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Tuesday, May 28, 2024 - 20:32 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Serious Search, Concluding

Encouraged by picking up Dataclysm* by Christian Rudder - one of the original founders of OkCupid, who have a history of blogging their intensive data analyses of the dating world - I resolved to wrap up my observations on the subject pronto, all the more since work commitments are coming along better than they have been for awhile.


Bumble Bumbled

There have been some pretty large shake-ups in the dating app world since I wandered into it a month or so ago, and I wish to affirm that it was a total coincidence. Bumble for one has caught flak for their controversial celibacy advertising campaign a fortnight back, which comes as their share price collapsed over 80% from their high in 2021. Hinge for their part has implemented match limits in a bid to reduce ghosting, by allowing a maximum of eight unanswered chats at any one time. Bumble's counterplay appears to then be... allowing men to message first (i.e. negating their unique selling point), and introducing "AI concierge" chatbots that will hit up other users' concierges for you (how does that work - let's have my bot talk to your bot someday?). Even as a guy who's scripted bots to play his games for him, this seems a little pointless.

On this, it has also been observed that the general trend of (Match Group) dating apps has been to remove features (and then offer some of those as paid extras), so technical limitations are probably not the limiting factor here.


E Pluribus Unum?


Be a (gentle)man and just suck it up


This is a follow-on from the (romantic?) ideal of there being a single soulmate, or "The One", from the previous post. This supposition can be approached from another angle - assuming that "The One" indeed exists, what are the odds that one will find her**, anyway?

From the given concrete example off a single app, there were 17 matches from 4,811 outgoing and 358 incoming swipes. It can immediately be noted that this requires 4,453 additional incoming swipes just to corroborate the outgoing ones, so assuming the distribution of these theoretical incoming swipes remains unchanged, this should result in an additional 211 matches from this app's population alone. Even at a brisk clip of two first dates a week, this would take a couple of years to work through, not accounting for any new candidates.

Certainly, it could be argued that this is putting the cart before the horse, since there's no guarantee that the app will display one's profile to the remaining four thousand-plus hopefuls anyway. However, the point is that if "The One" (whom might be thought of as one's number one pick amongst all mutual likes within these 4,811 options) exists, then it's far more likely that she would not even have become a match yet, due to not having been shown one's profile for a swipe! In this case, the odds of "The One" being in the existing 17 matches would be about a paltry 7.5%. Moreover, this is only from a single app - if considering the entire global population, the odds would become quite infinitesimal.

From this, we might consider a few implications:
  • As defined, it is nearly impossible for a person to meet, much less date or marry, "The One" truly most suited to him (out of everybody in the world)

  • In response to the above, a popular rejoinder would be that there really isn't a single "The One". For one, the top hundred or thousand best matches might be essentially indistinguishable in quality/compatibility anyway - thought of quantitatively, if the absolute top choice scores a hundred, the thousandth best might be a 99, basically equivalent but in a novel way. Moreover, one supposes such compatibility fluctuates over the longer term (as each individual develops further, or as external events occur) and within each day, so "The One" for a person at twenty might not be (actually, is likely not) "The One" for the same person at forty, assuming that the person has remained unattached throughout

  • Admittedly, this may be seen as something of a romance-killer; if there are so many good-enough matches, what's so special about the person one actually gets with in the end (ref. Kierkegaard's aesthete, who quickly abandons an "unrealistic" love for the attainable rich brewer's widow)?

  • The usual answer to the above is then that "The One" is a status mutually cultivated over time - the person one gets with might not be actually the absolute best match, or even anywhere near that, but shared experience can mould them both into the ideal mate for each other (reflected in spouses eventually picking up each other's mannerisms, and finishing each other's sentences)

[**written from my own viewpoint from here onwards, but this should apply whatever one's orientation.]


On Rejection


Aw, so sad.
(Source: deviantart.com)


This becomes easier to take with experience (as in sales) from all indications, once the halo about "The One" is eliminated. Rationally (again), there are any number of reasons that one might get rejected (or pre-emptively ghosted), many of which can't be helped:

  • Beneath her standards (N.B. it might not be entirely appropriate to imply another person as "lower", since criteria [such as preference for hair/eye colour] are often subjective, but yeah, you get what I mean)

  • Above her standards*** (yup, that's definitely a thing.)

  • Not actually available, just created a profile to benchmark her "market value" and enjoy the validation

  • Available (kinda), but taking her time to gauge the market/check out what's available

  • Exchanged phones with BFF for kicks and giggles

  • Finger slipped and accidentally swiped left

  • Just got with someone else on the app

  • Reminded her too much of an ex

  • Not feeling it today

  • Catfish by a guy

  • Her cat choked on her hamster

etc. One admittedly great feature about modern dating apps is that the initial rejection is "hidden"; if a person never matches with someone, he will never be sure as to whether it is an actual rejection (i.e. a left swipe) or if the other person simply has not been shown his profile yet, which takes a lot of the sting out of the first step of the dating process. Given this, a guy with an 88% left-swipe (i.e. essentially first-cut rejection) rate should perhaps not be bellyaching so much about the act of rejection?

As covered in the previous post, it sadly still feels terrible to reject a prospect - but logically, this becomes unavoidable if one actually goes about it diligently, and racks up the numbers; again taking 100 first dates/approaches, even if success is found eventually (yay), then there would have been 99 "rejections" one way or the other - and if so, those would probably be easier to take coming earlier than later. Sadly, this remains tough whichever way it goes, due to having to do the "cruel" act if doling it out, and wondering what might have been if on the receiving end. Perhaps it does get easier and easier as Number Go Up, possibly to the extent that it becomes an afterthought; but then, the question would be, what have I become****?

Another consolatory way to think about this, would be that rejection might indeed be the correct choice, even where there is a decent match going on. Take a pair who has assessed each other at say, 60/100 after a couple of dates. There's nothing wrong with the other person per se, and if really need be (i.e. matched together in an arranged marriage culture), they could very well make it work. However, this being a free country (in this respect at least), it would be entirely sensible for both to hold out for a mutual 70/100, 90/100, or more.

When to wrap up the "sampling phase" and start tying down top candidates then becomes the classical optimal stopping (secretary, originally fiancée) problem, which does come with the assumption that once rejected, a candidate is forever out of contention (which is not always true in real-life dating). The solution is to interview/date n/e of the available population of size n (to personally experience what's possible), before picking the next candidate that is better than all previous candidates. This clearly comes with many constraints in practice, such as time/energy/monetary costs spent on dates, but also the difficulty of somehow comparing unique individuals.


[***Relevant to this would be the occasional profile of an admittedly extremely hot lady in various bikini poses, which tends to get a left swipe. I mean, sure she would be very popular on-app, maybe she's indeed the settling-down type, and perhaps one shouldn't judge a book by its cover - not that there's much cover there to judge by, though!]

[****Since the only acceptable way to go about it is sincerely, the hurt comes as a required cost. Then, the next question is whether it is possible to sincerely offer/be offered a personal connection, and get over it immediately once turning it/being turned down. I guess having sales experience really helps.]


On "Tests"†

I suppose it is fairly common (and not entirely unreasonable) for both parties to probe the other person's level of commitment, during said dating process. Clearly, there's no upper limit to this kind of thing, since such tests can quickly go from fairly normal (e.g. delaying replies†† to text messages, not putting out until X number of dates, etc.), to majorly life-changing (e.g. cutting ties with friends/family, joining in on illegal activities) and ultimately fatal (if you loved me enough, you would jump off this cliff). This can get rough at the dinner table too:


Her: (out of nowhere) Darling, if I, your mother, your grandmother, your sister and Liu Yifei all fell off the side of a yacht at the same time, who would you save first?

*four expectant pairs of eyes staring*

Him: Why don't you just shoot me and be done with it?!


which can go the other way:


Her: Honey, if I passed away first, would you get married again?

Him: Well... I suppose it's not impossible.

Her: Would you choose someone who plays golf, like me?

Him: Absolutely, it's my hobby after all.

Her: *annoyed* Then would you let her use my golf clubs?

Him: Oh, definitely not!

Her: *happier* Why not?

Him: Because she's left-handed.


But frankly, one has to believe that The Right One would not have to resort to such - a good relationship should be easy and enjoyable for all involved, right (more on this later)?


[†Colloquially scatological.]

[††That said, having replies consistently delayed by a constant number of hours (give or take a few minutes) regardless of the time the original message was sent, is kinda flattering - that must take more effort than just answering the incoming text message immediately!]


On Standards

To begin with, it might be established that everybody has standards.

Sure, someone might claim that they are extremely open-minded and willing to consider anyone (of the desired gender), but such claims are generally rather quickly dismantled through the presentation of... unorthodox candidates. For example, how about this seventy year-old male widower? That's insulting? Okay, so age is a criteria. This nice but bedridden young fella? So health is also a criteria... oh, it's anyone reasonable? This guy here? Uh, what's his job, how much does he make, where did he go to school, how tall is he...

So, as I said, everybody has standards.

Personally, it's best to be upfront about these standards, especially when dating seriously/pursuing explicit matchmaking. It is tempting to cloak standards that might be thought frivolous/shallow (e.g. on height†††/looks) by passing rejections off as due to other reasons (e.g. there was no chemistry, we just didn't click), but frankly this just wastes everybody's time.

Of course, the trouble arises when one's standards are, uh, entirely unrealistic. For instance, if an average Joe insists on only considering six-foot tall executives with Miss Universe-tier looks, multiple graduate degrees and heterochromia, one might rightly go, bro, you might want to relax some of those criteria.

[†††This can get pretty brutal, with supposedly only 15% of women showing interest in 173 cm (5' 8'') tall men on dating apps from their search filters, with six feet being the magic threshold. Put in perspective, the average adult male height in Singapore is 171 cm, which has predictably led to guys buffing their height by a couple of inches on average (as that can plausibly be passed off in shoes). Not only that, the most popular height was 198 cm (6' 6''), which would be the 99.85th percentile even in the United States, and begs the question as to how many NBA small forwards are waiting on the apps.]


On Settling

Here, we come to non-matches, more specifically the case where one party likes the other party, but not the other way around - which probably happens to some degree to everyone. In such situations, it is generally possible for the more-desired party to "settle" for his/her admirer. Unfortunately, this is by definition a suboptimal match for the former (as otherwise he/she would also have wanted the other party from the start), and can thus translate into mistreatment/abuse by the party holding the higher hand, so to speak.

As such, my personal advice would be that it is generally better to be single than settle (according to one's true standards), by the reasoning that one's internal dissatisfaction can't be hidden forever. Going by this, it would be kinder to leave the other party to someone who would actually appreciate him/her. Disregarding such (ethical?) considerations, it is entirely plausible for a "player" to maintain multiple side-chicks (if male) or orbiters (if female) by simply dropping their standards threshold - which ironically probably doesn't hurt their success at (future/more) relationships, at least in the short term. Not that I would ever have any interest in this myself...


It Should Be Easy?


The joy of being made for each other
(Source: pinterest.com)


One piece of advice that I've come across quite a few times, is that when one encounters (probably one of many possible) "The One(s)", the getting together should be effortless. While previous references to "(dating/marriage) market value" and assigning numerical ratings to people might have been a turn-off, please bear with it here since it's the easiest way to provide an explanation. To recap, the past sections have been on standards (on one's personal scale [out of ten], what's the minimum value that one would be happy with?) and settling (the [unfortunate] case where only one person in a pair has their standards truly satisfied)

A healthy match, then, would then be one where both parties' standards are mutually satisfied - in the real world, this is probably most commonly expressed by two 5.5/10s (i.e. smack dab average, but there's nothing wrong with that) with realistic standards (i.e. maybe 5/10), coming and standing against life together. But wait, it (finally) gets better! What if each of them instead (again sincerely) regard the other party as a 9 or 10? Such rankings are ultimately personal and subjective, after all. In this case, the dating process should become extremely easy (barring external limitations, and silly [unneeded] mindgames) - they would be leaping to get with each other and keep in contact, do things for each other, etc.

It follows that the endurance/stability of a match, might be estimated by how highly the pair regard each other, relative to how they are rated by society at large; the greater the discrepancy, the more stable the match since their attraction for each other, would be correspondingly higher than that available from external options (analogous to minimizing within-cluster variance - and thereby maximizing between-cluster variance)

More reflection here suggests that this is a major realization that I have neglected previously, due to a (misguided?) belief in "destiny" and "effort" - but really, it's not that rare for people to be turned off by the process potentially being "too easy". Well, here's to hoping that the only easy day is tomorrow!


Be (A Better/The Best) Yourself

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot,
I will spue thee out of my mouth.

- Revelation 3:16


"Just Be Yourself" is perhaps the most cliched piece of dating advice out there, which has received many arguments both for and against it. There are some good points either way, and the conclusion appears to be that it's indeed best to "be yourself", because while it might be possible to repackage oneself for a short while (e.g. on dates), the true self eventually comes out, and that's what the other party will have to deal with in an actual relationship; however, the caveat is that one should strive to be a better themselves over time.

So, some concrete examples: let's say that a guy's main hobby and identity is martial arts, but he has thus far been practising only at a casual level. Then, "being a better himself" would be reaching higher and higher levels in his martial art, all the way to the maximum-dan black belt, winning international competitions, and becoming world champion. However, there will surely be ladies who do not appreciate martial arts, or downright hate them due to the inherent violence or somesuch. In those cases, there's really nothing for it - 萝卜白菜，各有所爱.


No-one is liked/loved by everyone, so get over it
[N.B. One can get ostracized for being too just, as Aristides found.]
(Source: mangasee123.com)


As also discussed in Dataclysm (right after the author photobombed TRUMP and Gorbachev at a pre-Oscar filming), there's another very good reason to "be yourself" (unique): it's better to be wanted/loved by some and (potentially) disliked/hated by others (ahem GEOTUS), than be the colourless bland everyperson that everyone sort of accepts exists. Tying into the previous section on great matches being where both parties overwhelmingly prefer each other over consensus ratings, the idea is that you would want your significant other to really want you, rather than be meh about you - and if so, why not goose your odds by staking out a niche for yourself?

That said, there are probably some basic glow-ups that most people can do, without abandoning their inner core - a common complaint by the ladies has been that some guys could do so much better if they were to just "clean up their act", i.e. basic grooming, better-fitting clothes, etc., or "looksmaxxing" in other communities, with the primary rejoinder probably being losing (actually excess) weight, for the ladies. To be honest, I've seen any number of profiles where you could just imagine the potential... less forty or fifty pounds. On this, it might be noted that it's usually possible to lose weight, but not gain height.


One Can't Have It All

I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out.

I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

- The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath


Similar realizations would probably have come to most during their first (quarter/mid)-life crisis, that they are after all merely mortal, that they would never be able to achieve everything, and that even the lives of those that they never thought too much of - the elderly chap struggling to jog every morning, the bedraggled middle manager waiting for the bus, that lecturer whose class they tended to sleep through - were not at all easy to achieve and maintain. One by one, the figs begin to fall.

Lest this get too negative, it's not that one can't strive and achieve at any age - there's plenty of news articles about octogenarians earning degrees and climbing mountains and completing marathons; the catch is that inevitably, more and more doors close as one ages. Against this, there are two main consolations: firstly, that one won't have time to explore the vast majority of the doors that remain open, anyway; and secondly, that nobody alive or dead has ever come anywhere remotely close to truly "having it all" in their lives. They may have grabbed a few more figs from the tree, is all.


[*including relevant comparative linguistic studies on word length in tweets, from page 61.]

[To be continued (one final time)...]



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