Deal Breakers for Online Dating
Standard methods of dating before the Internet came around lacked dating data. People met through recommendations of friends, family or meeting in public locations like bars. With online dating, signals and decisions that people use to find a match can now be studied more by a scientific process.
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According to a poll by Pew Research Center in 2016, 5% of Americans currently in a committed relationship admit to having met their partner through online dating. That's 30 million people with lots of data to be analyzed. All of this moment by moment interaction and judgment as people scroll through pages are swiped from left to right on their phones allows for an analysis of how people judge prospected mates.
Randomly selecting 1855 people based in New York City, data such as photographs, age, height, weight, education, marital status, number of children and smoking and drinking habits amount to 1.1 million interactions between users. How much do such factors matter when selecting a mate?
For the decisions we make in choosing, we come to dismiss some profiles, and look at others more closely. Then the decision to send personal messages is made, and whether to engage in successive replies with someone. Then the final decision to meet the person in the real world or not.
In the early stages of dating, deal breakers come first. Not including the photo in your profile makes it twice less likely to even be looked at. Smoking is another deal breaker with 10 times of a drop in interest.
And the biggest deal breaker is age for women, being 400 times less likely to browse a man's profile if they were significantly older. But that's not true for all ages. 20-year-old women were 10 times more likely to ignore men 10 years older. 45-year-old women more 10% more likely to browse the profile of men 55 years or older compared to men of their own age. For the opposite gender, men in their 40s tend to be interested in younger women.
Other factors include height, where women were 10 times more likely to browse a man's profile if they were 6 inches taller than her, with men being three times more likely to browse the woman if they also matched the same difference in height.
For weight, women tended to be more interested in heavier-set men, while men were less likely to browse the profile of a heavy woman.
Many sites don't have a search function for certain criteria, which means that the first level of deal breakers happens based on a person's appearance and not personal attributes which come second.
Have you ever tried online dating?
How did it turn out?
Are you engaging in these same criteria/deal-breakers to judge a prospective mate?
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2017-02-21, 12:02pm
@krnel
Yes, for 5 long years .. I was a serial net dater .. I met a few and went on meeting them again till I realized it's not what I'm looking for or its never going to work.
I met my hubby this way .. sparing the details though .. I have only seen him in the pic for months .. so I was wondering if he was a catfish but he was for real till I met him in person and actually fell in love but then the love factor must have been also influenced not just by his neat look but also due to the many personal stuff we know about each other back then.
Yes, I did... I remember writing it on my profile blatantly - no child desires, not a smoker, not a gambler, no huge bank debts, no drunkard , no religious intent or converting me to their beliefs , no meat eater wahahahah etc etc only 5 year older than I am can you imagine?
Awesome. That's how it's done, upfront, honest, tell people what you want, cut to the chase, don't waste time. I like it! Thanks for the feedback :)
@krnel cut to the chase indeed otherwise its a waste of time and energy
plus we all do "the natural selection" I think my way was just too straightforward but I got exactly what I want and then some - cause perfect doesn't exist but tailored does wahahahaha
Tailored is basically subjective perfection :)
@josephd if thats what you think you are right on that, too
Very interesting. I would say the advent of the Internet and online dating sites has definitely helped quantify the nature of love and coupling... there's far more science/research based evidence for what works (and doesn't) in what has traditionally been a totally feeling-based area.
Although I was briefly on a couple of dating sites some 20-odd years ago, I didn't really get deeply involved... I found the lack of honest self-presentation distressing. That said, I did meet my ex through the web, but it was as a result of conversations in a psychology forum we belonged to, not a dating site. Similarly, my wife and I reconnected through the web (a social blogging site) in 2003 and we're happily married. We knew each other as kids, and corresponded in college but lost touch... and then randomly found each other over comments on a blog post.
Deal breakers are interesting and slippery creatures. Smoking was one, for me... and yet, I am now married to a smoker. When everything else aligns perfectly, you sometimes end up with the "baby/bathwater" dilemma. In my case, I grew up around smokers (in Europe), was raised by smokers... even though I chose not to... so you just never know till actually facing choices, in the moment.
Well I guess smoking wasn't much of an issue for you. Maybe you're previous conditioning to accept it in earlier life through family influenced how you began to accept it again. At least if they smoked weed that would be one thing, but cigs are no good at all ;) The story of rekindling with a childhood friend and they are your "real love" (my opinion) after other failures is quite "romantic" hehe. Thanks for the feedback.
I met my wife @estibuil in an online dating service, it was totally random but now here we are 14 years later, with two beautifull children @aidancloquell and @urbandancegirl :)
Nice! Early in the days of the internet hehe.
Yeah pretty much, I remember seeying an ad on what used to be msn messenger, I clicked on it to see what online dating was all about, everyday I thank my lucky stars that that day happened, I would not have it any other way :)
Don't forget to check out my latest paid in steem post :) !
After the end of 14 years in committed relationship, I emerged to find that online dating had become a thing - and I was curious. Spent two years cavorting about (in central california at that time) using okcupid, which I found to be a highly entertaining process of self discovery apart from anything else. I got to date women outside of my normally accessible social circles with whom I would almost never have engaged - and that was a rich experience and learning process also. The algorithms and matching quotients were helpful but certainly not defining or accurate when it comes to chemistry of course - but definitely indicative of the prerequisites aka deal breakers...
Yes
Did not work for me. After 2 years, I gave up.
I ended up using an agency and I met my wife after I had seen 15 other ladies.
She was using the same agency and I was her first date.
We have been together for 9 years so far.
Damn, yeah sometimes they just don't work. Agencies and their hands-on human evaluation to match people can work out better like it did for you. Glad it did in your case :) Thanks for the feedback.
@krnel I tried it for a little bit a long time ago and found most just wanted to chat online for a period. I was way to impatient for that (let's just meet already)
I have gotten the vibe lately that my wife wishes she did online dating instead :(
Ouch, that sucks... Don't stay in a relationship that isn't mutual :(
@krnel Wise words, but it's all good! I was just sharing my twisted sense of humour :)
there you go, another great post by an expert @krnel - I mean this the way I write buddy! Upvoted!
Hehe, thanks ;)
I think I know all the dating sites but boring enough - met wife in real life without any social media links at all but a lot to fight for :-)
this post, reminds me of the beginning I met my wife. My first acquaintance with her through social media. finally we met and after two years later married. thank @krnel