An OKCupid experiment

[Kid_Charlemange]

I like to know how things work. And I'm a web professional. So... I guess it was natural that I'd try to dig a little deeper into OKC than most people would.

 

OKC is interesting because everyone gets to rate a profile -- or, more likely, the profile picture. 1-5 stars. OKC offers a paid option called "A-list," which gives you some extra tools and search options.

 

One thing I didn't know was that if you're A-list, you can sort by the 1-5 attractiveness rating. And you can even tell the internal email system to not even deliver the message if the other person is below a certain threshold; I couldn't figure out what was happening before that. As A-list, I could tell if someone read my message or not. So I'd send these utterly charming, carefully crafted messages and they'd never show up as "read." But I could see she'd been on the site today. WTF? Then I realized it... I was being filtered out. Oh dear.

 

Then I read about how you can probe the API to see what your rating is. I wasn't happy with the results... I'm 1.4 stars on a scale of 5. Ouch. Well, that explains that.

 

So I got curious. And I decided to try a little experiment.

 

I created another profile. Let's call him "Joe." Joe is my age and height, and lives one zip code away. We are remarkably similar, except that Joe isn't nearly as adept a writer (he has trouble with your/you're, for instance). I was also very careful to use a VPN or proxy server, and a different browser, to make sure the OKC server didn't note that we were the same person.

 

The major difference? I used photos of a friend of mine from San Diego -- with his permission (and his wife's). My friend is a good looking guy. Not a movie star, but pretty attractive. Most notably, he has a full head of hair, and I don't.

 

As myself, I messaged about 40 women. Joe messaged 40 women as well. We overlapped on 25 (again, to not make it look too suspicious).

 

These 25 were all rated from 3-5, according to OKC rating system.

 

Then I waited for the results. My messages were short, but usually included some detail about their profile; Joe's were a simple "You have a great smile and I love ur profile!" or something like that.

 

Of the 25, three replied to my messages. One was to say, politely, "I don't think we're a match." Seven never saw the message at all, presumably due to using the filters.

 

18 of 25 replied to Joe. The same 25, remember.

 

Joe also got notified that he is "hot" by the OKC server, meaning (I think) he has over 4 stars. Good for Joe.

 

Now this was clinical. I have since deleted both Joe's profile as well as my own (and started anew). And I never responded to any of the responses, either as me or Joe. My goal was not to mess with anyone, but to examine something that virtually all unattractive guys know: Looks DO matter. Several times, I have mentioned that some woman is "out of my league," only to get lambasted by friends for being "too negative."

 

"She looks like a frigging supermodel," I'd say, "Why waste her time -- and mine?"

 

"Dude, stop being down on yourself! What do you have to lose?" was often the reply. I'd shrug.

 

Now none of this is exactly a revelation to anyone who's ever, well, dated or spent any time thinking of the opposite sex: Attractive people look for other attractive people, in general. Duh. So all I did was prove it.

 

Now, I think in real life, this experiment falls apart. In person, people can exude charm, confidence, or even smell good, and get someone "out of their league" to notice them. Shucks, my ex was completely out of my league, for instance, but she dated me for two years and at one point we were talking about marriage. So yeah, it happens.

 

Online, however, where you basically have a fully customizable menu of traits and characteristics, plus the ratings of a few thousand strangers to tell you if you should even bother reading his little message? Not so much. I think OLD in general makes people a little more shallow, and I'm told that some women on OKC get up to 100 messages per day. It's only natural that they would screen out the ugly guys, if for no other reason than to avoid spending hours each day on the site!

 

Lesson learned: Don't spend a lot of time on the message itself; there is a strong possibility that it doesn't matter one bit...

[guest572]

You are messing with real peoples' lives here. Nice that you had fun with your experiment though. I am curious about how you found out what your own star rating is?

[GoreSP]

I know of more people with fake profiles than people with real profiles on OKC. No wonder OLD sucks so bad....

[Kid_Charlemange]

I think "messing with people's lives" is quite an overstatement.

 

As for the API, you can now look it up yourself; had you responded politely, I would have told you.... see how that works?

[Kid_Charlemange]

I disagree that using OLD is "resorting" at all. Some people have busy schedules, travel a lot, have family obligations, live in small towns, etc, etc. Millions of couples have met online and led happy lives. The canard that only the "desperate" use OLD is outdated, I think.

[aprilisi]

were the 25 women all rated between 3 to 5? A woman rated 1 to 2 might have been more likely to message you back.

[Kid_Charlemange]

were the 25 women all rated between 3 to 5?

 

Yes.

 

A woman rated 1 to 2 might have been more likely to message you back.

 

Probably so. But you can't easily filter for 1s and 2s, on 3, 4 or 5. Limitation of the software, which I've since figured out how to work around.

 

I would try it again, but I don't want to "ruin any more lives" nor be solely responsible for all the problems in online dating

Edited June 13, 2014 by Kid_Charlemange

[ascendotum]

I know of more people with fake profiles than people with real profiles on OKC. No wonder OLD sucks so bad....

 

lol. I know a few too. Guys doing tests like this, guys being jerks, women using a 2nd profile to spy on guys or try set them up.

 

OP - there was an article in WIRED (UK mag) back about 4 months that might interest you, about a nerd guy who gamed OKC to improve his chances. He had a database and all these scripts/profiles/scrapers run each night and would then analyze the results so he could build a better profile. He got a gf at the end of the project and told her what he did and she thought it was brilliant. Also had other stuff on what people hone in on on OLD. Both sexes over estimate their face and underestimate their physique when it comes to online attraction.

[Kid_Charlemange]

OP - there was an article in WIRED (UK mag) back about 4 months

 

I saw that! He's some kind of math genius. That was one of the reasons I tried this. Not that I'm comparing them; his was 10,000x more complex than mine...

 

How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love | Science | WIRED

 

Both sexes over estimate their face and underestimate their physique when it comes to online attraction.

 

I think you are quite correct. I've read (can't find it now) that people with full-body shots -- and who have nice bodies! -- get a great deal more responses. In my test, I matched up the photos almost exactly; I used my friend's fake photos and then shot ones of myself in pretty much the same positions. Was trying to eliminate variables.

[David87]

I like your experiment , it prove a strong point:)

[Kid_Charlemange]

I have just noticed that the more desirable women usually don't need to use it.

 

I guess I don't see people "needing" to use it. Again, that word makes it sound like they have no other choice. I think people choose to use it, as a matter of convenience.

 

I've met some very nice ladies online, and, in fact, married one of them about six years ago...

[guest572]

I think "messing with people's lives" is quite an overstatement.

 

As for the API, you can now look it up yourself; had you responded politely, I would have told you.... see how that works?

 

I responded with my honest opinion. You sound like a total douche. Wow I'm so regretful about being "impolite" to such a precious soul, now I will never find the secret puzzle piece.

[Col1]

OKC is interesting because everyone gets to rate a profile -- or, more likely, the profile picture. 1-5 stars. OKC offers a paid option called "A-list," which gives you some extra tools and search options.

 

 

What percentage of women are paying subscribers to OKC? I'm guessing most use it because it's free, and don't pay anything. Therefore they will not get the attractiveness filter.

 

One thing I didn't know was that if you're A-list, you can sort by the 1-5 attractiveness rating. And you can even tell the internal email system to not even deliver the message if the other person is below a certain threshold; I couldn't figure out what was happening before that. As A-list, I could tell if someone read my message or not. So I'd send these utterly charming, carefully crafted messages and they'd never show up as "read." But I could see she'd been on the site today. WTF? Then I realized it... I was being filtered out. Oh dear.

 

 

Probably a lot of those profiles you messaged were also created as experiments, and they never bothered checking all the messages.

[Lernaean_Hydra]

People use it because they don't/can't find what they're looking for elsewhere. Like I said, most of the desirable women I know find enough guys without using OLD. In fact, one of my female classmates laughed at me when she found out I used OLD and asked me why I would ever do that.

 

 

A lot of people use it beause they want to widen their dating pool and/or see what else is out there within a larger radius than they'd normally get around to traveling with any regularity. I live in one of the largest cities in America, in both population and geography. There are entire segments of the population I would never otherwise have gotten to know because we traveled in different circles, or lived a few dozens miles away from my usual haunts.

 

Using OLD says very little about someone's desirability, IMO, especially when you're living in major metropolitan areas like New York, San Fransisco, etc.

 

People will laugh, alright. They'll laugh right up until they're sitting home on Saturday nights because they've drained their immediate dating pool....

[sillyanswer]

So I got curious. And I decided to try a little experiment.

 

Oh. Another dating site experiment. Given the number of threads about these on here (and, of course, not everyone who conducts such an experiment would post about it), how many of the "women" you wrote to do you estimate to be fake/experimental accounts themselves? I'm guessing 15%.

 

Of the 25, three replied to my messages. One was to say, politely, "I don't think we're a match." Seven never saw the message at all, presumably due to using the filters.

 

By "never saw" do you mean that they didn't read the messages? Could it have been that they first looked at your photos and made a decision not to read them, as opposed to being based on filters?

[Baller25]

Of course facial aesthetics matter in a big way to women! If you think that women don't care about facial aesthetics then you've been reading too many PUA guides brah. You need to realize that self-help guides and men magazines need to let you think that facial aesthetics don't matter to women otherwise you will have a "what's the point" mentality.

 

When women fantasize about male celebrities their desire is obviously primarily based on the guy's face. When was the last time you ever heard a woman call a guy hot that wasn't facially aesthetic? Why do you think that there are guys 6'2"+ that say their height doesn't do them any favours with women? It's because they don't have good facial aesthetics.

 

OP, what exactly were you trying to gain from this experiment? I mean this is a curious way, not sounding to be negative.

[gaius]

You think the key to peaking a girls interest is letting her know you did the reading assignment she gave you?

[Targetlock]

As a OKC member i was unaware of the attractiveness filter, so how do you look up your own rating then?

[Kid_Charlemange]

You sound like a total douche.

 

Thanks for your input.

[central]

Figuring out the attractiveness filter is a very useful piece of information, at least for paying members, but I suppose a free member can be eliminated from contacting paid members because of it. Good to know.

 

I've long known that a good photo is key to OLD. If you are less attractive, your chances are greatly diminished. In that case, you have much better prospects in real life where personality can be discerned immediately.

 

I always did better with OLD, probably because in real life I'm more introverted. OLD let me make a connection and establish communication, so that things went much better when we met. I guess I wasn't perceived as unattractive to OLD prospects, hence my success there.

[Michelle ma Belle]

I guess I don't see people "needing" to use it. Again, that word makes it sound like they have no other choice. I think people choose to use it, as a matter of convenience.

 

People use it because they don't/can't find what they're looking for elsewhere. Like I said, most of the desirable women I know find enough guys without using OLD. In fact, one of my female classmates laughed at me when she found out I used OLD and asked me why I would ever do that.

 

 

 

I think the OLD landscape was much better 6 years ago than it is today. The OLD scene around here is full of women with touched up and edited photos judging guys solely on how good looking their pics are. The irony does not escape me.

 

It goes BOTH ways my friend...both ways and the irony does not escape me as well.

 

And I agree with you that the OLD landscape has changed in the last 6 years and it's only going to get worse. I'm not entirely convinced that there shouldn't be a "Use at Your Own Risk" warning on the landing page of every OLD site

[Kid_Charlemange]

Probably a lot of those profiles you messaged were also created as experiments, and they never bothered checking all the messages.

 

Is there any evidence to support this statement?

[Kid_Charlemange]

Could it have been that they first looked at your photos and made a decision not to read them, as opposed to being based on filters?

 

That's possible as well. Same result.

 

I searched for other posts about experiments before I posted this. Couldn't find one, but apparently they are rampant. Maybe you could point one out?

[Michelle ma Belle]

I for one, found the experiment interesting even if it wasn't earth shattering or something we already suspected long ago. It basically validated many of our own assumptions or suspicions if nothing else.

 

As far as the OP toying with women with his fake profile or that he in any way messed with innocent lives by his experiment, I don't think that's what happened at all. As a woman, I'm not offended by his experiment in the least. Perhaps if he continued to carry on multiple conversations with them, then yes, I would question his motives. As it was, it's just another day on the wacky world wide web known as OLD.

 

Besides, I very much doubt any of these women will even remember hunky Joe in 24 hours. There are just too many other tasty candies in the candy shop to try

[Gaeta]

I hate okcupid, and I hate it with a passion. I hate their environment, their set up, their profile setup, their 100s of questions, their match results, I hate it all.

 

They matched me once with some guy we had 98% match, him and I had nothing in common!! conversation was awkward, we had no common interests, the few times I used okcupid those matches were bogus.

 

Also, okcupid admin would send me messages telling me my profile was the most popular in it's category, yeah right! I had 3 messages in 1 month compared to POF 20 messages a day. How could my profile be the most popular with so few messages.

 

Anyway I stay away from it.