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As a platform for meeting people, online dating has been growing in popularity. As the dating sites were growing, there wasn't a lot of easily available data on the people who used them to draw many conclusions from a sociological standpoint, but now that the numbers of people who use these sites is in the tens of millions, that is changing. When looking at the balance between choosing traits that make for a good relationship match verses eliminating people based upon negative attributes, aka "deal breakers", it appears people predominately employ the latter strategy.
A group of sociologists from the University of Michigan led by Elizabeth Bruch obtained data from one of the large dating sites and they looked at a randomly-selected group of people from New York City to determine what factors in their decision-making process led them to select or eliminate potential mates.
Bruch and her team divided the rules into two broad categories, "deal breakers" and "deal makers," used to exclude or include people for the next level of contact. Bruch wondered: Is mate selection like a job interview process, where the person with the best combination of positive factors wins? Or is it more like a Survivor-style reality show, where contestants are picked off one by one for a single failing?
Among the deal breakers are:
- No profile photo: Men and women were 20 times less likely to look at this profile.
- Smoker: A 10-fold drop in interest.
- Age difference: Young women (20 yo) were 10X less likely to look at a profile of a man ten years older than her, older women (45 yo) were 10% more likely to consider a man ten years older than her, and men overall preferred women younger than them.
- Height difference: Women were 10X more likely to look at a profile of a guy 17 cm (6 in) taller than her while guys were 3X more likely to look a the profile of a woman 17cm shorter than him
- Body weight: Men were less likely to view a profile of a heavy-set woman while women showed no aversion to a heavy-set guy.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday September 06 2016, @10:43AM
Best way to find someone is to get involved in some activity? Not in my experince. I have always tended to be involved in clubs and courses (for their own sake and never expected met any girls that way). The very few there also seemed to be there only for the activity itself. In hobby clubs, the only women were other members' wives. Must admit I never tried a needlecraft club.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday September 06 2016, @12:29PM
the only women were other members' wives
Not seeing a problem here. "Back in the old single days" I got a lot of action off friends/coworkers/relatives of perfectly happily married women. It can be the old arranged marriage problem where some woman's sewing buddy might exceed all the criteria for being the worlds best sewing buddy but not quite be romantically compatible. On the other hand, sometimes your best female wingman spends all night at girls craft night convincing some girl that you'd be perfect for her...
Must admit I never tried a needlecraft club.
Mistake #2, I'd go to scrapbook and craft stores at the right time of day, look for a nice looking lady with no rings or kids tagging along and beg for help picking out a nice birthday gift for my mom. This worked pretty well. Also, my mom liked it. This might be age dependent, both of us being 20 and my having a nice car and well paying job and being generous to mom is noteworthy, but by 30 I think most women expect it from guys. Still, stores do work.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 06 2016, @04:50PM
Or massage classes? Haven't tried those but might be a good skill to learn even if you don't hookup with the girls in the class itself.