[jsnk]

>The fact that the first stage of online dating is so heavily stacked in women’s favour doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s any easier for them, compared to men, to reach the end goal of pure love or perfect sex.

Of course, men have it harder than women in the mating game. This conclusion seems like a white lie the author created for women.

No one is looking for perfect mate. Both men and women choose their partners from whoever is available. If women got 20 times more messages than men do, then women's pool of mates to select is 20 times larger than that of men.

And even if some people happen to hold the notion of perfect mate, women still has a better chance of finding the perfect mate than men do.

With exception of special cases (maybe alpha males or older women), women on the average have is so much easier when it comes to finding their partner.

[mootothemax]

Of course, men have it harder than women in the mating game.

I think this is a myth. I wish years ago someone had told me all I needed to do was walk up to someone I found attractive and say "Hi, my name's Tom, how're you?" The day I started doing so, my dating life was revolutionised.

Actually, this applies to most situations: parties; conferences; seeing a new face at work.

With exception of special cases (maybe alpha males or older women), women on the average have is so much easier when it comes to finding their partner.

Again, I disagree; just like hiring someone, how do you sort through the cruft to find the jewel in X number of applications? I'm not talking about seeking perfection, just someone whose quirks - and we all have them - you can tolerate enough to enjoy a successful relationship.

[jaems33]

Eh, sort of.

I'd be interested to know your race and your height.

At the end of the day, women still have deal breakers regardless of your personality, boldness, income, skills, etc.

The reason why I think women have it easier is that they can both wait for someone to approach AND take the initiative and go up to a guy if they so choose. Whereas guys not named Ryan Gosling almost always must take the initiative.

[mootothemax]

I'd be interested to know your race and your height.

Pasty white with a beer gut that shrinks and grows according to the season, and somewhere around 5'10" or 5'11".

At the end of the day, women still have deal breakers regardless of your personality, boldness, income, skills, etc.

Are you saying that men don't? I think it's fair to say that everyone has deal breakers. Personally, I'm put off by people who judge others according to their income - or lack thereof.

The reason why I think women have it easier is that they can both wait for someone to approach AND take the initiative

You're right in that women are approached by guys far more often than the other way around. Given the number of unhappily single women out there though, sitting back and hoping doesn't seem to be a successful strategy.

[jaems33]

In terms of race, you have your choice of white women PLUS higher probability of success with other races (based on inter-racial marriages rates, OKCupid stats).

Then with height, you are about average, which is a good thing. You have your pick of women who are short or average height.

I realize everyone has deal-breakers but height and to some extent race for women are almost universal. It is extremely rare that a taller women will marry a shorter guy. I've travelled around the world many times, and count the one and only time I've seen a tall woman (6 ft) go out with a short guy (< 5'8): once in New York City. And statistically, white women are the least likely to date outside of their race.

Though I don't see how choosing a person based on their income is any less 'offensive' than visual superficialities. At least the former is somewhat based on merit. The fact that I worked my tail off in university and on the side to build up my skills so that I could earn a great living should be more of an attraction than say the fact that I inherited certain genes from my parents.

[chii]

"The fact that I worked my tail off in university and on the side to build up my skills so that I could earn a great living should be more of an attraction than say the fact that I inherited certain genes from my parents."

if only that were true - good genes almost always trumph hardworking mentality. Wealth can trumphs genes (but only if its vast amounts). In other words, good looks (which is an indication of good genes, not just good clothes etc), is highly desired. And rightly so, for the biological requirement of reproduction demands such selection.

[nostrademons]

You're familiar with the Stable Marriage Algorithm, right? The math doesn't bear you out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem

It's been proven that the algorithm is optimal for the initiators of proposals, i.e. men in contemporary Western culture, although women can hack this by asking guys out themselves.

The confusion is because you've artificially restricted the universe to a subset of its true size. Women's pool of mates to select from isn't 20 times larger than men, because men have already done a round of selection in deciding who to message. You don't actually message every single girl you see on OKCupid, do you? If you're fat or ugly as a woman, you're basically screwed (or rather, not screwed) in the mating game, because you become invisible to most men.

That's why I tell girls on the OKCupid Reddit that messaging guys can only help them. Once in a blue moon (as in once every month or two), I get an unsolicited message on OKC. A majority of the time, I don't reply. The thing is, I would never have messaged these girls to begin with, while occasionally I'll take a chance on a first date if their personality seems interesting, so they've only helped themselves.

It's also worth remembering that there are subsequent rounds of selection too. If women receive (on average) 20x more messages than men, it must mean that men send (on average) 20x more messages than women, since each message has exactly one sender and recipient. They're only going to end up with one girlfriend. So if those girls respond to their favorite guys, many of them will be culled out after the first date, third date, whenever. I've been on I think 16 first dates off OKCupid. I asked only about 3 of them out for a second date. Some (several?) of the remaining 13 probably were not interested in me anyway, but that's still a sizeable number of girls who did not get who they want.

[dalore]

Problem is that the stable marriage problem assumes that the number of women and men are the same which is clearly not the case for online dating. So yes the women's pool is larger by the fact there are more men on the site. Some of your assumptions are faulty. Just because a woman receives 20x more messages then men, doesn't mean men are sending 20x more messages. Say there are 5x more men on the site to begin with, then they are only sending 4x more messages.

I agree with your theory that women messaging men doesn't hurt but helps their chances.

[yummyfajitas]

You are misinterpreting the stable marriage problem. Among other things, the stable marriage algorithm guarantees that at each discrete time instant, each man and each woman is engaged to someone.

Reality doesn't have this constraint.

[roel_v]

No, but rounding gender distribution off to 50/50 and assuming that polygamists are a rounding error, there are an equal amount of male and female singles. Or did I miss your point?

[yummyfajitas]

You did.

In a real life discrete time instant (e.g., an evening at the bar), most women will choose to go home alone rather than accept a second best partner. In the stable marriage algorithm, not a single woman will.

I.e., the stable marriage algorithm is a poor model for reality.

[roel_v]

But the case at hand wasn't talking about a time span that short, either. When you look at it in the long run, I'd say that both men and women have an equal likelihood of selecting a mate who is not the optimum for all qualities they look for. (i.e., to use less Greenspan-eque language, that I think that both men and woman will in the end "settle" for someone if they can't find someone who they'd consider "perfect" rather than remain alone).

However, come to think of it, I guess a prerequisite would be that there are an equal amount of men and women in the pool; which I think is so, I seem to remember from one of the okcupid analysis posts that the majority of profiles are male. Then again, on the whole, there are roughly the same amount of both, so I'm not so sure about your statement that "the stable marriage algorithm is a poor model for reality"; maybe for dating sites, but on the whole?

[klipt]

> I seem to remember from one of the okcupid analysis posts that the majority of profiles are male.

This is a significant factor. If you run a stable marriage algorithm with 400 men and 200 women:

Men less attractive than the median will remain ummatched.

A 50th percentile man will be matched to a 0th percentile woman.

A 60th percentile man will be matched to a 20th percentile woman.

A 70th percentile man will be matched to a 40th percentile woman.

An 80th percentile man will be matched to a 60th percentile woman.

A 90th percentile man will be matched to an 80th percentile woman.

In other words, all men below the 100th percentile will end up dating way below their "league".

[jsnk]

Stable marriage problem doesn't say anything about how receiving more message is actually a bad thing and hurts the chance. Or you'd have to show me how receiving 20 messages is same as receiving 1 message.

[jboggan]

I strongly disagree. The men that I know that successfully use OKCupid do not have just one girlfriend.

[bishnu]

Not necessarily. You're assuming the only difference between the women and the men is relative numbers. Let's say 15 women are on a dating website and 30 men. Taken in and of itself, this sounds great for women.

But the distribution of objectives matter. Let's say 13 of the women are looking long-term committed relationships and 2 are looking for something casual. This is a gross oversimplification but bear with me. If 25 men are looking for something more casual and 5 are in it for something more long-term, all of the sudden you have a system with 45 people where only 7 of them "have it easy" if you go by numbers - 2 of whom are women.

Now these aren't real figures but anecdotally I would say I'm in the right ballpark. At any rate, it sufficiently illustrates that "easiness" has nothing to do with relative size of the gender pools.

[jsnk]

I understand where you are coming from. In a game as complex as dating with so many variables, you can easily come up with many situations where the general rule doesn't follow. However, on average, there are some obvious conclusions one can draw.

[hythloday]

It's far from obvious to me that men have it harder than women - going by traditional gender roles, men can select from the set of women, women can select only from the subset of men who messaged them. Can you elaborate on your definitions and assumptions that lead to your intuition?