My personal experience doesn't match some of the ideas presented in that article
>> At the selection stage, researchers have seen that as the range of options grows larger, mate-seekers are liable to become “cognitively overwhelmed,” and deal with the overload by adopting lazy comparison strategies and examining fewer cues
I find exactly the opposite. People that I would be happy to talk to if I met them in person with no knowledge about them I easily reject because some minor thing in their profile suggests some incompatibility even if it might not be in actuality.
>> Easy
For whatever reason it's not been easy for me. I'm on several sites. The issue above means I don't write that many people. Of those I write they rarely respond. Through online dating I've not managed to meet more than 1 person a year, probably less.
I could go on. Maybe it's that unlike Jacob I actually am looking for "the one" so it makes me more picky.
I have a different philosophy about online dating that prevents the "wasted week" you speak about. In the year and a half since my divorce I've gone on about 30 first dates with people I've met online. What I do is exchange 2 emails, tops, before asking for a coffee or happy hour date (short time commitment if it doesn't work out) and then we meet and nip it in the bud. I've done the week of texting thing and it always turns out bad. The key is not to get overly invested or your hopes up for a couple weeks before meeting. Not that the dates are all bad, but compared to your imagination they will seem worse than they are, better to meet the real thing.
For me this meant having 3-4 first dates every other week (mostly scheduled when I didn't have my kids) and I found about ever 6 or so I would find a keeper, date that person for around 2 months and then find some reason it wouldn't work for longer and move on in my search. I think it's given me a great balance of "just for fun" and "real" relationships. I'm 3 months into a real one right now.
I'm curious about your physical stats because I have this theory that guys of a certain race and height have a significantly easier time getting dates than others.
Confidence is everything. I look ok in the face but I'm 260 and 5' 10"... So obese and overweight by any measure. I've never been single before 30, as I had married my high school sweetheart (don't) and I'm surprised how easy it is.
Beside confidence I think I have my shit together, home, car, money, I own my own business.... This goes a long way. I ask every girl I date about some of the gems they meet and you wouldn't believe how many single dudes are a mess.
Don't get me wrong I'm surprised how well this is going. I'm very picky about looks and don't want to settle so I have not been with a girl that was bigger than a 6. I swear I'm not vane but I was married to someone who let themselves go and it just ruined our quality of life (so says the fat guy!).
> because some minor thing in their profile suggests some incompatibility even if it might not be in actuality.
That is a lazy comparison strategy compared to actually getting to know someone to find out whether or not it reflects an actual incompatibility.
We see the same in many other settings, like shopping: Give people more choice beyond a relatively small number, and they on average become less likely to find a choice they see as satisfactory. If your choice is ketchup or mustard, it's relatively easy. If you're faced with five of each, you might decide what you really want is mustard from a specific village, hand picked by virgins.
"Lazy comparison strategy" seems like a poor name for that strategy as meeting people in person is far lazier "take what comes along" (ie: no comparison) vs "reading 1000 profiles" (lots of comparison).
You're doing it wrong, skim a bunch of profiles and copy and paste short messages with very slight variations. Investing time in a first message, hell even reading a whole profile on an online dating site is a huge waste of time. Also, stop being so picky.
You're right, but I wish you weren't. It's a classic case of tragedy of the commons. Spamming is individually optimal, but highly detrimental to overall outcome as the signal to noise ratio drops through the floor.
The worse the signal to noise ratio the more people need to spam to get a hit. At this point OKCupid is just one massive cesspool of copypasta flying around at great volume.
>> At the selection stage, researchers have seen that as the range of options grows larger, mate-seekers are liable to become “cognitively overwhelmed,” and deal with the overload by adopting lazy comparison strategies and examining fewer cues
I find exactly the opposite. People that I would be happy to talk to if I met them in person with no knowledge about them I easily reject because some minor thing in their profile suggests some incompatibility even if it might not be in actuality.
>> Easy
For whatever reason it's not been easy for me. I'm on several sites. The issue above means I don't write that many people. Of those I write they rarely respond. Through online dating I've not managed to meet more than 1 person a year, probably less.
I could go on. Maybe it's that unlike Jacob I actually am looking for "the one" so it makes me more picky.