OkCupid Project Results: The Lazy Man's Economics of Online Dating

There have been many studies performed questioning the dynamics of dating. The human mating ritual is of particular interest to many researchers, possibly due to how infrequently they experience it firsthand. There have been many findings, most of them indicating that the males role in the process is primarily an aggressive one, but that the female role is the one actually in control in most encounters. This isn't counterintuitive; any man knows that his role in the early stages of the seduction ritual is primarily to approach and express interest. After that, it's simply a matter of her deciding if she's going to return that interest.

I recently conducted a relatively simple analysis of a popular online dating site. The attempt was to discover the inherent gender bias of the website, by utilizing two nearly identical profiles with identical screening criteria. What was discovered was more or less obvious, and the conclusions that can be drawn from it are equally obvious. When the idea was initially put into play my first thought was to show how utilizing dating sites is fundamentally harmful to both men and women. The more I look at the results, however, the less that seems to be the case.

The Study

The methodology of our study was simple. Myself and a female companion utilized our existing profiles, after coming to the conclusion that we are similar people, of roughly similar attractiveness, with similar profiles. This is by no means scientific. The second phase was to leave our accounts logged in for a full week, as the site possessed instant messaging functionality and the ability to determine when the user was last active. The final stage was that both of us sent out an identical message to twenty people who were between the ages of 22 and 30, had a certain match percentage with us, and had been online within 48 hours. We then cataloged the responses and random messages we received.

The results were unsurprising. My female counterpart received approximately 8 times as many unsolicited messages as I did, and approximately four times as many responses to the messages she sent out. Our respective success rates related to the number of responses we received was 75% for the female, and 15% for myself.

It can also be noted that the male responses to the female tended to be lengthy and thought out, while the female responses tended to consist of no more than two words, with a single exception. Those paying attention to the math will realize that two respondents only said "hi."

The Preliminary Conclusions

Online dating rewards aggressive females particularly well. With a 75% response rate, one could easily assume a fair amount of the respondents would not be opposed to meeting someone in person. As the fundamental standards of the male/female dating ritual apply, one could also assume that those men willing to go on dates would also be willing to continue the dating process, if the female indicated interest. An aggressive woman who wished to use online dating as a method of securing short-term or sex partners would find herself with an overwhelmingly large selection of men to choose from. The female is rewarded by being highly selective.

A man, on the other hand, is not particularly rewarded by any part of the online dating process. A response is rare, and frequently those persons that you message that you would most want to see a response from never do respond. This is unsurprising, as the primary role of the woman in an online dating site is to go through a selection process from the messages she receives and then make a selection as to those men that she's interested in, and respond to them. As a result, on an online dating site, the male is rewarded by not being selective at all.

Traditional biological roles support these findings. A woman possesses a limited number of eggs and fertility cycles, while a man is almost invariably fertile. Biologically, the male of the species is most likely to pass on his genetic code by fornicating with as many women as possible, while the female of the species is rewarded by being selective as to whom she fornicates with.

In a nutshell, the work involved in online dating for a male seeking a short-term reward is far beyond reasonable expectation. A male would have more success basing his selections in a socially uninhibited situation where the approach to response time is minimalized, and thus the mean time to reward is decreased. A female, on the other hand, is given no reason to recourse to any method other than online dating. In fact, one could theorize easily that her chances of finding a successful long-term mate through the online dating arena is actually decreased due to her own role in the process. She is presented with many good choices, and thus is likely to suffer from choice anxiety. It's difficult to make a final choice when enough options are presented.

Further Thoughts

Upon deeper consideration of the results, I came to a different conclusion than those stated above. I realized that online dating is actually most advantageous for the men participating. While the likelihood of their achieving success approaching those they find to be the most alluring is dramatically lower than the female, the chances of them actually succeeding in achieving short-term and long-term rewards for their efforts is actually increased. A woman who has already learned a great deal about a man, and chosen to communicate with him after he approaches her, is more likely to be amiable to a romantic or sexual encounter with said individuals. The man is not presented with a wide selection, so he merely has to do his best with those he has had early success with.

The man only has to approach as many women as possible, and do his best to prove to those he has initial success with that he is an ideal mate. The woman, on the other hand, has to deal with a very large selection and evaluate them critically using as much information as she has at hand. Eventually, she has to make a final decision.

In the end, for men there is no risk in online dating. The worst case scenario leaves you at square one. Women are presented with a great deal of choice anxiety, decision making, and fundamental vulnerability through the online dating process.

In conclusion, after erasing the better part of my profile after the initial results were in, and general dissatisfaction with the online dating process in general, I've determined that I need to pursue the online dating process more aggressively. It is a numbers game, and as long as I am sending messages only to those people I wouldn't mind going on a date with, I am presented with absolutely no risk.

Now I suppose I should go about rebuilding my profile.

The LA Times is Obviously Biased

Offering a history lesson on the 231st anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence from Britain, Bush said, "We were a small band of freedom-loving patriots taking on the most powerful empire in the world." It was not his intent, of course, to evoke a comparison with the Iraq war, but some Iraqis who oppose the continued presence of U.S. troops in their country have made similar arguments.

From: The LA Times

Updates, OkCupid.

It's been brought to my attention that if I'm wearing a t-shirt about blogging, I really should be doing more of it. So, now I am. I'll be making bi-weekly updates, at the least, from here on out. I will also continue the trend of this blog not being about personal business. I have no interest in life-blogging (or live-journaling) in this format. If you want that kind of crap you can stalk me on myspace.

I've just decided to undertake a great many projects; the first and foremost of these projects being a band with the name "You're Only As Awesome As You Think You Are." It should be a great deal of fun, expect our first CD to be released sometime between now and forever. I've also got a few photography projects on my plate in an idle state, and a recent project studying the obvious gender bias of OkCupid. I've decided that the site is almost 100% useless for men who are anything other than stunningly attractive with profiles highlighting their homemaking skills, whereas it tends to heavily favor women who have profiles that indicate they are highly selective and sexually liberated (promiscuous might be a better term, as far as profiles go).

It's obvious that any dating website is going to heavily favor women, but I think that this bias is even more heavily skewed on OkCupid. I intend to use the following method to get some numbers to look at, using both a male and female profile operator, acting upon a heterosexual basis:
1. Maintain an active login to OKC for a period no less than one week, IM enabled.
2. Log all IMs, messages, etc, that are not responses from people previously messaged.
3. Send out 20 messages to people sorted by Match % and Last Logon, log percentage of responses. Message will be essentially a generic form letter used by both sexes, and search parameters will only differ as to the sex of the intended matches.

The next phase, which may or may not be undertaken, is to change my profile to indicate that I am gay, and then follow the above procedure again with gay men.

Ethically, messaging people you don't intend to meet is kind of shady. I'm not planning on meeting anyone through this project, nor is my female counterpart in this operation. I will most certainly have to apologize if I end up encountering anybody who's more than a little bit interested at the end of the project. I hope they understand that I am only attempting to seduce them for the purposes of Science.