Gunter J. Hitsch, Ali Hartacsu and Dan Ariely analysed the data from one of the mainstream dating sites, focusing on more than 20,000 active users, half in Boston and half in San Diego. 56% of the users were men, and the media age range for all users was 21 to 35. Although they represented an adequate racial mix to reach some conclusions about race, they were predominantly white.
They were also a lot richer, taller, skinnier and better-looking than average. That, at least, is what they wrote about themselves. More than 4% of the online daters claimed to earn more than $200,000 a year, whereas fewer than 1% of typical Internet users actually earn that much, suggesting that three of the four big earners were exaggerating. Male and female users typically reported that they are about an inch taller than the national average, but the women typically said they weighed about 20 pounds less than the national average.
Most impressively, fully 72% of the women claimed “above average” looks, including 24% claiming “very good looks”. The online men were too gorgeous: 68% called themselves “above average”, including 19% with “very good looks”. This leaves only about 30% of the user with “average” looks, including a paltry 1% with “less than average” looks – which suggests that the typical online dater is either a fabulist, a narcissist, or simply resistant to the meaning of “average”. (Or perhaps they are all just pragmatists: as any real-estate agent knows, the typical house isn’t “charming” or “fantastic”, but unless you say it is, no one will even bother to take a look.) 28% of the women on the site said they were blond, a number far beyond the national average, which indicates a lot of dyeing, or lying, or both.
Some users, meanwhile, were bracingly honest. 7% of the men conceded that they were married, with a significant minority of these men reporting that they were “happily married”. But the fact that they were honest doesn’t mean they were rash. Of the 243 “happily married” men in the sample, only 12 chose to post a picture of themselves. The reward of gaining a mistress was evidently out-weighed by the risk of having your wife discover your personal ad. (“And what were
you doing on that website? The husband might bluster, undoubtedly to little avail.)
Of the many ways to fail on a dating website, not posting a photo of yourself is perhaps the most certain. (Not that the photo necessarily is a photo of yourself; it may well be some better-looking stranger, but such deception would obviously backfire in time.) A man who does not include his photo gets only 60% of the volume of email response of a man who does; a woman who doesn’t include her photo gets only 24% as much. A low-income, poorly-educated, unhappily employed, not very attractive, slightly overweight, and balding man who posts his photo stands a better chance of gleaning some emails than a man who says he makes $200,000 and is deadly handsome but doesn’t post a photo. There are plenty of reasons someone might not post a photo – he’s technically challenged or is ashamed of being spotted by friends or is just plain unattractive – but as in the case of a brand-new car with a For Sale sign, prospective customers will assume he’s got something seriously wrong under the hood.
Getting a date is hard enough as it is. 56% of the men who post ads don’t receive even one e-mail; 21% of the women don’t get a single response. The traits that do draw a big response, meanwhile, will not be a big surprise to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the sexes. In fact, the preferences expressed by online daters fit snugly with the most common stereotypes about men and women.
For instance, men who-say they want a long-term relationship do much better than men looking for an occasional lover. But women looking for an occasional lover do great. For men, a woman’s looks are of paramount importance. For women, a man’s income is terribly important. The richer a man is, the more emails he receives. But a woman’s income appeal is a bell-shaped curve: men do not want to date
low-women, but once a woman starts earning too much, they seem to be scared off. Women are eager to date military men, policemen and firemen (possibly the result of a 9/11 effect, like the higher payments to Paul Feldman’s bagel business), along with lawyers and doctors: they generally avoid men with manufacturing jobs. For men, being short is a big disadvantage (which is probably why so many lie about it), but weight doesn’t much matter. For women, being overweight is deadly (which is probably why
they lie). For a man, having red hair or curly hair is a downer, as is “bald with a fringe” – but a shaved head is ok. For a woman, salt-and-pepper hair is bad, while blond hair is, not surprisingly, very good.
In addition to all the information about income, education and looks, men and women on the dating site listed their race. They were also asked to indicate a preference regarding the race of their potential dates. The two preferences were “the same as mine” or “it doesn’t matter”. Like the
Weakest Link contestants, the website users were now publicly declaring how they felt about people that didn’t look like them. They would reveal their
actual preferences later, in confidential e-mails to the people they wanted to date.
Roughly half of the white women on the site and 80% of the white man declared that race didn’t matter to them. But the response data tell a different story. The white men that said race didn’t matter sent 90% of their e-mail queries to white women. The white women who said race didn’t matter sent about 97% of their e-mail enquiries to white men. This means that an Asian man who is good-looking, rich, and well educated will receive fewer than 25% as many e-mails from white women as a white man with the same qualifications would receive; similarly, black and Latino men receive about half as many e-mails from white women as they would if they were white.
Is it possible that race really didn’t matter for these white women and men and that they simply never happened to browse a non-white date that interested them? Or, more likely, did they say that race didn’t matter because they wanted to come across – especially to potential mates of their own race – as open-minded?
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Online dating... some facts and figures!
it's from a book called "Freakonomics" by Levitt and Dubner, which I highly recommend you read!
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Originally Posted by Sumanji
