I have done dating startups few times, even went on 1+ dates a day for six months and on each actively tried to understand how people date; in my experience, people are highly random, rarely reach anywhere near a significant sample, and tend to focus of characteristics of an individual instead of characteristics related to relationships.
If I was to do another social platform that supports dating, it would be one that’s friendly first, dating second. Reason being that in my experience people don’t understand that they wrongly focus on attributes of individual when looking for a relationship instead of looking at the individual’s relationship attributes.
Individuals attributes are things like: attractiveness, age, hobbies, finances, religion, race, profession, etc.
Relationship attributes are things like: communication, engagement, supportiveness, helpfulness, honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, empathy, compassion, availability, reliability, consistency, mindfulness, openness, receptiveness, contribution, etc.
The relationship attributes apply platonic and non-platonic relationships — but are much better predictors of non-platonic relationship success long term than the individual attributes.
I'll take the hardest pass ever on a "dating startup" that tells me I shouldn't care about the attractiveness, age, or finances of a potential partner.
It’s not that they don’t matter, but that they’re significantly less important than if a person is actually has strong relationship attributes — all of which are measurable via platonic relationships. Most dating platforms as is are extremely hostile to their customers actually finding real relationships, since as soon as they do, by definition, they’re no longer customers; for a friend’s first platform, they would not be the case.
You're not wrong that dating platforms are like that (Tinder, I think being the most obvious) -- and you seem to have direct experience with this -- but suggesting that people start platonically is very ... Sunday church style.
I guess everyone is different, but for me relationships that start out platonically...end up platonic. If nothing happens in the first 3-5 dates...nothing ever will really. I realize that's part of "dating" culture too -- but there is also something behind it -- if I'm REALLY attracted to someone, I'll put the moves on earlier (or they will etc).
What I have had good success in -- and there is something to this I believe -- is meeting romantic partners in similar interest social circles that appeal to both (or however many there are now) genders. You meetup with others of similar interest for a couple of hours once a week, natural attraction forms, if both are interested the independent romantic meeting will happen naturally. The dating nature of it is all -- hidden (and in fact I didn't go into these meetings planning to date anyways).
It's hard to bottle that up exactly into an app though.
Actually, I don’t agree with the whole date friends of friends or joining an existing social group is a good approach, or at the very least, it has pros and cons. When dating from a pool of like that, people tend to act significantly different and if short term relationship fails to become long term relationship, it generally has a negative impact on one of the individuals and/or group.
> When dating from a pool of like that, people tend to act significantly different
Can you expand on this? Because the only thing I have in mind is that it's actually beneficial to meet people from such groups, compared to apps, or clubs/bars/parties. I had way better experiences in those friends groups than in the other places, even when it's just the types of rejections you receive.
I agree with the second statement, that it is more awkward in a friends group when a short relationship is over, compared to not meeting someone any more you only know from an app.
I agree with you, but read what I said again and understand I'm not suggesting dating friends of friends or known social circles.
You need to date kind of "anonymously" (to avoid exactly what you are talking about), but with people that have similar interests. So in short form I'm talking about meeting up with people of similar hobbies or interests (rock climbing, board gaming, going to raves, whatever)
They're not less important, they're table stakes. Is there wiggle room, sure. Maybe sometimes people are capable of being a little more flexible on these things than they realize.
But for example, I think this is true of just about everyone: there's an age range that they're willing to date within, and outside of that range, everyone is a hard pass.
I wouldn't date someone who was twice my age, no matter how great their personality was, it's an absolute no.
Similarly if we use BMI as a proxy for attractiveness. This one may be a little more controversial but I suspect just about everyone has a BMI range they are comfortable with, and if someone is far enough outside of that range, there is no chance, no matter what anyone says, that you are going to date them.
I agree that most dating platforms are hostile to their customers but I think the issues there run much deeper. They all have incentives to _keep you engaged with their platform for as long as possible_, that is how they make the most money. They don't make money by finding you a partner. They are really just social media that can charge a monthly membership fee.
I don't see OP arguing against people having those preferences, only that focusing on those attributes will lead to a lower likelihood of successfully finding a relationship
A relationship where one or more participants are unempathetic and uncommunicative is at higher risk of ending than one on the other side of the spectrum, regardless of how attractive each of the partners are
Agree, though it’s not just that focusing that having relationship skills is a predictor of long term success in relationships, but that people that focus first on non-relationship skills tend to also have poor relationship skills.
Beyond that, main thesis is that relationships skills are largely shared between platonic and non-platonic relationships and that if there was a social network where 50% or more of relationships were based on platonic relationships, that there “relationship score” would be baked into evaluation for potential dates; basically, unless you had significant non-platonic relationship score, you would not be able to unlock dating on the platform and as result, it would be a friends first network; though to be clear, once dating was unlocked as result of achieving a meaningful “relationship score” users would be able to just go on dates.
What I don’t hear you acknowledging is that partners without relationships skills are significantly less likely to last — or for that matter, that you even value relationships skills. If you don’t, that’s fine, but you to me are both missing my core point and also in my opinion much less likely to actually end up in a meaningful relationship.
You aren't hearing me acknowledge those things because I have not agreed to enter into a relationship with you where you coach me, or frankly one where you have any involvement in my personal life whatsoever. I am not interested in having that with you, so please do not presume.
This is a forum for hackers and entrepreneurs. You are an entrepreneur who has run a string of dating startups. I am informing you about the preferences which exist in this market. You believe these preferences to be wrong. I think there may be business advantage for you in recognizing that those preferences are real and not wrong.
In my experience the only apps that I found helping people feel less lonely, finding partner and friends, have been couchsurfing (now paid) and Meetup.
In my 2nd tier spanish city Id say it's a great success.
In other cities I've heard every meetup group feels like a business, but here it's language exchange, going to eat something, museums, etc.
Apparently it's a bit pricey for group hosts.
In my particular case I was stuck with friends that do nothing at all. Got into meetups and met a lot of new people, allways have plans, and just met an Italian girl who may develop (or not) into a relationship.
I've been in Tinder for years. Im ok looking and I get dates from time to time and it's not even close. It always felt shallow and I had to force myself throufh it, as the experience is pretty meh.
I hope Meetup doesn't become another bussiness like Couchsurfing, trying to milk the community and destroying it in the process.
Edit: Creeps can also destroy groups. I've seet it happen, and I guess that's more of a problem in other larger cities, but there are some men out there that make people, specially women, really uncomfortable.
Neither Couch Surfer, nor Meetup are designed for dating — and in my experience anyone using them for dating has a negative impact on there intended use. In the case of Meetup, there are dating groups, but in my experience those are a waste of time.
You don't have to use them for dating to feel less lonely. You can use them to build up a network of friends and have relationships form more organically. Weren't you also the user posting about a friends first approach? This seems like the closest thing to that.
Used to attended wide variety of Meetups and used Couch Surfer too. It’s pretty obvious when people are attending or using a platform for dating, though they rarely say so. For example, hosts that only host attractive females on Couch Surfer. Or meetups where attendees leave if there’s no attractive female that are in attendance or only talk to the attractive females. Even females that are interested in dating are easy to spot too in my experience. — Very rarely are people that are interested in dating taking a friends first approach, it’s time consuming, and to my knowledge no platform that enables users to build a “friend reputation score” based on users rating them.
I remember someone writing an article about becoming a couchsurfing host to have one-night stands. By the end of the first summer the dude
- learned how to reliably tell if his guest was willing to sleep with her hosts before inviting her
- came up with a rehearsed tour of the city, complete with a spontaneous romantic lunch in a hidden gem of a cafe (with a reliable poker-face waiter)
- ironed out the kinks in the "from the front door to the bedroom" follow-up routine
Also relatively easy to spot hosts like this if you know how — though platform oddly doesn’t actively ban users doing this.
Honestly, I don’t think a lot of users understand how potentially dangerous some online services are or for that matter, how to manage or recognize risks; not to mention platforms generally hide their risks, since it impacts user engagement.
Anything that you do "for dating" usually goes south because it will be by definition forced. The above comment said instead going to meetups for museum visits, dining, basically sharing experiences, opening yourself to new.
Not really true, but is true that it’s highly random and takes a large sample in my experience to actually find someone.
In my experience, all the event types mentioned are largely attended by single people looking for dates. Even the language exchange groups, which have a highly specific and functional intent, tend to be single oriented.
On the flipside, if platform attempted to enforce maintaining 50/50 balance of user base that’s single or not single and explicit forbids users mentioning dating unless they are above a predefined “friend score” — it would remove a lot of people that are not interested in relationship attributes.
"One 19-year-old women says that she’s looking for mutual respect in a relationship and someone who approaches issues with an open mind."
And probably a dozen other things. Self reporting is very hard for this type of thing. Theynshould probably have surveyed ex-partners and prior dates to get both sides of the story. In my experience, most of the time when a woman says she wants you to have an open mind, it means she wants you to agree with her because her mind is already made up. Respectful disagreement is unfathomable because it could invalidate or compete with her position.
As a counter point, having gone on 100s of dates and met 10s of thousands of people in real life, in my experience people that mention open mindedness as a desirable attribute tend to mean it, at least as it relates to those who do not mention it.
Sure, the subset of people mentioning any trait is more likely to want that trait than the subset who doesn't mention it. But that doesn't mean the individual is accurately self evaluating what they want, especially when it comes to intangible things like open-mindedness. I assume preferenced on physical/tangible traits are more consistent between stated preference and reality.
Agree. Most obvious example being people’s self evaluation of attractiveness relative to their evaluation of another person’s attractiveness. That said, pretty easy to tell if someone humble, pragmatic, etc — just by engaging them.
No, vast amounts of people that see being open minded as a negative predictor of a desirable attribute. If I had to guess, your sampling is biased. For example, someone dating in a rural region would have much less success sharing that they’re open minded, since it’s not a cultural norm.
You do understand that this reasoning cuts both ways. It is much more likely (and mainstream) for the man in the relationship to not tolerate views from their partner that could invalidate or compete with his position, to paraphrase your words.
As an example, respectful disagreement with the man in a relationship is explicitly discouraged by conservative Christianity. Women are encouraged to have "loving submission" to their husbands. Just Google "biblical meaning of submission in marriage" if you want a citation.
Here's the first result when I googled "biblical meaning of submission in marriage":
"Submission in marriage means selflessness, service, accountability, and respect for your partner, which should be mutual; it is not slavery or a woman's call to lose her voice. The fundamental rubric on which The Christian marriage is built is love, and love is anything but the desire to control."
"You do understand that this reasoning cuts both ways."
I understand that.
How common is that form of conservative Christianity? Most Christians I know (who are not Amish, but they wouldn't use these sites anyways) do not follow that interpretation of the Bible, but rather believe the meaning of the stories to be that each person should be devoted to each other and listen to each other's perspective (the story mentions husbands treating their wives kindly, but the only way to really do that is to listen).
Yes, I concede that was not a good rhetorical point to make.
My reaction to the parent comment came from my feeling that men expecting their girlfriends to never confront them or disagree, especially in public, is a much more common, and generally accepted, dynamic.
The fundamentalist interpretation, as I understand, is that husband and wife should be devoted to each other but the husband's authority is final, and a kind of tie breaker in a disagreement.
Americans (younger ones anyways), simply don't seem to know how to date to put it bluntly. I've been on Tinder in the US and to a lesser extent Canada, and everyone is hyper demanding and -- particularly women lately -- demand that the other person "proves" this or that (how cool they are, or how worthy of being paid attention to, etc). For hookups Tinder isn't bad, but for relationships it should be avoided at all costs, especially if you are somewhat docile. :P
Badoo and OKCupid are somehwhat better.
In other countries (Europe and Asia say), people date more normally - or as you would expect. "You seem nice, want to meet for coffee?" / "Sure."
Thing with OkCupid is people refuse to actually practice the science of relationships. For example, they repeatedly were able to show blind dates produce better results, but the user base refused to participate in blind dates. At the point you’re cherry picking and reading dating science as entertainment or to back one off patterns that meet your desired outcome, that’s opposite of what the authors intended.
Well say you're into fitness, you'd probably wanna date someone a bit more active. But I agree that the plus size woman could have a great personality.
Dating is bullshit, online dating is bullshit squared. It's like this game where you have to carefully scrutinize the other person while hiding your own flaws and not letting on that you are carefully scrutinizing them. It's stressful in the way job interviews are stressful.
I only got married because I knew my wife really well -- for decades beforehand -- and so our relationship benefits from a sort of Lindy effect.
The results of the survey this article is based on seems to be nonsense. The numbers for women and men in each category should more or less match, unless there were a huge difference in same-sex or one-to-many relationsships or in the absolute numbers of male vs female, which seems implausible.
I saw that top for the number of single men vs single women, especially considering that women account for 51% of the population. I wonder if there was selection bias, or even if there could be some participants lying due to embarrassment of being single. Although your same-sex and multi relationship thing could be worth looking into. I don't know the numbers, but anecdotally I know way more lesbian women than gay men. And it's a trope that couple look for unicorns (indicating demand).
There could be differences in definition between two groups, such as who considers themselves to be in a committed relationship. However, I agree that it appears they have some sampling problems. Also, the methodology is not apparent aside from sample size and I couldn't find it anywhere.
For me the most interesting thing was that generally Republican men and women are measurably more satisfied then their Democratic counterparts.
Is it because Republicans generally value family values and staying in stable relationships more?
Also another interesting thing is Gen Z relying on Friendships rather than online dating to find their partners.
I think we have a generation fed up with algorithms and how shallow online partner selection can be.
I know somebody who made a small fortune by matchmaking her own brides catalogue. Like, not just organizing the get-togethers and technicalities, but actually working to know both sides and, well, match them on the person level. So by my 1-sized sample I would say human touch can still beat algorithms.
A poisoned-well "argument" has the following form:
1. Unfavorable information (be it true or false) about person A is presented by another. (e.g. "Before you listen to my opponent, may I remind you that he has been in jail")
2. Therefore, the claims made by person A will be false.
I didn't make any assumptions on the veracity of their data or claims. Think tanks are politically motivated groups whose work entirely revolves around shifting the public's and decision makers opinions. I don't think it hurts to add a disclaimer.
Do you post on liberal sources "Disclaimer: this comes from a liberal source" too? If you're not doing it uniformly, regardless of bias, then yes, you are poisoning the well.
There is far, far more reason to be worried about sources on the right than there is sources on the left. Right-aligned sources are much more likely to deny science, to skew information in a way that benefits corporate benefactors, and to contain bias against marginalized groups such as LGBTQ and even women.
Not sure I agree about the right being more likely to deny science, considering the way discussion around gender seems to work. I'm still trying to find out just how many there are, but nobody knows. Of course, we're not allowed to really discuss that though. Not sure that's very scientific..
No, I think if there is a clear bias from the source, you can also acknowledge that _and_ evaluate the piece itself. The source in this case has a clear conservative bias.
selection bias is omnipresent which is why everyone is welcome to add facts to the discussion, as in the case in courts and the scientific method, so that scientists and juries can come to their own independent judgments rather than relying on an Ordained Authority. In science, if there is not consensus, we loop and add more facts until there is.
You're being intellectually dishonest if you think "Disclaimer: this comes from a conservative organization" to the HN audience doesn't have a clear well-poisoning effect. Maybe you should stop and consider who you're really trying to convince by arguing otherwise.
It's a completely factual statement, and relevant in the context of the article. It doesn't claim that the same cannot be observed, or doesn't happen, somewhere else.
There are cultures in the world that are very dissimilar to the broader cultural landscape in the US. There are still many, for example, in which arranged or other family or community-oriented marriages take place, and these tend to not have as significant a focus on finding oneself a partner.
If I was to do another social platform that supports dating, it would be one that’s friendly first, dating second. Reason being that in my experience people don’t understand that they wrongly focus on attributes of individual when looking for a relationship instead of looking at the individual’s relationship attributes.
Individuals attributes are things like: attractiveness, age, hobbies, finances, religion, race, profession, etc.
Relationship attributes are things like: communication, engagement, supportiveness, helpfulness, honesty, trustworthiness, kindness, empathy, compassion, availability, reliability, consistency, mindfulness, openness, receptiveness, contribution, etc.
The relationship attributes apply platonic and non-platonic relationships — but are much better predictors of non-platonic relationship success long term than the individual attributes.