grooming. Fortunately for
you, for men physical attractiveness and age are not of overriding importance
they pretty much are for women. As you note, confidence and social status are
also very important (see Berlusconi for an extreme example). These are things
you can work on! Intelligence is important too, and you're probably already
doing quite well on that front.

~~~
singular
Thanks, very thoughtful post, indeed I think it is a market.

My point is that there are attributes of mine which rule out women who I find
at least vaguely attractive (and I'm _not_ being picky, honestly), so perhaps
I'm simply not able to compete in this market.

I wish the physical factors such as height weren't such a big factor, as that
is obviously impossible to change. If I believed I could eliminate it, I'd
gladly start hitting the gym hard right now. But I am so convinced that it's
such a huge thing that I find it very hard to believe that'll make all that
much difference.

~~~
jules
I can assure you that a fit small body is more attractive than an unfit large
one to a sizable amount of people (for what it's worth, Tom Cruise is not tall
either). From what I've heard the importance given to height may be a US
phenomenon. It's still a plus elsewhere, but less so. Are you in the US?
Height also varies a lot between countries: you would would be tall in
Indonesia (average 5'2), but here in the Netherlands you would be quite small
(average 6'1). My father and brother are also small (perhaps even smaller than
you relative to the population average), but they are doing fine relationship
wise. Not all is lost!

~~~
singular
I wish I could believe that, but that hasn't been my experience, nor that of
others. I would gladly lose weight and hit the gym hard if I believed that
(and I have done in the past, only for all + any health/fitness improvements
to make no difference.)

I'm in the UK, average is around 5'10" here. I am in bottom 2.5% of male
population height-wise.

Tom Cruise is considered to be rather good looking + confident is he not? He's
a good example of the factors which can counteract short height. Note he's a
couple inches taller than me also :-)

------
jacques_chester
FWIW, the Portland regulars on /r/OkCupid complain that it's an inversion of
the classic pattern everywhere else. Men are apparently in the position of
scarcity.

NYC OKCers talk about the scourge of "trade ups".

Still, living as I do in Perth, this all seems like hearing about the problems
of people living on Planet Donuts. Oh, you can't settle down because there are
just _sooo many choices_? No no, please continue, I'll be over here stewing in
my own bile.

~~~
AJ007
Weird, from what I've seen male friends who were fairly attractive (over 6
feet tall, blonde) would consistently land with girls that were one to three
notches below what they would get "offline."

I've attempted to use dating sites on and off several times over the years and
barely could get the attention of ugly women. In the end I found it amusing
considering the girls I date tend to be models that have appeared in magazines
starting with the letter P.

~~~
pyre

      | the girls I date tend to be models that have appeared
      | in magazines starting with the letter P
    

Like Pyramid[1]? Did you paint the models before you dated them? Did any of
them leave you for a Space Marine? </sarcasm>

Please leave this chest-beating off of HN.

[1]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_(magazine)>

------
danso
This article is a good read, but this following excerpt is an angle I would
love to see a more expanded look into:

 _Indeed, the profit models of many online-dating sites are at cross-purposes
with clients who are trying to develop long-term commitments. A permanently
paired-off dater, after all, means a lost revenue stream. Explaining the
mentality of a typical dating-site executive, Justin Parfitt, a dating
entrepreneur based in San Francisco, puts the matter bluntly: “They’re
thinking, Let’s keep this fucker coming back to the site as often as we can.”
For instance, long after their accounts become inactive on Match.com and some
other sites, lapsed users receive notifications informing them that wonderful
people are browsing their profiles and are eager to chat. “Most of our users
are return customers,” says Match.com’s Blatt._

~~~
snprbob86
OK Cupid's OK Trends blog had an article titled "Why You Should Never Pay For
Online Dating", but they removed it after they were acquired by match.com, a
paid dating site. You can Google around and find a few copies of the article.

~~~
mesozoic
The irony is that their profit model is based on advertising which has the
same incentive to not get you into a long term relationship.

~~~
snprbob86
OK Cupid has (had?) both ads and an ad-free A-list subscription package.
However, I doubt either of those were their primary sources of income. OKC has
an extremely robust survey platform baked into their question and answer
system. I suspect that the demographic and market analysis data is extremely
valuable and that selling it to advertisers, consumer packaged goods
companies, etc. would be very lucrative.

------
pdeuchler

      “Societal values always lose out,” says Noel Biderman, the founder of Ashley Madison, which calls itself 
      “the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters”—that is, cheating. “Premarital sex 
      used to be taboo,” explains Biderman. “So women would become miserable in marriages, because they 
      wouldn’t know any better. But today, more people have had failed relationships, recovered, moved on, and 
      found happiness. They realize that that happiness, in many ways, depends on having had the failures. As 
      we become more secure and confident in our ability to find someone else, usually someone better, monogamy 
      and the old thinking about commitment will be challenged very harshly.”
    

Oh man. Societal values will always lose out? _Women_ (just women, mind you!
Not men, or women _and_ men?) were miserable in marriages because premarital
sex was taboo? The lack of premarital sex directly leads to unhappy marriages?
Some of these quotes border on the ridiculous. Personally, I'm glad the
societal value of "Murder is wrong" hasn't lost out to these dating websites.
I'm going to pile on real quick and also point out that commitment is hard.
It's a disturbing trend that people can now just not deal with commitment (an
important societal need, not just in relationships but in business as well)
since sites like these offer them an easy way out.

I'm far from the evangelical Christian right, but there is no denying family
values play a part in a functional society. Stable homes and good role models
are invaluable to children growing up. Good marriages can demonstrate valuable
social skills, such as compromise, respect and as corny as it sounds, love.
Such things should never "lose out".

Let's not forget that, as the article mentions, most of these people's goal is
to generate repeat users, not create healthy relationships. I'm not denying
that online dating can be a great tool, but let's take some of these opinions
with a grain of salt.

~~~
gojomo
Note the quote comes from the founder of AshleyMadison. For his clientele, at
least, and for the duration of their patronage, the traditional values lose
out. (He's 'talking his book'.)

------
greggman
My personal experience doesn't match some of the ideas presented in that
article

>> At the selection stage, researchers have seen that as the range of options
grows larger, mate-seekers are liable to become “cognitively overwhelmed,” and
deal with the overload by adopting lazy comparison strategies and examining
fewer cues

I find exactly the opposite. People that I would be happy to talk to if I met
them in person with no knowledge about them I easily reject because some minor
thing in their profile suggests some incompatibility even if it might not be
in actuality.

>> Easy

For whatever reason it's not been easy for me. I'm on several sites. The issue
above means I don't write that many people. Of those I write they rarely
respond. Through online dating I've not managed to meet more than 1 person a
year, probably less.

I could go on. Maybe it's that unlike Jacob I actually am looking for "the
one" so it makes me more picky.

~~~
andrewvc
You're doing it wrong, skim a bunch of profiles and copy and paste short
messages with very slight variations. Investing time in a first message, hell
even reading a whole profile on an online dating site is a huge waste of time.
Also, stop being so picky.

~~~
potatolicious
You're right, but I wish you weren't. It's a classic case of tragedy of the
commons. Spamming is individually optimal, but _highly_ detrimental to overall
outcome as the signal to noise ratio drops through the floor.

The worse the signal to noise ratio the more people need to spam to get a hit.
At this point OKCupid is just one massive cesspool of copypasta flying around
at great volume.

------
redwood
Does anyone else want to take a different tack here?

Perhaps we need to start considering if we're entering a somewhat polyamorous
age. Perhaps monogamy makes less sense today. This is a dangerous subject...
it certainly isn't something I can talk to my partner about openly. But that's
why I bring it up: perhaps as a society we need to start admitting that we
have changed our level of expectations on what is okay for activity partners
and perhaps even sex partners, with members of the opposite sex.

Perhaps we can have our cake and eat it too. We should acknowledge that long-
term relationships built on friendships may not always provide all the perks
we expect in this internet age. Perhaps we need not lose these wonderful
relationships in the wake... rather have both.

I'm not offering a clear path for how it would work or how to get there. But
I'm challenging the baseline assumption here that, somehow, a more liquid
market for cross-sexual meeting is a bad thing. It's the reality of today, so
perhaps we need to update our lifestyles.

~~~
alecco
Polyamorous relationships are on the rise due to the age of self-centered and
narcissistic people. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the nuclear family for
everyone credo. But let's not fool ourselves about being more open minded.
It's just the basic irrational impulse, now unrestrained.

------
casca
TL;DR: anecdotally, "internet dating has made people more disposable"

~~~
aes256
The argument goes that internet dating has made commitment less attractive,
and divorce more common.

That's not necessarily a bad thing. In the future we will have fewer people
clinging to abusive partners and putting up with destructive relationships.
Online dating provides more options.

On the other hand, a lot more children are going to grow up without both their
biological parents. Is that such a bad thing? I'm not convinced it is, but
I've never really bought into the concept of family.

~~~
mr_luc
Counterpoint: I'm young, but I still measure my core friendships in decades
...

I'm not going to settle for a life where 'romantic partner' is not a core
friendship, one which I can rely on in the same way as my lifelong friends and
close family.

I think that a lot of people feel the same way.

To me, that's more persuasive even than the 'think of the children argument',
and much less likely to change.

The 'think of the children' argument is pretty strong here. We all know the
stats: kids from single-parent families tend to grow up in more negative
environments, tend towards worse outcomes.

But maybe society can solve that problem! For instance, if a kid's parents are
divorced, but are constantly in caring relationships, maybe society can evolve
to a point where those kids aren't disadvantaged, and where they have a
relatively stable upbringing.

But that won't change my mind about 'romantic partner' belonging in the
category of 'secure, long-term friendships.'

~~~
aes256
People change; they come and go.

To me, the notion of marriage flies in the face of this basic observation. How
can you possibly commit to spending the rest of your life with someone when
you know so little about how they will change, intentionally or not?

> The 'think of the children' argument is pretty strong here. We all know the
> stats: kids from single-parent families tend to grow up in more negative
> environments, tend towards worse outcomes.

This sounds like selection bias to me.

At present, in Western society at least, members of certain socioeconomic
classes are significantly more likely to become single parents, and it is
likely the socioeconomic conditions their children grow up in that have the
most significant effect on their outcomes.

Conversely, abusive relationships and unhappy marriages also provide negative
environments for children to grow up in. A future in which relationships are
more fluid could reduce the number of children growing up in these
environments.

~~~
Evbn
People don't change totally randomly. Relationships take work, like any other
hobby or vocation

~~~
dusing
People don't change as much as they'd like to think too. Especially after a
certain age, 26-30? They are more predictable than not

------
shubhamjain
This article considers only the people whose aim in relationship is to aid in
their lonliness, find someone to be with, blah blah. What about those who want
to have kids, and a family. I dont think anyone will have the same line of
thought after having kids.

~~~
theorique
The goals may change, but lots of people leave their spouse even after having
kids, so it's not a perfect guarantee. Not saying that is right, or desirable,
but it's definitely something that happens.

------
PaperclipTaken
One question that's come up for me a number of times in the past 2 years or so
is "how permanent does a healthy relationship need to be?" Traditional values
suggest that "'til death do us part" is the desired level of permanence, but
as a society (even preceding online dating) we've been moving away from that
idea. More specifically, it used to be somewhat taboo for a widow to remarry,
but now it's almost expected that a young widow will eventually find another
spouse.

As our expected lifespan grows, are the costs and benefits of fully committing
to a single person changing? As far as kids are concerned, you want a marriage
to last long enough to get the kids to a certain degree of autonomy, but is
that level changing too (which is interesting, because it might seem that kids
are taking longer to gain autonomy compared to a hundred years ago).

But we all expect to become grandparents. This is clearly beyond the point
where you need to commit to a spouse for childhood reasons. Is our changing
environment enough to justify an expectation that marriage should no longer be
permanent?

------
zerooneinfinity
Stop investing your time in dating sites and go outside.

------
tnk
OP Singular,

I have felt your pain, and I cured it for myself. The answer is not to become
someone you dislike or are uncomfortable with - but instead, to grow the
person you are into a person you are MORE proud.

Besides this arbitrary idea of dating quantities and success score numbers
judged by the numbers of responses, let's presume to say you would be happy
finding just ONE person to start with who mutually is attractive and fun to be
with. Let's not get overeager just yet looking for THE ONE for all eternity,
if there even is such a thing (See Dan Savage videos). Let's take this process
one step at a time - just get a date, any date. Ugly, fat, tall, short,
pretty, sexy, smart, boring. Doesn't matter. Get a date. Then get two. Then
three. Then more. And as you realize that people are people regardless of
their exterior, you are going to become a far more likable, confidently
social, comfortable, and engaging person - who SINCERELY unconditionally
appreciates women - your charisma will naturally improve.

And women will sense that, because indeed you accept them absolutely
regardless of what they would wish to do or say or act around you. You must
learn and internalize that you are impervious to any of their negativity. To
anyone's negativity, man or woman, because you utterly believe in yourself and
the rich, successful, beautiful life journey that you are on. Your positivity
is too strong, indeed. You don't beat yourself up, and think YOU are unlovable
just because there IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THEM. If you do these things, if
you accept the things you can't change, your height, facial structure perhaps
(plastic surgery?), whatever else you consider your lot in life, at the very
least, you are going to become an extraordinarily popular personal energy to
be around.

Now taking this self-embrace further, why not do things that will only better
you? For instance, post a picture of yourself here, now that you have such a
popular thread. Begin that effort you are no longer sensitive to the
negativity anyone might bring to you commenting how you look, what height you
are, or any other feature about you. 'Tis all just fodder to be examined, if
there is or isn't something you can do to improve your situation. There ARE
always things you can do, even if some things you have no control over.
Proactivity, unconditional positivity, and pragmatism are your main principles
now!

If you are indeed a bit scrawny and unhappy with your body structure, then
learn to weight lift and grow your body. Take dancing classes, where your
skills in dancing might overcome your physical structure. Do whatever else is
active and physical, if you think that is the realm in which you lack.

I promise you, if you post a picture, or better yet, a video of yourself
talking to us about your life situation, you are going to get immense and
valuable feedback, far better than you are from the one dimensionality of
textual defense and argumentation.. We don't, unfortunately or fortunately,
live in merely a world of literal characters, so much as unique,
unpredictable, infinitely dynamic human characters. =)

