I have a lot of professional experience in this field. If you want some help refining your system through my experience, provide some method for me to contact you directly.
But mostly the unattractive people by number. I am not saying your scenario doesn't happen, but compared to the other one it will be statistically insignificant.
This also means that the attractive people will find they'll get matched up with nothing but uggos, and then they'll leave.
Hello tone police, I would like you to know that I am fully paid up on my Responsible Free Speech subscriptions and am entitled to at least five more politically incorrect statements this year.
I don't much care for their term uggos either, it's rather crass. However, the op is definitely correct. By removing photos it removes a dramatic advantage that attractive people have on dating sites. It takes away one of their best matching strengths, one of the core human matching elements, and the one that is often a first-filter item. It is obvious if you do that to a group of people, they will not be inclined to your service: they gain little benefit (if any), and lose enormous advantage.
There are people whose aesthetic appeal is quite broad. There are people whose aesthetic appeal is narrower. There are relatively few people who are broadly aesthetically repulsive. No one should deny that the former end of things makes a lot of activities easier, including dating... but the funny thing in talking to my acquaintances from the very attractive to narrower-appeal segment is that nobody seems to find it easy.
It’s almost as if what people are looking for isn’t as easy as negotiating aesthetics.
I challenge you to find a more succinct term that gets the same point across.
Politically correct speech pays a heavy price in expressiveness, especially of the banned ideas. It is kind of the point. What did I save up the points for, if not to spend it to say what I actually want, rather than gesture at it ineffectively?
Then use “ugly”, rather than a pejorative term meant to ridicule. As an illustrative example, “ugly person” is to “uggos” as “fat person” is to “fatso”.
You don't get it. These are not the same thing. The difference, as others point out, is tone. One is far more formal than the other, and conveys a sense of stepping on eggshells.
If the only way to discuss a concept is to first put on a suit and tie and pay prostrating deference to all who demand it (and demand it they will), then nobody will discuss it very much.
This is how you win a game of censor-thy-neighbour without actual admin access to the platform.
See my reply to sibling comment. I’m not advocating for political correctness, I’m certainly the exact opposite of that more often than not. But I also feel it’s entirely unnecessary to shame people of a particular appearance in this context, “ugly people” is sufficiently specific to get the same point across you’re trying to make with “uggos”.
The fact you keep doubling down even after it was pointed out that you aren’t following the site guidelines is a strong indication you probably need to take a break, before one of the mods makes it a mandatory break.
> This also means that the attractive people will find they'll get matched up with nothing but uggos, and then they'll leave.
Yikes. Gotta hope you're physically attractive, 'cause your attitude is extremely not. My cynical take, as a divorcée, is that folks who've been married before will be less interested in the superficial and better equipped to evaluate compatibility. Folks drawn to this site will probably be less interested in the looks of their intended, and perhaps their own appearance as well. And they'll be all the happier if you keep to the shallows.
I was being facetious, but as an under 30 as well I do agree vapid interactions are tiresome. I'd draw a distinction between compliments or attention and wholely vapid interactions though. I don't know that I've had what I'd call a prolonged interaction or investment of my time solely based on looks, because there isn't much material to go on just based on that. Usually short lived interactions and such. Maybe as a woman this would be more extensive.
Voat became terrible because when subreddits or users got banned, they went straight to voat.
Tild.es on the other hand has been extremely pleasant to use. That said, because there’s no real reason for a mass exodus from reddit, there’s simply a lack of content.
> You know how trying to remake reddit without the censorship
But reddit was "reddit without censorship" for a very long time before corporate interests, journalists and government decided to get involved.
"Reddit without censorship" was certainly not a cesspit and what made it popular in the first place. Free speech was what made reddit great and made it popular.
Also, "reddit with censorship" is just a different kind of cesspool. Just because it's the kind of cesspool you enjoy swimming in doesn't make it any less revolting.
From the guest view, it looks like people are only described through their name, job and relationship history. I might suggest a by-line or other information on their profile, but understood if it's only available to members.
Why isn't it socially acceptable to state that looks are important? I feel like people are conflating "external appearance matters" and "external appearance is all that matters" and demonizing the former in their attempt to ward away the latter.
Also, putting the "X out of 10" scale aside, some people are just drawn to certain looks more than others. Tall, short, certain facial structures, different body types, beards/no beards on men, etc.
I know that I'm probably unusual. I really haven't ever cared much about looks. I've mostly valued intelligence, good sense of humor, interest in sex, independence and (frankly) a credible career.
And in retrospect, among my former wives and lovers, it seems like the less conventionally attractive ones have aged the best.
Female... nah, just a pic will do.
Male... then yeah... full medical records including blood work, good pictures (probably want some cute animal in your pics too!), dating history - preferably with at a couple of good references! income statements, net worth, pictures of your house, job title, height, weight, body fat %, hobbies, shoe size, list of countries you've visited, professional accreditations.
Then you better still be at least an 8 out of 10 on the actractivness scale!
I know you're mostly joking, but it's really not that bad. I think the problem is most of us guys don't have any sense of which photos are actually flattering of ourselves and how to write a description that actually shows some personality (without being weird). Also, the "swipe right on everyone" move most guys seem to have is a terrible idea, Tinder and co. tend to factor that into your ranking/visibility.
Ask a friend (preferably female) for advice on your profile and if you've got crappy pics go get some better ones (or hire a professional to help).
And as for the attractiveness scale, if you find yourself lower down on the scale know that you're playing a game that is not in your favor since you can't show off your other great qualities there. So you need to find people that are of your similar level of attractiveness to find better success.
The "without pictures" concept is fine, but why did you choose to model the user profile after a CV? What do you think are the benefits over, say, OKC's approach?
When you can't rely on looks, what's the next best indicator? Money and social proof, obviously! Job history / relationship history is a reasonable proxy there, in the sense of other alternatives are worse.
Although I'm personally done with dating sites, I'm glad to see someone else had this idea, and actually made it.
But please consider not making all data go through Google (analytics (which can be blocked) and firestore (which is required)) and allow logins without Google or Facebook accounts. Sharing browsing data of a dating site with a third-party should be considered a privacy issue.
I'm pretty keen to date someone who blocks Google analytics by default. How does one find such a person? Is there room for a dating site that shadowbans anyone who willfully accepts the current state of surveillance capitalism?
There was an error in the web console that they exceeded their Firestore quota. They probably didn't provision enough money for hours of being on HN's frontpage.
I applaud the attempt to innovate in the dating world which tends to be solely focused on looks.
But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you.
I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out.
That's funny because an early computer dating company was indeed called "great expectations". Back in the 80s and early 90s they had an office in the Landmark Complex in MV next to where Google is now.
> I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out.
You have a signal for a go/no go decision. You know that the signal is noisy and also biased. You argue that this means you should ignore the signal completely and simply choose 'go' in all cases.
It doesn't just lack a filter for 'beauty', it has a negative selection bias. People who are 'ugly'[1] will likely think they have better odds relying on their personality and other intangibles.
There is also, unfortunately, a moral hazard associated with not having pictures. Such a site will probably tend to attract people who would not be glad to be judged by their appearance, other things being equal. For many, this would decrease the average utility.
I think you mean adverse selection, not moral hazard.
Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem.
When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what they looked like). Not long after, I met my wife, who would have been mobbed with messages had she put up a photo that showed what she actually looks like. I was the first and only person she dated online.
You know what I don't get? Why oh why is it so hard to find any authentic food from <my ancestrial home> in <megacity>? They all seem to serve the same old boring 20 dishes. Last time I went it was so bad I didn't finish my plate. Yes I know there are starving children in Africa.
Adverse selection, precisely so. While I'm glad for you and your wife, I can only suspect that her approach is quite uncommon. If it were common it would quickly cease to work as it became general knowledge that all the folks without profile pics are hotties.
I would offer to test and report back but I have been happily out of the dating pool for going on thirteen years with no intention of returning soon. Two advantages to meeting your spouse via IRL social networks: none of this faffing about with profile pictures -- face to face doesn't lie. And you never have to do witty text message banter.
Why is it if a person is initially attracted to another because of their wealth they are a gold digger, but if it's because of their looks, it's perfectly acceptable?
Isn't that just as shallow?
Personally, I think being attracted to someone for any singular reason is somewhat shallow.
Potential solution: make photos and text bios disjoint.
That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio.
You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.
What's the bottom 20% of bios? "If you can't handle me at my worst, you don't deserve me at my best"? Are you suggesting that attractive people have terrible bios? If so, you're probably right and it would be a decent strategy.
That being said, it seems silly to try and force people that only care about looks into caring about bios. Who are we to tell them how to select a partner? Maybe they would be most happy with an attractive partner that doesn't share any of their interests. If that's who they want to find, then instead of telling them they're wrong, we should help them do it.
I'd rather make it like this: you only see the bio until you "like" the person. And only then can you message them or see their pictures.
You can unlike to prevent this from happening and it would be nice with a slight delay in notification to the person you liked so they're not swamped with likes and unlikes because people are trying to beat the system.
>But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective).
For most of us, there's also a very strong mental component to sexual attraction; I mean, sure, there's also a very strong physical component, but I personally think that the text a person generates is a fairly good indicator of how I will feel about the mental component, while dating site photographs, in my experience, tend to be much less representative of how physically attractive I will find the person once we meet. (note, my experience is old, but my experience is that I'm just as likely to find someone way more physically attractive in person than in a photograph as I am to find them way less physically attractive in person. My suspicion is that some people try to present their very best angle, others try to present their most representative side, while others don't put much effort into choosing a photograph at all.)
The other problem is that people make certain, ah, assumptions about me based on how I look. Assumptions that, well, probably will lead you to an incorrect idea as to my personality and values, I mean, more so than usual.
I mean, this is just my own experience. And mostly pretty old experience; I haven't had an online date in rather a long time, but the best online dates I've had were where we didn't exchange photographs ahead of time, either 'cause we met on a medium that didn't really support them, or because we met on dating sites but without uploading a photo. (and yes, sometimes there was, uh, nothing there, physically, but it was always at least an interesting evening.) - my experience was that on photo-focused sites, often I'd get the sort of 'total miss' - where someone would look at my photo and then make what are really pretty reasonable assumptions from looking at me and, uh, I was not at all what they were expecting.
I had been building a dating app that matches based on transactional data. It looks for similarity metrics which act as a filter. It then presents you with picture profiles so you can search for people you like the look of. As you say, sexual attraction is important.
I’ve had to put it on hold because investor sentiment in the U.K. has been negative with the belief that no one will link their bank accounts to find a match (even if we’re transparent, regulated, etc).
The little two person icon in the top right apparently generates a random result. It's very much not obvious what that does at first glance, it appears to be a user account or login type icon. It needs a clear, random element indicator to it.
Current dating apps/services are little more than ad platforms; you advertise yourself to the pool of members they claim to reach, and you pay to have your ad shown to more people more often (Tinder's Boost, OKCupid's A-List.)
Apparently they actually hinder matches unless both people are paying. Some of those prices are laughably ridiculous, like Tinder's $40 for a 3 hour "boost", with no indication of effectiveness, and sadly prey on desperation.
I'd love to see a modern service that aims to meaningfully connect people instead of perpetually preying upon them for cash.
On the other hand, the dating industry may be like the lightbulb cartel; if you're too effective, your customers will no longer need you. :)
They do need to make money. How would you have them do it?
My preference is a markup on the cost of validating alleged attributes. If you claim to be 6'2" tall, that might be validated with a notarized statement from a doctor. If you claim to have a degree, that can be checked via the usual electronic clearinghouse non-profit that universities use. If you claim to own property, county records can be checked. All this costs money. Apply a markup, and that gives a profit that will seem reasonably fair to most people.
Another way is to sell the obvious products, ranging from condoms to wedding rings.
Yeah, it's just like real estate, or job seeking market, if you match the seekers and the retailers (in this case both are seekers) too closely, then you don't have repeat customers...
But, in the spirit of quality long term transactions and overall increase in reputation and trust, I think it may work out. Business aside, if we're aiming to meaningfully connect people then it serves it's goal.
I think the research you are referring to is about unconscious impact of looks on decision. Lack of pictures will affect choices, but will not necessarily make participants unhappy. The later requires an entirely different approach to be studied.
They select on looks because that's all they have on dating sites.
People (especially women in mainstream society) mostly ignore looks when they have already had a real-life pleasant interaction; however, it is very challenging to replicate that online, since it's very hard to give incentives to be genuine.
The funny thing I noticed when living in Switzerland and traveling other European countries is due to the way lower obesity rate, most people are generally attractive.
The American obesity rate is something absurd like 40% among adults. A bunch of these people aren't actually half-bad looking if they were able to drop the weight.
I’ve thought about this a lot. I think it’s important that dating people match based on relative attractiveness, health, energy level, tidiness, age/maturity, mental attitude, goals and standard of living.
Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.”
Perhaps a more palatable way to approach this is to legitimately screen/curate each applicant and rate them honestly so that there’s less disappointment on blind matching. Also, you don’t what a Philip DeFranco moment of moving to NYC for a would-be significant other that is actually a 16-year-old con artist in Idaho.
> Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.”
This. So much this. Above all else.
Playing the whole game of an online back-and-forth "relationship" before the first meeting is annoying and exhausting. Honestly, it feels like a complete waste of time as well.
There will be a yay/nay decision made by at least one party, within the first FIVE MINUTES of that first in-person meeting, that will render EVERYTHING previously exchanged online to be completely irrelevant. Better to just get to that point as quickly as possible, and not kid ourselves about it.
This kind of thing is why I feel like there's an untapped market in some kind of facilitated speed dating that does some kind of basic prescreening on mutual preferences (age range, want/don't want kids, general interests, etc) and sets up events when there's a sufficient 'pool' of people whose Venn diagrams all reasonably intersect.
Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.”
From what I gather, dating sites are dealing with the reality that women tend to want relationships before sex and men tend to want sex. Women also face various safety concerns when going out to meet people in person that they only know via internet.
If you want a meet-and-greet site, those are some of the issues that would need to be addressed to make it fly.
About ten years ago I signed up for several dating sites. Okcupid was the best at matching but Match.com, despite inferior matching, was better for in person meetings. My guess is that this was because Match.com had a monthly subscription fee while Okcupid did not. The meter was running, so to speak, and people were more direct and wanted to meet up after a few email exchanges. On Okcupid there was no penalty for dragging things out other than the possibility of the other person giving up or getting into a relationship. I wonder if some of the dating services where the matching is done by humans rather than programs are successful simply because they're expensive which filters out the casual tire kickers.
This is a very pragmatic/practical approach to dating, where you're not messing around and you're looking for specific qualities/traits to be fulfilled.
The next steps can be to assess the other person's appearance, style, etc. It's kind of like Tinder inverted where analysis comes before photo.
Looks are always a factor and some people on this site will find it out the hard way. Imagine being matched with someone on this website and chatting with them for a few weeks before meeting. If they ghost you after that meeting for your looks, it's going to be a lot more painful than being swiped left .
> "References: He was really nice to me, and one of the nicest guys I've ever dated. We had some issues with his parents not liking me, that eventually caused us to break up. but otherwise I'm envious of the next person who gets to be with him!"
The juxtaposition between dating and references.. doesn't work, at least to me. I can't imagine actually writing this about an ex. Especially, curious as to the circumstance in which this type of interaction would even occur. "Hey, sorry we didn't work out, now can you write a reference for my dating profile?"
Funny story. Good references from one of my ex wives got me in bed with two of her friends. However, they didn't want me, just my sperm. But it was still fun.
I read it mostly as “sex with me comes highly recommended and I have desirable sperm.”
But if you were looking for a relationship, I can see how that wouldn’t have felt as...victorious? I didn’t get that context from your original comment though.
I have a better one. Former lover stops by to say that she's pregnant, and needs a green card. But says that she's going to tell some other guy that it's his. Because he can support her, and [unsaid but implied] I'm just another itinerant hippie.
I don't know what would feel worse, having to write reviews/reference of my one night stand for other guys, or having her write one about me for other girls.
Sounds more like an escorting service than a dating one. If a guy/gal is really great, you would be with him/her, or try to rekindle the relation ship.
Heck like this one that looks like it sounds great, "He was great, except for that one thing that I won't give detail about but was bad enough to stop me from wanting a relationship with him now or ever", that's not even a really good reference for dating, more like a huge red flag ...
With a perfectly working dating system, there is no need to have or want relationships, because you can just find other person using the dating system.
You simply no longer see the person because you like to interact and have sex and do activities with many different people, not because of "red flags".
Or if you still want relationships, then the "red flag" is just "was merely a good fit but not an excellent fit for me".
Props for building this! The online dating market is a complete mess. It's basically an oligopoly, and has a pretty obvious misalignment of incentives. Novel ideas and competition are sorely needed.
As regards all the brilliant psychologists here who are commenting "looks matter to most people!": it's not as though you will find every person you meet on ohmyperson unattractive. The issue is that meeting people you find attractive might happen less frequently than it would on eg Tinder. How much less frequently is an empirical question. It's worth noting that edited, filtered, selection-biased Tinder profile pics are not always useful. Sometimes they're worse than nothing. I've been on a bunch of internet dates in the past year, and half the time my date looks nothing like their photos. At least with ohmyperson I won't feel duped.
The problem I see with this model is that it might naturally lead to the situation where people develop a strong connection over messages and then feel disappointed when they meet IRL, only to find that they are incompatible for reasons of physical attraction. This happens sometimes and it's a real bummer. (It's for this reason that I think you should meet - or pass - after sending a couple messages, rather than having a protracted convo).
Just as the Tinder model provides a coarse grained filter for looks, I can see ohmyperson providing a coarse grained filter for interests, values, and relationship goals. Some apps (bumble, okc) have various filters for these sorts of attributes, but in my opinion none have really figured it out all that well.
Can you expand? I'd like to learn more about this. Ok Cupid used to publish lots of interesting blog posts, so I'm assuming you got that from one, but I can't find it. Do you have a link?
After they were bought by Match Group, all those experiments stopped, and the site became one with the borg. It's depressing that one shitty corporation, controls every fucking dating site, and has the money to buy pretty much any competitor at this point.
That doesn't seem to show that "Long conversations were instantly abandoned." The graph of "conversation life expectancy vs. normal" vs "where in the thread the photos came back on" does show a dip in life expectancy of 20%-30% if photos appeared after just a few messages, but the gap grows smaller the more messages had been exchanged.
In other words, the longer a conversation had been going on, the smaller the influence of learning what the other person looked like was.
I don't think that it's only the dating market that is an oligopoly, it seems that most verticals are dominated by a few key players who have managed to create a standardized system for consistent delivery.
In my personal experiences I find myself having unexpectedly interesting conversations with a myriad of people, many who may not stereotypically raise my curiosity. I think looks can be deceiving, and this is an attempt to remove that factor to give a chance to anyone who you would find interesting.
In stating this, it's true that you may lose interest in someone after realizing a lack of physical chemistry, but I think the opposite also holds true where you lose interest in someone who's very attractive because of a lack of compatibility. Maybe the best relationships stem from friendships that develop into deeper understanding and compassion.
I think we're heavily focused purely on appearances, and in doing so neglect the other important features that define our uniqueness
What’s the incentive for attractive people? Why would you voluntarily give up a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market? If you’re ugly like me this is great.
Being attractive brings its own host of problems when it comes to finding a mate, especially if you are looking for someone you really relate to at a high level rather than someone who just scratches some primal itches.
Rubbish. Being attractive only makes things easier. Why on earth would a less attractive person have a higher chance of finding a soulmate than a more attractive person?
Doesn't seem great at all. You're just procrastinating the "reveal" to a later date where, after N amount of time invested, it might all be for nothing.
Also, that sounds like some seriously uncomfortable potential scenarios to me. Like someone who was using 10 year old pics of themselves finally meeting you at the bar. What exactly is the upside again? Getting to pretend like looks don't matter when they actually do?
As an ugly person I have a higher chance of scoring a date with someone attractive using this photoless site than I would have otherwise. Seems like a win.
You're assuming attractive people would use this site in the first place. At the very least, I'd expect the attractive to ugly ratio to look quite different on this site compared to other dating sites.
You're assuming attractive people just all want to be drooled at. Maybe they care about personality and are looking for a deeper relationship. In that case, putting up a profile pic is just going to gain them unwanted attention that doesn't further their goals.
What's the point of replying to something like this.
I'm not assuming attractive people want to be drooled at, where the fuck are you getting this shit. Of course attractive people care about personality, but the truth is that the vast majority of people in the world also care about how sexually attractive their partner is.
The only people who would go for a site like this are the people who are or have convinced themselves that they are "too ugly" to compete normally or the tiny, tiny minority of people who are abnormal enough to really not care about attractiveness.
You’re assuming that all attractive people are out to find the most attractive partner. In reality, I’ve dated people both much prettier and much uglier than me because personality is a more important factor than looks.
That you can select people that don't care about looks, which is generally a signal for someone who is more experienced, socially sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than average, and more likely to give you a pleasant experience.
Also, in case the system is selective, then you know that the other person likes you for something other than looks, which is also a good indicator for a better experience, both in a short-term and a long-term relationship.
> That you can select people that don't care about looks, which is generally a signal for someone who is more experienced, socially sophisticated and emotionally intelligent than average, and more likely to give you a pleasant experience.
That's a very optimistic outlook. The person you replied to said, "If you’re ugly like me this is great", and I think they're closer to the reality. I predict the site will be filled with mostly unattractive people that care about looks as much as everyone else.
Looks really aren't that important but context is. Dating sites don't create the environment where this building up context and friendships is possible, maybe chat sites are better? Although I haven't found an online community around something I enjoy that also has lots of women involved. which is kind of frustrating.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 227 ms ] threadSupper simple, attractive as is.
Found missing:
- Qualities the person might be seeking in a potential mate; the existing user profiles signal that need.
- The button to go to the next profile seems out of place. Could enjoy more focus.
- Completing my own profile could be a little more nudging.
Please don't repost stuff. It gets annoying.
This is the dating version. I predict it'll consist almost solely of extremely unattractive people.
This also means that the attractive people will find they'll get matched up with nothing but uggos, and then they'll leave.
There are people whose aesthetic appeal is quite broad. There are people whose aesthetic appeal is narrower. There are relatively few people who are broadly aesthetically repulsive. No one should deny that the former end of things makes a lot of activities easier, including dating... but the funny thing in talking to my acquaintances from the very attractive to narrower-appeal segment is that nobody seems to find it easy.
It’s almost as if what people are looking for isn’t as easy as negotiating aesthetics.
Politically correct speech pays a heavy price in expressiveness, especially of the banned ideas. It is kind of the point. What did I save up the points for, if not to spend it to say what I actually want, rather than gesture at it ineffectively?
“unattractive” a word you yourself already used. If you read the guidelines of the site, you’d understand the difference and why it’s important.
If the only way to discuss a concept is to first put on a suit and tie and pay prostrating deference to all who demand it (and demand it they will), then nobody will discuss it very much.
This is how you win a game of censor-thy-neighbour without actual admin access to the platform.
The fact you keep doubling down even after it was pointed out that you aren’t following the site guidelines is a strong indication you probably need to take a break, before one of the mods makes it a mandatory break.
But let me quote you:
>A less male gender focused way of saying a “man-year”, a common term to imply the amount of effort, rather than an exact duration.
I think I was mistaken in my assumption of good faith.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Yikes. Gotta hope you're physically attractive, 'cause your attitude is extremely not. My cynical take, as a divorcée, is that folks who've been married before will be less interested in the superficial and better equipped to evaluate compatibility. Folks drawn to this site will probably be less interested in the looks of their intended, and perhaps their own appearance as well. And they'll be all the happier if you keep to the shallows.
Voat became terrible because when subreddits or users got banned, they went straight to voat.
Tild.es on the other hand has been extremely pleasant to use. That said, because there’s no real reason for a mass exodus from reddit, there’s simply a lack of content.
Just think, people might not have to swipe left as often!
On further reflection, this is because you haven't actually said much other than "boo-hiss".
But reddit was "reddit without censorship" for a very long time before corporate interests, journalists and government decided to get involved.
"Reddit without censorship" was certainly not a cesspit and what made it popular in the first place. Free speech was what made reddit great and made it popular.
Also, "reddit with censorship" is just a different kind of cesspool. Just because it's the kind of cesspool you enjoy swimming in doesn't make it any less revolting.
I know that I'm probably unusual. I really haven't ever cared much about looks. I've mostly valued intelligence, good sense of humor, interest in sex, independence and (frankly) a credible career.
And in retrospect, among my former wives and lovers, it seems like the less conventionally attractive ones have aged the best.
Female... nah, just a pic will do. Male... then yeah... full medical records including blood work, good pictures (probably want some cute animal in your pics too!), dating history - preferably with at a couple of good references! income statements, net worth, pictures of your house, job title, height, weight, body fat %, hobbies, shoe size, list of countries you've visited, professional accreditations.
Then you better still be at least an 8 out of 10 on the actractivness scale!
Ask a friend (preferably female) for advice on your profile and if you've got crappy pics go get some better ones (or hire a professional to help).
And as for the attractiveness scale, if you find yourself lower down on the scale know that you're playing a game that is not in your favor since you can't show off your other great qualities there. So you need to find people that are of your similar level of attractiveness to find better success.
The same can be applied to partners.
Work on yourself, and your desired mate will appear
In 3 months: Dating Site With Pictures, But Only Of Eyes
In 6 months: Dating Site With Pictures, Eyes and Nose
In 12 months: name change to ohmymember.com (adult site)
I vaguely remember some "hotornot" clones from 15 years ago doing that already.
But please consider not making all data go through Google (analytics (which can be blocked) and firestore (which is required)) and allow logins without Google or Facebook accounts. Sharing browsing data of a dating site with a third-party should be considered a privacy issue.
Ah. That's probably why it doesn't load for me.
I block local storage.
I tried it in IE11 (where broken things go) and I get the You Need Javascipt message on an otherwise blank page.
Guessing this page just can't live in a decrapified world.
But sexual attraction is an important part of relationships, so going in blind is inherently risky (from a time utilization perspective). With old school blind dates, your date is friend/family selected so some level of filtering is already done for you.
I guess a good portion of dates are disappointing anyway and there are even those that get catfished, so it's always worth trying something else out.
100%, well put
Hey, isn't that just the all-swipe?
[1]Who view themselves as such, anyway.
Also, I would note that I know some very attractive women who do not put profile pictures on dating sites because they don't want to attract too much attention because of how they look. So this could mitigate the adverse selection problem.
When I first heard that some women did this, I started messaging women who had no pictures (or pictures that did not show what they looked like). Not long after, I met my wife, who would have been mobbed with messages had she put up a photo that showed what she actually looks like. I was the first and only person she dated online.
Your intuition was certainly good but her move was probably even smarter: she found an efficient way to attract the smart ones.
It's absolutely not all upside (to be beautiful) and it's a problem one cannot complain about. No one will have any sympathy whatsoever.
Yes, I know there are women who can't get a date at all because they are deemed too ugly ...
Fine, you win, I am now fully in agreement that beautiful women have it really rough.
Mods pls don't hurt me.
I would offer to test and report back but I have been happily out of the dating pool for going on thirteen years with no intention of returning soon. Two advantages to meeting your spouse via IRL social networks: none of this faffing about with profile pictures -- face to face doesn't lie. And you never have to do witty text message banter.
Isn't that just as shallow?
Personally, I think being attracted to someone for any singular reason is somewhat shallow.
That is, imagine a tinder-like app where 50% of the things shown to you are photos and 50% are bios. But they are all mixed up so you don’t know whose photo matches to whose bio.
You only “match” with someone if you swipe right on their photo and their bio.
A simple fix would be to only allow users to swipe on 20% of the photos and 20% of the bios.
And everybody else will follow suit once they realize it's an effective strategy. And you'll have a race to bottom.
That being said, it seems silly to try and force people that only care about looks into caring about bios. Who are we to tell them how to select a partner? Maybe they would be most happy with an attractive partner that doesn't share any of their interests. If that's who they want to find, then instead of telling them they're wrong, we should help them do it.
You can unlike to prevent this from happening and it would be nice with a slight delay in notification to the person you liked so they're not swamped with likes and unlikes because people are trying to beat the system.
For most of us, there's also a very strong mental component to sexual attraction; I mean, sure, there's also a very strong physical component, but I personally think that the text a person generates is a fairly good indicator of how I will feel about the mental component, while dating site photographs, in my experience, tend to be much less representative of how physically attractive I will find the person once we meet. (note, my experience is old, but my experience is that I'm just as likely to find someone way more physically attractive in person than in a photograph as I am to find them way less physically attractive in person. My suspicion is that some people try to present their very best angle, others try to present their most representative side, while others don't put much effort into choosing a photograph at all.)
The other problem is that people make certain, ah, assumptions about me based on how I look. Assumptions that, well, probably will lead you to an incorrect idea as to my personality and values, I mean, more so than usual.
I mean, this is just my own experience. And mostly pretty old experience; I haven't had an online date in rather a long time, but the best online dates I've had were where we didn't exchange photographs ahead of time, either 'cause we met on a medium that didn't really support them, or because we met on dating sites but without uploading a photo. (and yes, sometimes there was, uh, nothing there, physically, but it was always at least an interesting evening.) - my experience was that on photo-focused sites, often I'd get the sort of 'total miss' - where someone would look at my photo and then make what are really pretty reasonable assumptions from looking at me and, uh, I was not at all what they were expecting.
Ha! That's true, but it can also be a really odd experience. E.g., I've found myself questioning how well the organisers really know me.
I’ve had to put it on hold because investor sentiment in the U.K. has been negative with the belief that no one will link their bank accounts to find a match (even if we’re transparent, regulated, etc).
Apparently they actually hinder matches unless both people are paying. Some of those prices are laughably ridiculous, like Tinder's $40 for a 3 hour "boost", with no indication of effectiveness, and sadly prey on desperation.
I'd love to see a modern service that aims to meaningfully connect people instead of perpetually preying upon them for cash.
On the other hand, the dating industry may be like the lightbulb cartel; if you're too effective, your customers will no longer need you. :)
My preference is a markup on the cost of validating alleged attributes. If you claim to be 6'2" tall, that might be validated with a notarized statement from a doctor. If you claim to have a degree, that can be checked via the usual electronic clearinghouse non-profit that universities use. If you claim to own property, county records can be checked. All this costs money. Apply a markup, and that gives a profit that will seem reasonably fair to most people.
Another way is to sell the obvious products, ranging from condoms to wedding rings.
So a dating sites without pictures would never work. I hope to be proven wrong, but I don't think so.
People (especially women in mainstream society) mostly ignore looks when they have already had a real-life pleasant interaction; however, it is very challenging to replicate that online, since it's very hard to give incentives to be genuine.
The American obesity rate is something absurd like 40% among adults. A bunch of these people aren't actually half-bad looking if they were able to drop the weight.
Height and income seem to be important according to this okc study (based on millions of profiles):
https://theblog.okcupid.com/the-big-lies-people-tell-in-onli...
Also, dating sites should facilitate meeting, not pen-pals or “virtual” phony “relationships.”
Perhaps a more palatable way to approach this is to legitimately screen/curate each applicant and rate them honestly so that there’s less disappointment on blind matching. Also, you don’t what a Philip DeFranco moment of moving to NYC for a would-be significant other that is actually a 16-year-old con artist in Idaho.
This. So much this. Above all else.
Playing the whole game of an online back-and-forth "relationship" before the first meeting is annoying and exhausting. Honestly, it feels like a complete waste of time as well.
There will be a yay/nay decision made by at least one party, within the first FIVE MINUTES of that first in-person meeting, that will render EVERYTHING previously exchanged online to be completely irrelevant. Better to just get to that point as quickly as possible, and not kid ourselves about it.
Pay the fee, exchange 5 minutes with 24 assorted people of your same age. Next!
From what I gather, dating sites are dealing with the reality that women tend to want relationships before sex and men tend to want sex. Women also face various safety concerns when going out to meet people in person that they only know via internet.
If you want a meet-and-greet site, those are some of the issues that would need to be addressed to make it fly.
Users of this site aren't forbidden from exchanging contact info and swapping photos / video chat. That scenario seems far fetched.
The next steps can be to assess the other person's appearance, style, etc. It's kind of like Tinder inverted where analysis comes before photo.
The juxtaposition between dating and references.. doesn't work, at least to me. I can't imagine actually writing this about an ex. Especially, curious as to the circumstance in which this type of interaction would even occur. "Hey, sorry we didn't work out, now can you write a reference for my dating profile?"
Funny story. Good references from one of my ex wives got me in bed with two of her friends. However, they didn't want me, just my sperm. But it was still fun.
But if you were looking for a relationship, I can see how that wouldn’t have felt as...victorious? I didn’t get that context from your original comment though.
Anyway, good night.
So yeah, it was bittersweet.
Also, said ex wife was professionally quite awesome, so I think that sort of rubbed off on me.
But it's by no means purely a brag.
I mean, what. Divorce. And feeling used. Not fun.
As I recall, one of them was about to leave her husband, but a grandmother had offered her $1K if she had a kid. Which I learned just after sex.
But hey, dodged one there, didn't I?
Maybe I should have transformed it into a third person share.
The problem though is that there's an incentive to game the system.
I don't know what would feel worse, having to write reviews/reference of my one night stand for other guys, or having her write one about me for other girls.
Sounds more like an escorting service than a dating one. If a guy/gal is really great, you would be with him/her, or try to rekindle the relation ship.
Heck like this one that looks like it sounds great, "He was great, except for that one thing that I won't give detail about but was bad enough to stop me from wanting a relationship with him now or ever", that's not even a really good reference for dating, more like a huge red flag ...
You simply no longer see the person because you like to interact and have sex and do activities with many different people, not because of "red flags".
Or if you still want relationships, then the "red flag" is just "was merely a good fit but not an excellent fit for me".
As regards all the brilliant psychologists here who are commenting "looks matter to most people!": it's not as though you will find every person you meet on ohmyperson unattractive. The issue is that meeting people you find attractive might happen less frequently than it would on eg Tinder. How much less frequently is an empirical question. It's worth noting that edited, filtered, selection-biased Tinder profile pics are not always useful. Sometimes they're worse than nothing. I've been on a bunch of internet dates in the past year, and half the time my date looks nothing like their photos. At least with ohmyperson I won't feel duped.
The problem I see with this model is that it might naturally lead to the situation where people develop a strong connection over messages and then feel disappointed when they meet IRL, only to find that they are incompatible for reasons of physical attraction. This happens sometimes and it's a real bummer. (It's for this reason that I think you should meet - or pass - after sending a couple messages, rather than having a protracted convo).
Just as the Tinder model provides a coarse grained filter for looks, I can see ohmyperson providing a coarse grained filter for interests, values, and relationship goals. Some apps (bumble, okc) have various filters for these sorts of attributes, but in my opinion none have really figured it out all that well.
After they were bought by Match Group, all those experiments stopped, and the site became one with the borg. It's depressing that one shitty corporation, controls every fucking dating site, and has the money to buy pretty much any competitor at this point.
[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/gwern/comments/aapn1l/okcupid_blog_...
In other words, the longer a conversation had been going on, the smaller the influence of learning what the other person looked like was.
In my personal experiences I find myself having unexpectedly interesting conversations with a myriad of people, many who may not stereotypically raise my curiosity. I think looks can be deceiving, and this is an attempt to remove that factor to give a chance to anyone who you would find interesting.
In stating this, it's true that you may lose interest in someone after realizing a lack of physical chemistry, but I think the opposite also holds true where you lose interest in someone who's very attractive because of a lack of compatibility. Maybe the best relationships stem from friendships that develop into deeper understanding and compassion.
I think we're heavily focused purely on appearances, and in doing so neglect the other important features that define our uniqueness
Also, that sounds like some seriously uncomfortable potential scenarios to me. Like someone who was using 10 year old pics of themselves finally meeting you at the bar. What exactly is the upside again? Getting to pretend like looks don't matter when they actually do?
I'm not assuming attractive people want to be drooled at, where the fuck are you getting this shit. Of course attractive people care about personality, but the truth is that the vast majority of people in the world also care about how sexually attractive their partner is.
The only people who would go for a site like this are the people who are or have convinced themselves that they are "too ugly" to compete normally or the tiny, tiny minority of people who are abnormal enough to really not care about attractiveness.
Also, in case the system is selective, then you know that the other person likes you for something other than looks, which is also a good indicator for a better experience, both in a short-term and a long-term relationship.
That's a very optimistic outlook. The person you replied to said, "If you’re ugly like me this is great", and I think they're closer to the reality. I predict the site will be filled with mostly unattractive people that care about looks as much as everyone else.