Interesting Online Dating Experiment

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WillPower

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Here's an interesting dating experiment I came across that I thought I'd share (this is not mine btw).

After the 2nd experiment, so many women wrote to me that I shut it down. I don’t like deceiving people, even online, so I don’t feel good about this, but I had to know in the name of science. Hopefully sharing this true story will absolve my conscience:

I’ve had a profile on okc for a long time, and I changed it around several times, but it was never very successful. No girl ever wrote to me once, and the response rate to messages I sent was lower than typical from what I read here. I needed to know: was I just wasting my time carefully perfecting the text of my profile and crafting clever messages to women when it’s really all just about looks?

So I decided to put up fake pictures. I did some random FB searches, found a good-looking guy who didn’t hide his photos, and stole a few. He looks “all american”, muscular, square-jaw, unshaved for exactly one day, and blonde. I put up the new photos, and didn’t change a single other element of the profile, which had been the same for over two months.

Instantly, women began to message me almost daily. I thought I had picked a guy who would rate an 8, but I did a search on okc for guys in the same age-range and same area, and I realized that my guy was probably more like a 9 – more attractive than most of the competition.

Right away I felt bad about wasting women’s time with a fake profile, but I also had a moment of self-pity realizing the incredible success of this guy who was like me in every single way expect better looking. So after a couple of weeks of daily messages, I decided to add this message to the “You should message me if” section at the bottom of my profile:

You shouldn’t. I definitely will not write back to you. Not because you’re not good enough for me, but for another reason. Women of okcupid, looks aren’t everything. I recommend that you experiment with writing to some guys who are less attractive.

If I was a girl and I read that, I’d think, “What a ******-bag! Get over yourself.” Or I’d think, “This must be a fake profile.” Or I’d at least think, “Well, no point in writing to this guy.” I honestly thought this would ensure women wouldn’t waste their time on me. It just goes to show that I don’t know honeysuckle about female psychology.

The experiment was over, so I didn’t check the profile for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, I had turned email notification off. When I logged in again, my box was flooded. I had been getting twice as many messages, sometimes 4 per day. Mostly from very cute girls.

The unattainable guy must be obtained!

I even got messages from a couple of girls who the less-attractive me had written to long ago and had never written back.

Here are some typical messages I received:

you said not to message you, so I’m electing to “wink” instead. Hopefully that won’t be too much of an affront to your rules.

You sounded so sweet and loving, but then you tell the ladies not to write because you are too good looking? Wha?

you seriously won’t email any girl back? talk me through your reasoning.

My favorite:

you said not to. I always did have a problem with doing what I’m told

Though I could have learned even more, I lived up to my promise not to write anyone back. That would be ******* with people, which was never my intention.

What’s the lesson here? The 1st experiment isn’t too surprising: if you’re hot, nothing else matters. The results would be more interesting if I had picked fake photos that were slightly less attractive.

The 2nd unintentional experiment shows the being arrogant and unobtainable is absurdly effective (although maybe only if you’re hot). By the way, most of the women who wrote me had a high match %, and seemed both smart and not shallow. The materialistic hotties did not write to me. Indy girls and masters program graduates did. One who winked at me says she’s a feminist on her profile.

For those of you who would say, “Well, not all women are the same”, I agree. One girl called me out saying, “I smell a fake profile.” What a cool chick! I would have written to her from my new real profile, but honestly she’s not my type physically. Yep, I’m just as shallow as anyone. I’m not pointing any righteous fingers. Just helping you be honest with yourself about how the world works.

EDIT The last thing I want to do is discourage anyone from trying to find dates. As someone said, find your best photos and keep at it. If you’re taking away from this, “the world is cruel, so why try?” that’s not coming from me.

Personally, I feel better knowing that online dating success rides so very very much on appearance – something that I can’t change. That means I don’t have to torture myself wondering things like, “Do I sound boring? Did I make a spelling mistake? Am I supposed to mention that I like sports?” So many posts on r/okc ask for critiques of wording, and most of it is pointless speculation. Better to spend that time messaging women.
 
Sorry, but what is so interesting about doing exactly what everyone complains about? Tricking people and lying and stealing someone's photos is not okay. Not for any reason. I don't care if you want to prove some stupid point about how shallow woman are or whatever point this "experiment" wants to make, it's wrong...and also, men do that crap too.
 
Yeah, this is why online dating in it's classical form is an extremely flawed process, and the sooner a replacement is found for it, the better

It's extremely flawed because initial attraction is sparked by physical appearance 100% of the time. When this happens only the very best looking people will get the vast majority of all interest. I dont think anybody really cares about someone's bio, which could be fake or misleading or woefully incomplete for better or for worse for that matter.

Of course we know there is much more to attraction then how good you look. I'm not saying looks are not important. I think it's extremely important to be physically attracted to a romantic partner. And that goes for both sexes, not just men. Women who get with guys who they aren't physically attracted to (because the guy has money or something) will make themselves and their guy unhappy in the long run.

My suggestion for an online dating replacement would be online 'meetups' on webcams or something. So a small group of people (4 men 4 women) are matched by an AI algorithm (similiar age, interests, etc). This removes human biases and sets you up with random people as if you were running into someone in real life, except everyone you see here will be single looking for someone.

A one hour 'group night' is setup online for them. Each person in the group gets 15 minutes to talk to the other gender face to face on camera. This gives people the opportunity to actually communicate with eachother to maybe find if there is some kind of connection there, in addition to physical attraction. You might run into someone you would have never 'swiped right' on but after talking to them you realize they really arent that bad looking and you might have a strong connection with them.

After the meetup your free to message whoever you met on there that you thought you liked to arrange a further meetup with them individually.

TL;DR - Online dating is broken and it needs to be replaced with better online dating options
 
Lol this experiment is… weak… I can make a dating profile and show you guys how many messages I get and what they say and try to use it as a justification to call men out but none of you would accept it, you’ll say its the kind of men I attract for being so weak and sexy and blah blah blah…
 
Yeah, this is why online dating in it's classical form is an extremely flawed process, and the sooner a replacement is found for it, the better

It's extremely flawed because initial attraction is sparked by physical appearance 100% of the time. When this happens only the very best looking people will get the vast majority of all interest. I dont think anybody really cares about someone's bio, which could be fake or misleading or woefully incomplete for better or for worse for that matter.

Yeah, I've spent so much time crafting my online profile when most of the time, it doesn't even get to the point where any of that matters. I think that's the thing that most guys will struggle with. Getting that initial interest that will give them time to showcase the good qualities they actually have that aren't so apparent at the start.
 
Why don't you do an experiment where you join a bunch of different social groups, spend a year just being yourself (feel free to do any personal development along the way) and engaging with everyone there without any pretence about trying to actually find a partner, and see how that pans out?
 
Lol this experiment is… weak… I can make a dating profile and show you guys how many messages I get and what they say and try to use it as a justification to call men out but none of you would accept it, you’ll say its the kind of men I attract for being so weak and sexy and blah blah blah…
Call men out on what?
I think most males are very honest about caring about females looks as their highest priority. At least I am.
It's usually females that shy away from stating this outright, and try to tell guys (usually friends or relatives) that women care more about personality and "confidence".

The above experiment was to show that personality/common interests means far, far less to women than looks when using online dating apps. IMO, this carries through loud and clear in real life as well.
 
Call men out on what?
I think most males are very honest about caring about females looks as their highest priority. At least I am.
It's usually females that shy away from stating this outright, and try to tell guys (usually friends or relatives) that women care more about personality and "confidence".

The above experiment was to show that personality/common interests means far, far less to women than looks when using online dating apps. IMO, this carries through load and clear in real life as well.
On the crazy honeysuckle they say to me online lol and say thats how man are and blah de blah but no one would accept it.

Truthfully, looks seem to matter most to both genders on a whole (they dont to me personally). I could make a profile calling men my little dogs who must lick my toes and serve me … I bet i’ll still get more messages than a “nice girl”.. by far 😅
 
Lol this experiment is… weak… I can make a dating profile and show you guys how many messages I get and what they say and try to use it as a justification to call men out but none of you would accept it, you’ll say its the kind of men I attract for being so weak and sexy and blah blah blah…
There's a common misconception that women don't care about looks as much and base their messaging on other factors. This suggests they're not that different from men, at least online.
 
There's a common misconception that women aren't as superficial and base their messaging behaviour on other factors. This suggests they're not that different from men, at least online.
Hey my sweet Ardour…. Thats because online is designed that way, its like a catalogue. I dont think most women behave that way in real life when theres other ways to impress them from what i’ve seen irl in all honesty…
 
It would be more interesting if he could replicate the experiment on apps like Bumble which are meant to be more focused on profile content and compatibility.
 
Why don't you do an experiment where you join a bunch of different social groups, spend a year just being yourself (feel free to do any personal development along the way) and engaging with everyone there without any pretence about trying to actually find a partner, and see how that pans out?
I already mentioned that I have tried that for 1-2 years without success. If I don't show any romantic interest at all, then women just see me as invisible. I would go to these events, and it was just hi and bye, and nothing ever came out of it.
 
I remember that before the Reddit crackdown on incel communities an account of this type of experiment would always make it to the top posts, the intention being to prove that looks matter more than anything in online dating. Seems to be true.
 
Yeah, this is why online dating in it's classical form is an extremely flawed process, and the sooner a replacement is found for it, the better

It's extremely flawed because initial attraction is sparked by physical appearance 100% of the time.
I don't know, is that any different from in the real world?
When I was a lot younger, I had a colleague, he was good-looking, slim, did a lot of sports, the only thing against him was a slight stutter.
Lots of girls were interested in him, and this was just at after-work parties, no dating sites involved.
It's the way nature works, I wish it were different and we would alle go for intellectual capabilities, but even though I find I can have very meaningful, deep conversations with women, if there is no sexual attraction, I can't see myself starting a relationship with them.

In a way, I think it is better if women go for good-looking guys.
The stereotype is that they are just taken in by the amount of money a guy throws at them.
The question is whether this type of woman will stay with the guy for the money, but have secret affairs on the side with good-looking guys or she will be really faithful to a guy she's only respecting because of his money.
If she finds him really attractive physically the chances of her being faithful are higher.
 
Truthfully, looks seem to matter most to both genders on a whole (they dont to me personally). I could make a profile calling men my little dogs who must lick my toes and serve me … I bet i’ll still get more messages than a “nice girl”.. by far 😅
Nah, I wouldn't settle for the toes. :ROFLMAO:
 
Hey my sweet Ardour…. Thats because online is designed that way, its like a catalogue. I dont think most women behave that way in real life when theres other ways to impress them from what i’ve seen irl in all honesty…
I think a lot has changed since women started having jobs of their own.
In the classic role model, women used to be housewives, so they were financially dependant on men.
That meant it was interesting for them to not focus on looks too much, but on income.
Now that both parties have jobs of their own, they can focus on physical traits too.
 
I think a lot has changed since women started having jobs of their own.
In the classic role model, women used to be housewives, so they were financially dependant on men.
That meant it was interesting for them to not focus on looks too much, but on income.
Now that both parties have jobs of their own, they can focus on physical traits too.
I think thats why the level of finances that attract women now (even very average women in my opinion) seem to be extremely high. The standards are similar however the levels have increased if that makes sense.
 
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I think thats why the level of finances that attract women now (even very average women im my opinion) seem to be extremely high. The standards are similar however the levels have increased if that makes sense.
I think for men who are not that handsome, it can make them very insecure.
In the old days it was sufficient for them to have a good income to get the girl, now they can't rely on that anymore.
They might even end up in a relationship where the girl earns more than him.
 

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