Inside Online Dating And Beyond

OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Match, Tinder – these are the faces of what singles have at their disposal to find a choosable mate. Long gone are the days where singles could connect over a book on the train, or strike up a conversation at a coffee shop. While these occurrences might happen on a rare day, we’re very much a screen-only generation who would much rather engage in an iPod, Kindle, and various smartphones than the person sitting across the way.

Since the millennium hit new online dating sites have started, the oldest and probably the most reputable is Match. That said, there’s been a whole platform of dating sites based on the needs of a particular person. There’s Christian mingle, and for those who are after people with similar backgrounds, there’s BlackPeopleMeet and LatinoPeopleMeet. If someone’s interested in just hooking up, there’s also Tinder.

This generation of isolation limits the way people connect in friendships and in love. The way we have become dependent on our screens also translates into how we communicate via text. No longer are people communicating in full sentences, and because of that miscommunication and misrepresentation is very likely. Even on Showtime’s series Shameless there’s been commentary on the awful blunders one can make by online dating. On the dark dramedy show, the Gallagher’s neighbor Sheila (Joan Cusack) writes “DTF” as per the suggestion of the Gallagher tween Debbie and winds up communicating with men who are after casual sexual relationships.

There doesn’t seem to be an online manual for dating sites these days, at least nothing that goes beyond a basic FAQ. To get people over the learning curve, economist at Stanford’s graduate School of Business, Paul Oyer, is giving some sound advice on online dating. Here’s a few tips from Mr. Oyer:

You need to go to a “thick” market where there are more options. A niche site will only work if there is a large enough set of people who care about that niche so that the site to attain critical mass.

Making your own profile perfectly honest won’t solve the problem. People will assume you are exaggerating.

When people read your profile, they take in the information you give and they also make assumptions about the things you do not say. In economics terms, online dating is one big game of hidden information and “statistical discrimination.” I would have someone else look at your profile – preferably someone who does not know you very well. Ask that person what assumptions he/she is making about you.

In the case of dating, the scarce resource is your time. You want to find a partner because that would increase your “utility” (happiness). But you will not spend unlimited time doing it because you also have to do all those other things. You should expend the costs of searching for a mate only if those costs are outweighed by the expected benefits.

Aside from Mr. Oyer’s tips, Quartz conducted a study using the data on Facebook’s dating app, and it revealed some surprising things about how race comes into factor on online dating. According to the data gathered, the most desirable people among singles are Caucasian men and Asian women, while Black men and other women receive less interest. Interestingly enough, all men prefer Asians, except for male Asians. In addition Black women prefer Caucasian men, but as a total Black men and women receive the lowest response in the world of online dating.

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