
Guys, unless you are really hot you are just wasting your time on Tinder - BerislavLopac
https://medium.com/@worstonlinedater/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are-really-hot-you-are-probably-better-off-not-wasting-your-2ddf370a6e9a
======
ravenstine
One of the problems with Tinder is its nebulous ethos. Is it a dating app or
is it a hookup app? It seems to pretend that it's both without committing to
either one, which muddies the water and I don't think that works terribly
well.

Tinder is brilliant in that it focuses entirely on vanity, ego, and lust, far
more so than any of its predecessors. Thus, it has taken a large portion of
the dating market away from sites like OKCupid, which had virtually nobody on
it in the LA area when I last used it nearly a year ago. Once upon a time, I
was an overweight nerd with no money, yet I somehow got dates through OKC.
Those days are long gone.

The only alternative I can recommend is _real life_. Nothing beats it, and
it's the only way you can know you aren't wasting your time. Go to meetups and
actually talk to people and figure out how to improve when you screw up. Being
able to get to know people, even if they don't end up being dates, is pretty
awesome. It means actually having to grow as a person, but I would bet on a
higher success rate than with any dating app/website.

All dating apps I know of are a joke. Bumble is hilarious because it actually
makes an existing problem worse and sells that as a solution; women don't want
hundreds of messages from random penises, and they're very unlikely to
initiate a conversation.(i don't blame them) Match, Chemistry, PoF, and all
those old-school sites are borderline scams that charge a fortune. Match will
send you daily emails telling you how many likes(is it "winks"? i can't
remember now.) you're getting, but none of that seems to manifest on the site
itself. It's the ol' bait and switch.

~~~
cableshaft
OkCupid, Match.com, Chemistry.com, PlentyOfFish, and Tinder are all owned by
the same company. They like to hide that fact and pretend they're all separate
entities to end users, but it's true. Some of them were once separate, then
purchased later, but Tinder was part of them from the very beginning. So
they're not really "losing" users, just shuffling them around from site to
site.

[http://iac.com/brand/match-group](http://iac.com/brand/match-group)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_Group)

~~~
ravenstine
Yikes, I knew that OKC, Match, and Chemistry were owned by the same company,
but I had no idea they'd become such a monopoly. Thanks for enlightening us!

~~~
nunez
IAC is kind of like a private equity firm for internet properties; they own a
lot of random stuff

------
yodsanklai
I noticed that tinder-attractiveness is very relative. I have virtually no
chance to find a date on Tinder in France whereas it's reasonably easy in NYC.
And in some places in Asia I'm hugely popular. Overall, regular dating sites
always work better than Tinder. I think it's because Tinder is more for casual
encounters and a woman can afford to be picky if that's what she's looking
for. The supply of men looking for casual encounters is far superior than the
demand.

~~~
foepys
> I have virtually no chance to find a date on Tinder in France whereas it's
> reasonably easy in NYC

This has most likely has nothing to do with Tinder itself but with being from
a different country. Especially the French accent is very appealing to
American women and being tall (which, as a Westerner, you probably are) is a
big plus in Asia. You could walk into any bar and meet women.

------
evilturnip
I feel like the methodology has a lot of flaws that makes the error bars so
large as to make the actual numbers in this study useless:

1\. Small sample size

2\. Inactive profiles

3\. These apps actually adjust the profiles you see based on your
attractiveness level. I know they at least categorize attractiveness because
I've had this experience when Bumble seemingly had a bug where I would
suddenly get a ton of profiles that were clearly super-attractive people, then
get a bunch of profiles that were clearly the exact opposite (no profile
images, dark or random pictures, and :ahem: not so conventionally attractive
people).

However, the general point stands: The majority of women will like a minority
of men on these apps. As such, as a man, if you want to make this work for
you, the basic strategy is to get as highly attractive pictures of you as
possible (professional if you can) and pictures of you doing various
interesting activities (as opposed to just vanity shots). Then, keep swiping
right and follow up on all matches. But don't make this your only source of
meeting women, as others suggested, spend a lot of time in places where you
can meet women in real life.

~~~
T2_t2
So you have an issue with his methodology, and then propose... anecdotal
evidence? Hmm...

------
j_s
The methodology shows the position of power that companies collecting data
inevitably leverage:

 _Tinder doesn 't supply any statistics or analytics about member usage so I
had to collect this data myself. The most important data I needed was the
percent of men that these females tended to “like”. I collected this data by
interviewing females who had “liked” a fake Tinder profile I set up. I asked
them each several questions about their Tinder usage while they thought they
were talking to an attractive male who was interested in them. Lying in this
way is ethically questionable at best (and highly entertaining), but,
unfortunately I had no other way to get the required data._

Netflix's recently released (Dec 29) Black Mirror season 4 episode 4
"[explored] Tinder and Siri-like technologies":
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_the_DJ_(Black_Mirror)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hang_the_DJ_\(Black_Mirror\))

~~~
sulam
Put yourself in situations where the people you’re attracted to have to spend
a fair amount of time talking with you. Initial snap judgements can be
overcome after a few hours of interaction. You probably won’t be able to date
a celebrity this way (although if you live in LA and work in the film
industry, I will adjust my probabilities) — but you can absolutely meet and
date attractive people that way.

(Why’d you edit out your question? I thought it was interesting!)

~~~
j_s
Thanks, I briefly considered consulting the HN hive mind for alternatives that
were not "wasting [...] time" but chose to avoid going off the rails as coming
anywhere near "dating tips" often has here in the past. Didn't mean to leave
you hanging like that... I guess I need to spend a bit more time before
clicking 'add comment' on rising stories.

My personal recommendation sounds like a specific subset of yours -- meet
people by volunteering, expecting to learn from rejection as the initiator.
In-person interaction can overcome the specific shortfall that is the primary
topic of this discussion - getting _/ giving(!)_ a chance orthogonally to
attractiveness. The volunteering bit provides a framework for shared direction
and is beneficial well beyond meeting strangers (don't volunteer solely to
start relationships!). This comment covered some caveats:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16041801](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16041801)

------
ellius
Anecdotally, I don’t think this is true. I was married just before Tinder
became a thing, but I have several friends in their mid-to-late twenties who
did and still do use it. I know three people who used it to meet their future
wives, all of whom are maybe slightly above average attractiveness, and one
friend who is frankly very far below average, but has slept with dozens of
women (I believe over 50 at this point) by using it. I’m not suggesting any of
that is good, bad, whatever, but there are at least four counterexamples all
of whom I’d say were happy with the results of using it.

------
jhiska
>Tinder doesn't supply any statistics or analytics about member usage so I had
to collect this data myself. The most important data I needed was the percent
of men that these females tended to “like”. I collected this data by
interviewing females who had “liked” a fake Tinder profile I set up. I asked
them each several questions about their Tinder usage while they thought they
were talking to an attractive male who was interested in them. Lying in this
way is ethically questionable at best (and highly entertaining), but,
unfortunately I had no other way to get the required data.

Unreliable conclusions derived from unreliable "data" that was obtained
unethically (and probably illegally; did the pictured guys knew their picture
was being used?).

We're back at "my guess is as good as any other".

------
zimablue
This is just empirically false, I'm wondering where they made the error. Are
they excluding the way that the algorithm matches people? So that if you're in
the bottom X% men you're eventually only shown to corresponding bottom X%
girls, so that it doesn't feel like you have the low success rate that you
would do vs the general population.

~~~
matt-attack
Theres an algorithm on Tinder? I thought it simply connected people who
mutually approved of/liked each other. What more is there?

~~~
bichiliad
That's true, but I'm sure there's also an ordering algorithm that optimizes
for engagement (i.e. it'll show you people with high scoring profiles first if
you haven't been on the app in a while)

------
TheAdamAndChe
I find it interesting how many people on this site accept the natural gender
imbalances between men and women when it comes to dating, yet don't believe
these differences extend beyond relationships into things like career choice
or leadership seeking tendencies. Why do you think this is?

~~~
darpa_escapee
> yet don't believe these differences extend beyond relationships into things
> like career choice or leadership seeking tendencies

What evidence can you provide that would lead someone to believe this?

------
firethief
> I have to assume that in general females find the same men attractive. I
> think this is the biggest flaw in this analysis, but currently there is no
> other way to analyze the data.

This seems like little more than an exploration of the ramifications of that
massive assumption. It would only take a small amount of variation in
preferences to make the concept of a "top 20%" inapplicable.

------
forkLding
This is a shameless plug, but I created an IOS dating service based on your
facebook friends, close mutual friends and soon to add people around you
within 100m radius and you would meet at events so basically operates as
similar as to people you would actually like and meet in real life, later on
will provide searching people capabilities instead of swiping.

Please do check it out if you're interested and provide feedback. Anything is
appreciated!

Heres the appstore link: appsto.re/ca/SfGTib.i

~~~
cdcarter
I just warn you to remember the downfall of "People you may know" ... if
there's somebody that I have 500 mutual friends with, theres a good chance I
know them and am not a friend for a reason.

~~~
forkLding
Yep, understand. Thanks for the feedback.

Its more about actual intimacy because harder to find a connection using
Tinder because communication is first about building up intimacy whereas
people you may know tend to have more of an earlier connection.

------
orasis
“the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are competing for the
bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing for the top 20% of
men.”

Female sexual selection is a powerful force that creates the male dominance
hierarchy.

~~~
zbentley
Citation needed.

Hell, for a claim that suspect and borderline hostile, _multiple, peer-
reviewed and reproducible_ citations, plural, needed.

~~~
orasis
Where do you think male dominance hierarchies come from?

------
MollyR
Isn't it just supply and demand.

I know very few women on tinder, but most of my single guy friends are on it.

~~~
nilkn
I don't think it's this simple. There are actually many women on Tinder.

The reality is women are creeped out by many men on dating sites and apps. If
you don't believe me, go talk to some women and ask them about their
experiences. Or go read the /r/creepypms subreddit, which isn't just concerned
with online dating but shows you what women have to deal with online.

This pushes them towards only interacting with the most attractive and witty
men who create a sense of safety. Whether that sense of safety is false is up
for debate, but I do think this is what drives a large amount of inequality in
online dating. Men are generally not scared of or creeped out by women they
interact with online, so their standards online are closer to their standards
in real-life.

~~~
brazzy
No idea if it's true, but a commonly heard thing is that most women are on
Tinder not with the intention of ever meeting someone via it, instead they
(consciously or subconsciously( use it as an ego boost.

~~~
foepys
I also know two women who do exactly that. No man I know is on Tinder etc. for
boosting his ego. The odds are incredibly stacked against men, even if the
male/female ratio is even.

------
_greim_
This seems to go against the popular notion that men tend to value visual
signals of attractiveness, whereas women tend to value non-visual signals of
attractiveness.

It's been a long time since I took Psych 101. Does anyone know, has this idea
ever been discredited, from a statistical standpoint?

I guess the discrepancy could also be caused by selection effects, i.e. what
kind of people use Tinder, and/or what frame of mind are they in when they use
it.

~~~
rflrob
The sheer conventional-ness of that idea makes me doubt it (but I don’t know
of any data one way or the other), but the article doesn’t strongly contradict
or support the idea that women tend to be interested in “non-physical”
attributes. There are visual signals of wealth/socio-economic status that you
can send with a picture as well. All you need to posit is that there is some
kind of attractiveness signaling you can do with a photo, and then the next
step (not taken here) is to figure out what that is.

------
expertentipp
Does Tinder catalyze any real life hookups at all? At best it's an awkward
chat. Over here it's simply fake profiles (I'm a man, looking for a woman).
Various creeps, scammers, "researchers" fishing for god knows what. The
profiles are insolent - one profile photo no description, photo of a computer
screen, "I'm lost, new in the city, show me around" descriptions. It's quite
obvious that there is no woman behind the profile. The few "real" profiles are
oftentimes connected with Instagram profile - coverage of the person's
gym/professional activities, the profile is basically part of person's online
brand/presence and in this case the real life hookup is not the goal either.

~~~
chillacy
I've met plenty of couples who met on tinder, so it does for sure. If you're
having a bunch of awkward chats, I dunno, look up some example chats on reddit
and see if that's different than what you're doing or if you just perceive all
chats as awkward.

~~~
expertentipp
I hope women look up the chats on reddit as well and will know how to proceed!

------
aaron-lebo
Any guy who complains about their attractiveness being the limiting factor is
relying too much on that. I've got a friend who is a handsome guy but is not
"hot" and he's basically a hobbit, but he's gone on half a dozen or more dates
trough Tinder and has no problem matching and talking to women because he's a
funny and considerate and talented guy and it is obvious.

If you're having trouble with matches, maybe you aren't very interesting, or
you don't signal it in the right way. Quit complaining and get to work.

~~~
TheCoelacanth
It doesn't specify that "attractiveness" is limited only to physical
appearance. It defines attractiveness based solely on what portion of women
swipe right, so by that definition your friend would probably qualify as above
average attractiveness.

------
jschwartzi
I wonder if the results hold when you're a man looking for other men? I've
heard anecdotes from queer friends that online dating apps give them tons of
potential dates and hook-ups. I've personally had more success with women that
I've met in person, but when I've looked for men on Tinder I've been much more
likely to get a match than with women.

~~~
dawhizkid
Probably true...I'm gay and have ~2500 matches on Tinder while being pretty
discerning (I swipe right maybe 10% of the time). Also agree that if you are
just looking for a "hookup" being gay makes it many times easier to do that.

Being gay these days pretty great, for many reasons. Almost all of my
perceived downsides I felt growing up w.r.t social stigma/discrimination have
been mostly eliminated in my day-to-day.

------
mclightning
If you are worried about wasting your time, go for Tinder Gold. Then you don't
need to swipe anymore. Just pick from who likes you.

------
shironineja
This is why we need Hang the DJ.

------
IdontRememberIt
These figures really depend on the region/country and the class age. In some
class ages (older) and region/country (more conservative), the figures tend to
go in favore of the men.

------
Schiphol
On the other hand, if you are a woman Tinder is an unbeatable proposition.

------
poisonarena
here in Colombia it is a really only a vehicle for prepagos(prostitutes)..

------
evo_9
I have an idea for a new twist on a dating site that I don't have the
time/energy to write... if anyone is interested in working on this PM me and
we can discuss. Bonus if you live in Denver/Boulder area.

~~~
Chris2048
How will anyone know if they are interested if you don't write it?

~~~
evo_9
So people can’t be bothered to pm me yet I should toss out a side project idea
I can just as easily crank out in my own should I decide too? And I’m
downvotes because I prefer to keep this private? Fucking unreal.

~~~
Chris2048
Yes. What does the fact you could do it on your own matter? You can't be
bothered to even describe your idea. Why should anyone care to pm You? You
never said you wanted to keep it private, you explicitly said your couldn't be
bothered to describe it...

~~~
chillacy
It's definitely a filtering strategy that scammers use to filter out all but
the easiest to dupe (hence why Nigerian Prince scams are so obvious).

[http://www.businessinsider.com/why-nigerian-scam-emails-
are-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/why-nigerian-scam-emails-are-
obvious-2014-5)

By making the opportunity purposefully vague, only those who are extremely
open to the opportunity (or desperate) would send a PM. Not sure if it ever
works, but the internet is a big place.

------
CommieBobDole
I'm a little suspicious of the way he keeps referring to men as "men" and
women as "females" in the same sentence.

~~~
bonniemuffin
In general the word "females" makes me think of Ferengi and redpillers in a
very off-putting way, but maybe it's normal in the academic econ literature.

~~~
CamelCaseName
Definitely not. I was chewed out on two separate occasions in my Econ
undergrad for using "men" and "females".

------
nkkollaw
My friends have a lot of success on Tinder. Both guys use it to find one-
night-stands, and women to find friends with benefits or one-night-stands.

It is definitely not a dating app where you'll easily find someone to marry,
but like anything else.

------
empath75
This article comes across as extremely creepy and catfishing people on social
networks for ‘research’ is not okay.

------
mirimir
But here's the thing. You don't actually want relationships with people who
are choosing based on appearance.

------
iothetiger
Even if you are really hot you are wasting your time.

------
kerpele
As far as I know men behave the same way and thus this article comes across as
misogynous as it tries to portray women as being unfair or something.

------
nasredin
>It was determined that the bottom 80% of men (in terms of attractiveness) are
competing for the bottom 22% of women and the top 78% of women are competing
for the top 20% of men. The Gini coefficient for the Tinder economy based on
“like” percentages was calculated to be 0.58. This means that the Tinder
economy has more inequality than 95.1% of all the world’s national economies.

95%?

So there's still a chance! Men are not going to give up that easily.

No citation needed.

Also his sample size of 27 and self-reporting makes this not very rigorous(?).

