There is a problem with attempts at making online dating work like
"real world" dating. I'll state my reasons for this belief up front:
I'm very happily in an almost two year relationship with somebody I've
met online (OKCupid) whom I could have never met in person. Before,
I've had a happy (even if not lasting) and amicably ending
relationships with other women whom I could have never met in person.
I'll use my anecdote as one archetype ("geek of one type, seeking a
geek of another") for whom online dating works very well. When I started
dating, I was 23 and working full time while atteding graduate school,
living in San Jose. Most of my fellow graduate students were already
in relationships. The idea of work place romance seemed scary to a new
comer both to dating and the work force. I had a very small and
limited friends circle.
My career, educational and financial situation meant that even if I
had time for social activities (I didn't), I'd have no ability to
relate to a (statistically) random person my age, irrespective of
their gender. They didn't have a stable job or attend graduate school,
they didn't live on their own.
The latter paragraph makes me sounds extremely shallow, but consider
this: it's not a good idea to have a [1] long term relationship to
somebody earning significantly less or significantly more than
you. For example, simple things that involve a money/time trade-off can
turn into cultural conflicts: for example, hunting 30 minutes for
street parking when you could pay $10 to park in a public parking
garage (or in a city, taking the bus instead of a cab). Dating somebody living with parents is difficult if you live alone; dating with somebody who expects you to go to happy hour when you're in class or working is also difficult.
([1] Another factor: I wanted a long term relationship at 23. Most men
my age didn't, leading women who were to almost automatically infer
that I "just wanted to get laid").
Finally, I also wanted somebody who was intellectually inclined. While
(for reasons I can't comprehend), most men are intimidated by
intelligent women, I wanted somebody who could be a great conversation
partner; who could discuss (non-computer) science, philosophy, music
and literature. I just didn't want to hide my geekyness from my
partner.
Online dating worked well in this way: I could meet women living in
San Francisco and Berkeley (which have a higher concentration of
single geek-o-phile women than San Jose), places where I wouldn't
"just spontenously" make a trip (given the distance). I only had to
send a few messages, as I could perform intelligent searches based on
match percentage and then further narrow down the results by actually
reading the profiles (something most men on dating sites don't quite do).
In some ways, you could argue I was engaging in what Adam Smith called
"hypergammy". In many cases, I felt the women I met were "out of my
league". However, that's completely silly: how can you know if you're
out of somebody's league, if you don't know what sport they're
playing? In fact, one woman whom I considered "out of my league" also
told me she considered me "out of her league".
Are there problems with online dating? Yes, of course. If you're curious to what that problem is, ask a woman who actually used an online dating site about what is in her mailbox. Fortunately, even a simplistic ranking algorithm (TF/IDF on the message based with the keywords of the recipient's profile to burry the generic "YO GURL UR SO HOT" messages -- from men who never bothered to read the profile of women they messaged) can help greatly reduce this. Helping people discover relevant content is a problem of algorithms (ranking content and finding meaningful patterns in it), systems programming (building the systems that could store, modify, retrieve and process the content in real time as opposed to in batch) and user interface (there's a whole discipline around this). OKCupid and EHarmony (I've never used it, but they happen to use an open source project I contribute to) are examples of at least getting some parts right. Problem is that they couldn't go outside of their niche (geeks in the case of OKCupid and -- in my perception, reality may be different - traditional, usually conservative/religious and heterosexual[2] people in the case of eHarmony).
([2]: I realize that this post is very"heteronormative", my apologies for this)
In short, online dating should really be called "online discovery of
people you can date". Real dating happens in person and the same rules
(e.g., "if you're a guy be nice, pay and open the door") apply. It's
just that you're exposed to people you might not be exposed to
otherwise (and you feel more confident when on a date with them: you know they're actually interested in you). Each side discovers something: I discovered that being a
programmer (doing something I have a deep passion for, doing creative
work) wasn't something I needed to hide and play down, while my dates
discovered that programmers can also have an interest in music,
neuroscience, philosophy and literature.
In short, making online dating based on offline social networks makes it nearly useless. Given the experience of Myspace and Friendster (as opposed non-dating based social networks like Facebook), it's a non starter from the get-go: male friends spamming your female friends ruin the "social network" part, the social network parts ruins the chance of any dating that wouldn't happen in real life happening due to the use of the site (why, then, use the site in the first place?)
Agree completely. I met my girlfriend on Match.com (after using Match and OkCupid casually for a year or so).
I sent tons of messages (in total) to girls I wasn't sure I had a chance with (heaven forbid I message someone "out of my league"), and now I'm dating someone awesome. I didn't have any problems with spam (maybe because I'm a guy or something about my profile), or false advertising; profiles are often all too transparent.
Dating sites suck, but they are different from real life in important ways.
I think it depends on what you mean by spamming. If you mean getting a bunch of bad messages from people, guys typically don't have that problem. A lot of girls on dating sites do though, which is one of the biggest ways they are broken. However, I've personally started to notice a lot of fake profiles on OkCupid. I know they're fake because I keep seeing the same pictures of girls with different written profiles or the same profile description (word for word) on profiles with different pictures. In my mind, this is a form of spam too, and it could get to be a problem that OkCupid needs to solve.
there is an affiliate marketing technique for dating websites, where "spammers" create fake profiles with bots which autorespond to the guys sending them messages.
These messages encourage the guy to join another dating site with an affiliate link.
They make lots of money, but really can ruin dating websites if not kept in check.
Well said. And totally agree about the problems of the "hypergamy" world-view (which I've also seen called 'ladders of attraction'). Some the best and richest relationships are the ones where both people feel the other is "out of their league," so why assume from the beginning that it's impossible?
While in theory a man's chances of finding a mate increase as his IQ increases, I'm not entirely convinced that women are attracted to raw intelligence either.
To essentially paraphrase "the trouble with genius" from Malcolm Gladwell's outliers, IQ is correlated with success but only up to a point. When two individuals have an IQ above roughly 125, practical intelligence ("socia skills") is often more predictive of success (and I am sure, especially of social success) than raw intelligence.
Good news, however, is that practical intelligence can be learned (with few exceptions such as Asperger's syndrome, but even in that case, there are coping strategies).
I'll use my anecdote as one archetype ("geek of one type, seeking a geek of another") for whom online dating works very well. When I started dating, I was 23 and working full time while atteding graduate school, living in San Jose. Most of my fellow graduate students were already in relationships. The idea of work place romance seemed scary to a new comer both to dating and the work force. I had a very small and limited friends circle.
My career, educational and financial situation meant that even if I had time for social activities (I didn't), I'd have no ability to relate to a (statistically) random person my age, irrespective of their gender. They didn't have a stable job or attend graduate school, they didn't live on their own.
The latter paragraph makes me sounds extremely shallow, but consider this: it's not a good idea to have a [1] long term relationship to somebody earning significantly less or significantly more than you. For example, simple things that involve a money/time trade-off can turn into cultural conflicts: for example, hunting 30 minutes for street parking when you could pay $10 to park in a public parking garage (or in a city, taking the bus instead of a cab). Dating somebody living with parents is difficult if you live alone; dating with somebody who expects you to go to happy hour when you're in class or working is also difficult.
([1] Another factor: I wanted a long term relationship at 23. Most men my age didn't, leading women who were to almost automatically infer that I "just wanted to get laid").
Finally, I also wanted somebody who was intellectually inclined. While (for reasons I can't comprehend), most men are intimidated by intelligent women, I wanted somebody who could be a great conversation partner; who could discuss (non-computer) science, philosophy, music and literature. I just didn't want to hide my geekyness from my partner.
Online dating worked well in this way: I could meet women living in San Francisco and Berkeley (which have a higher concentration of single geek-o-phile women than San Jose), places where I wouldn't "just spontenously" make a trip (given the distance). I only had to send a few messages, as I could perform intelligent searches based on match percentage and then further narrow down the results by actually reading the profiles (something most men on dating sites don't quite do).
In some ways, you could argue I was engaging in what Adam Smith called "hypergammy". In many cases, I felt the women I met were "out of my league". However, that's completely silly: how can you know if you're out of somebody's league, if you don't know what sport they're playing? In fact, one woman whom I considered "out of my league" also told me she considered me "out of her league".
Are there problems with online dating? Yes, of course. If you're curious to what that problem is, ask a woman who actually used an online dating site about what is in her mailbox. Fortunately, even a simplistic ranking algorithm (TF/IDF on the message based with the keywords of the recipient's profile to burry the generic "YO GURL UR SO HOT" messages -- from men who never bothered to read the profile of women they messaged) can help greatly reduce this. Helping people discover relevant content is a problem of algorithms (ranking content and finding meaningful patterns in it), systems programming (building the systems that could store, modify, retrieve and process the content in real time as opposed to in batch) and user interface (there's a whole discipline around this). OKCupid and EHarmony (I've never used it, but they happen to use an open source project I contribute to) are examples of at least getting some parts right. Problem is that they couldn't go outside of their niche (geeks in the case of OKCupid and -- in my perception, reality may be different - traditional, usually conservative/religious and heterosexual[2] people in the case of eHarmony).
([2]: I realize that this post is very"heteronormative", my apologies for this)
In short, online dating should really be called "online discovery of people you can date". Real dating happens in person and the same rules (e.g., "if you're a guy be nice, pay and open the door") apply. It's just that you're exposed to people you might not be exposed to otherwise (and you feel more confident when on a date with them: you know they're actually interested in you). Each side discovers something: I discovered that being a programmer (doing something I have a deep passion for, doing creative work) wasn't something I needed to hide and play down, while my dates discovered that programmers can also have an interest in music, neuroscience, philosophy and literature.
In short, making online dating based on offline social networks makes it nearly useless. Given the experience of Myspace and Friendster (as opposed non-dating based social networks like Facebook), it's a non starter from the get-go: male friends spamming your female friends ruin the "social network" part, the social network parts ruins the chance of any dating that wouldn't happen in real life happening due to the use of the site (why, then, use the site in the first place?)