Why OKCupid sending users on bad dates was a good idea

[JackLuis]

Online daters continue to express outrage about the revelation that OkCupid has been experimenting on users by telling them they matched well with people they had nothing in common with to see if they still got on anyway. Many feel they have been treated like lab rats. OKCupid remains utterly unapologetic.

It would be nice to think that the dating site is the exception to the rule and that companies don’t generally cross the line of decency by experimenting on their users. But nothing could be further from the truth. Most websites you use will try out some kind of experiment on you at one time or another.

OKCupid was probably figuring that any date is enough to keep the subscription alive another month or so. Customer retention is key to such schemes.

Perhaps the real revelation from OkCupid’s testing is that its findings suggest that even bad matches could come together as happily as good matches. This implies that for the one in five relationships that reportedly started online, all that angst-ridden form-filling and hand wringing about profile pictures was not necessary. You may as well enlist a gang of orangutans to throw darts at passers by until they find you a mate. OkCupid does the service for you, producing less noise, less excrement and gets through significantly fewer bananas in the process.

OKCupid’s honesty about the testing and openness about the results is a sign that it has matured as a company. Perhaps you should go out and print a job lot of t-shirts that read “It’s OK, I’m a lab rat”. You never know, they might sell and you could start a business.

 

[StrangeLife]

Which leads into this discussion - maybe looking for a partner that's different from yourself is a much better idea than looking for a copy of yourself with opposite genitals.

 

[i_would]

There's always this saying: opposites attract.

Having a partner that's very different from you may pose a challenge, it's also giving a lot more to explore about one another, which is interesting as well. There's definitely something to say for it, both ways.

Now how to match people? That's always a big trick. Many such services go too far all the while trying to remain politically correct and all. I think it can be simplified to the following (maybe I should try to set up "yet another dating site" or so):
- similar religious views. Preferably same religion, if any, though that's not strictly necessary. For example setting up a Jew with a Christian or Christian with a Muslim is asking for trouble; both within the pairing, and from the outside world (Muslims are notriously intolerant when it comes to outsiders; a person must convert to Islam to marry a Muslim, or even to have anything like a romantic relationship).
- similar ages: the female no more than two years older and no more than 8, 10 years younger than the male (only considering heterosexual relations here).
- similar education levels, or the male higher than the female.
- geographic proximity, preferably living in the same town or even better same part of town. This is just practical.
- similar political views.

If the above are a match, there should be a reasonable chance for a lasting relationship. If any of the above is not met, it's going to be hard. Intentional left out in the list above are things like hobbies, general interests, field of work. Those may be both similar or dissimilar and either way work out well.

 

[StrangeLife]

There's always this saying: opposites attract.

Having a partner that's very different from you may pose a challenge, it's also giving a lot more to explore about one another, which is interesting as well. There's definitely something to say for it, both ways.

Now how to match people? That's always a big trick. Many such services go too far all the while trying to remain politically correct and all. I think it can be simplified to the following (maybe I should try to set up "yet another dating site" or so):
- similar religious views. Preferably same religion, if any, though that's not strictly necessary. For example setting up a Jew with a Christian or Christian with a Muslim is asking for trouble; both within the pairing, and from the outside world (Muslims are notriously intolerant when it comes to outsiders; a person must convert to Islam to marry a Muslim, or even to have anything like a romantic relationship).
- similar ages: the female no more than two years older and no more than 8, 10 years younger than the male (only considering heterosexual relations here).
- similar education levels, or the male higher than the female.
- geographic proximity, preferably living in the same town or even better same part of town. This is just practical.
- similar political views.

If the above are a match, there should be a reasonable chance for a lasting relationship. If any of the above is not met, it's going to be hard. Intentional left out in the list above are things like hobbies, general interests, field of work. Those may be both similar or dissimilar and either way work out well.

I disagree with pretty much all of those criterions, with the exception of the age difference (and even that can be cancelled out by the older partner being rich). I agree partly with the religious argument as well - if only one of the two parties is a devout muslim, it's best if it's the woman because muslim men tend to turn control-freakish when they get married.

On the other hand you missed the most important one: Looks.

 

[Hypoxia]

This suggests that as a treatment for loneliness, dating services have a placebo effect. It doesn't really matter WHO you're set-up with; it's enough that you're on a date and interacting with another.

 

[i_would]

I disagree with pretty much all of those criterions, with the exception of the age difference (and even that can be cancelled out by the older partner being rich). I agree partly with the religious argument as well - if only one of the two parties is a devout muslim, it's best if it's the woman because muslim men tend to turn control-freakish when they get married.

On the other hand you missed the most important one: Looks.

My criteria are based on what I've seen around me - how couples in general are made up. Also I've seen quite some research where it's found time and again that man are in general happy to marry down, not up (when it comes to age/status/education), women prefer to marry up. This is why there are so many single, high-educated women in well paid jobs.

Looks are important, but may be harder to quantify - at least you can't ask the member to rate themselves. As both parties are looking for a partner as good looking as possible, they tend to end up with a similar-quality partner. Say a butt ugly would be rated 1, and a supermodel 10, if someone themselves rate 7 they're likely to end up with a partner of rating 7 or thereabouts.

Religion has to do with outside pressure (mixed religions sure may work though it's harder), location is plain practical.

We're not looking here for criteria that COULD work (I'm myself in a mixed-religion (vaguely Christian vs. none), long-distance (about 10,000 km), multi-language (Chinese, English, Dutch) marriage and it works fine). But to give such couplings a high chance of working out when paired on such site, well, not really. The criteria that I gave are what I think will give the best chance to make semi-random couplings between members of a dating web site work out.

 

[TamLin01]

But OKCupid advertises a service: That it will help you find users who are (probably) more likely to be compatible with you. Exactly how closely we all hold them to that I guess depends on your point of view (not just about the site but about life in general), but I think it's fair to say that all users expected them to at least try to live up to the letter of the agreement. For them to actively go and do the inverse of what was advertised doesn't strike me as good business.

 

[i_would]

That for sure, it's not what they're supposed to do.

The results of the experiment should be pretty damning for OKCupid. If the result of those "bad matches" is about the same as that of the "good matches", there's something terribly wrong with all the effort put into making those matches to begin with.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

And in the midst of all of this I still couldn't get a date...

 

[Hypoxia]

And in the midst of all of this I still couldn't get a date...

Well, if you're a customer, now you know why.

 

[TheeGoatPig]

I don't even look at their percentages. I look for women that I find attractive and then I announce myself to them (until I was unemployed, I stopped announcing after that and just looked every couple of weeks). Trouble with OK Cupid for me is that most of the users that I see have been quite unattractive the last couple of years. I rarely see anyone I would want to go out with when looking anymore.

Maybe I should try that Metalhead dating site I saw an ad for the other week...

 

[lovecraft68]

Ok Cupid was at least trying to explore this idea of what has been referred to for years as "opposites attract" these other sites? Whatever. Yes you can let a computer match up people based on these tests but....

How many people lie on them? You answer a couple of questions falsely and you are not being paired with the "right" person.

I know couples who have met on e-harmony and seem happy, but end of the day the human element cannot be quantified and I think many people, men and women alike are settling, I have never seen a time where people ar5e so afraid of being single or alone even for a short period of time.

I've said before and will say again. No site, no person, after having spoken to my wife then myself at length would ever match us up together, but we have a great marriage you can't depend on machines that are driven by info inputted by humans to find your soulmate.

 

[i_would]

How many people lie on them? You answer a couple of questions falsely and you are not being paired with the "right" person.

This is why I think very few people lie in those questionnaires. Unless they intentionally want to be hooked up with "poor matches", however that doesn't make much sense. You have to pay for that site (I suppose - never used it myself), and to get the best value for money, i.e. the best dates, you'd better be truthful in your answers. Tell them what you really are, tell them what you really want, and they'll get you dates that really suit you. Or that's their promise at least.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

When did you hafta start paying for OK Cupid, it was all free when I was on there- as they all should be.

 

[Blind_Justice]

Which leads into this discussion - maybe looking for a partner that's different from yourself is a much better idea than looking for a copy of yourself with opposite genitals.

I don't think so. I've seen relationships break up because one half sooner or later forced a decision along the lines of "either your hobby/music/friends or me". My lady love and I are together for almost twenty years, and I'm positive that's in large parts thanks to the fact that we either share or at least respect the same things.

One of our friends from our regular D&D group fought for years with her husband because he didn't like her to play the game. I'm sure that it wasn't the ONLY reason she left him when she did, but when she crashed at our place, she told us that he actually tried locking her up so dhe wouldn't go to our weekly game.

One other friend of ours left his spouse when she tossed his video game system out of the house. I knew he played it not that much, especially once he met her, but one day he called, fuming, and informed me that she tossed his Xbox out of the window while he was at work.

So, maybe opposites attract and make people interesting for each other, but without a certain baseline compatibility, that alone is a poor basis for a long relationship.