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When I last used online dating (4+ years ago), I saw a decent number of height requirements stated explicitly from female profiles.

I always found this interesting, not because of the idea itself, but because they chose specific heights as cutoffs. It was particularly common to see women pick 6' as their cutoff. Many of these women were significantly shorter than 6', even if they wore heels.

If you're 5'4" (say), can you really tell the difference between 5'10" and 6'? Are those two inches actually a dealbreaker? Walking past men on the street, can you actually filter out all men under 6' accurately and precisely? It seems extremely unlikely that anyone could do that unless they were quite close to 6' themselves.

And yet it's trivial to filter out every guy under 6' on a site like OkCupid. The site provides built-in functionality to do so. I'm willing to bet a significant percentage of women stating they require a height of 6' or higher would often be willing in real life to date men much shorter than that, because they probably don't even know what 6' precisely looks like.

It's also been convincingly demonstrated that men on dating sites inflate their height by 2 full inches on average. Suppose you don't really know what 6' precisely looks like and go on a date with a 5'10" guy claiming to be 6'. You may not realize he's not actually 6' and believe the claim from his profile. From here on out, your idea of dating "6'" men becomes reinforced based on faulty data.

I used to be infatuated with a tall women that also thought she was 5'9"

I measured her and she was 5'7" and she still was able to book modeling jobs with strict requirements under her adjusted height

People liked the proportions and her long legs

Maybe some future society won't but the phenotype wins now

Just another anecdote about how lying and perception aren't exactly mysterious ways of getting ahead

When you make a strict distinction between hooking up and dating, everything starts to make sense.

Hooking up stats are rather clear: around 80% of women have sex with around 20% of men. That's why an average looking guy on PoF/CL/Tinder/OkCupid has very little chance compared to real life.

This imbalance is actually caused by the guys. Your average guy will throw himself at almost any woman. You join a site, you go through profiles, you message the ones you like. You can easily message 100 girls and get 1 reply. Why? Because every other average guy is doing the same. So an average girl gets 100 messages a day, and there's no way she's replying to all of them - she will pick the top 5-10, and will talk to them.

If your face isn't good looking, don't worry. You can compensate with other things. Hit the gym, girls LOVE fit bodies, even though most of them you tell you they want someone funny/smart/interesting. Don't believe the words, believe the actions. When I started gaining muscle, women started paying attention. Other things that help are: confidence, ability to speak calmly and confidently, dressing better than average, treating women as humans, not as princesses.

If you want to meet lots of women IRL, pick up an activity with mostly women, like dance, yoga.

Hooking up stats are rather clear: around 80% of women have sex with around 20% of men. That's why an average looking guy on PoF/CL/Tinder/OkCupid has very little chance compared to real life.

While I think this sounds very true, do you have a reference?

It completely matches the experience in the city I live in, and I'd love to be able to quote it to people.

Sorry, speaking from my experience. And probably most guys experience. Everyone who has been to highschool can see it.

OKCupid has some research, but they don't record actual sex encounters. They have stats like "As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium".

The closest thing to "fact" is that about 1/3 of men alive historically have reproduced, compared to about 2/3 of women (or is it 40%-60%?).

Parent's comment is entirely correct and shouldn't be downvoted.

To learn more, read about hypergamy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy

TLDR: All women seek higher status males, inevitably leading to the highest status males reproducing with more females.

The key is that 'higher status', in this context, doesn't mean what it normally means. It took me a long time to figure that out. 'Higher status' means 'building muscle, confidence, ability to speak calmly and confidently, dressing better than average, treating women as humans, not as princesses.'

Being a multimillionaire is not 'higher status' when it comes to meeting women (unless you make it to the hundred-millionaire state')

Being a founder or a corporate exec is not 'higher status' when it comes to meeting women (unless you are C-suite at a fortune-500)

Dancing (I mean couple dancing) is the best way meeting new women. On the dancing floor there is a shortage of men and after a short "do you wanna dance?" question you have right away physical contact. Online dating is quite the opposite.

The other problem I've noticed is that most women don't have a problem finding a date. They can go to a bar, club, library, grocery store and men ask them out. Why do they need to go online in the first place? They are either too picky or have some other major issue.

Before I was married, I found dates online all the time. 99% of the women I dated had issues or were too picky. I didn't end up finding my wife until I joined some local meetup groups and met her IRL.

I guess that depends on your definition of too picky? If you want to have a partner that shares similar life values to you and it's not that common amongst the population near you (or willing to come up and ask you out) just rolling the dice with random people can get old real quick.

Some things are worth being picky about and just dealing with up front. If you can choose from 100 people why not eliminate the ones who don't share your religion, for example.

Because you eliminate entire groups of people without considering other attributes - if you met someone and only learned their religion some time later, you might find its not as important to you as you thought. If you rule it out before you can make that discovery , you never know what kind of people you have closed the door on.

Of course I'm someone who married the person who couldn't be more different in politics, personality and background - 17 years ago and going strong. So naturally my perspective here is biased - on the basis of criteria I thought were important to me at that age, I have no doubt I never would have considered her if I saw her profile and went by he facts and figures.

One thing many people that are focused on online dating don't realize is that most of the other users aren't really serious about it. A lot of my female (and some male) friends had an OK Cupid for really no reason other than just to scroll around when bored or because a friend had one.

> had issues or were too picky

This seems rather vague and subjective...

Not wanting to date some random people that approach you in public spaces is being "too picky"? Might as well say that having any preference is too picky. By that definition, I'm yet to make a friend that isn't "too picky" or does not have a "major issue".

I think the "too picky" comment wasn't related to that (considering it said "too picky or ..."). Not sure what the OP means though, so you could be right.

I think the point is less about how they are surrounded by people who want to date them and more about the fact that should they chose to, they have the option of any of accepting a date, or even asking for one themselves, from the typically plentiful group of single people who are seeking their attentions.

Ignoring these opportunities in favour of having a computer mediated interaction where they are able to choose precisely what they are interested in... does fit the definition of "picky". Most people probably have their own personal reasons for it, but that doesn't make it less of a fit for the dictionary definition of picky.

But it's just not true? "accepting a date" from how many people? 0-3? I guess for bar/club goers perhaps it's different. But the notion that you're going to have a substantial number of people "lined up" if you're just going about your life is simply false. Sure you can ask people out, but then it's as much of a choice as going online is. Not a default you're passively opted into.

Even OP has admitted that they were easily getting many dates online yet still they had to reject a lot of people (I assume?). And (again assumedly) that is not picky [cause they had "issues"], while somebody not picking whoever from a small pool is.

And that's all without going into how the cohort of people doing the approaching can be skewed in an unfavorable way, the scariness and increased risk of accepting a date in person etc.

I don't want into arguments about definitions. My point is, for the average computer literate person, going on the Internet is the expected rational choice. Or perhaps more widely, that the Internet meme of "women have it easier, there's something wrong with ones that can't find a suitable date" is based on rather troubling judgments.

Thank you, this weird myth that women are just walking around with this amazing pool of compatible men to choose from needs to go away and definitely has no place here. Even for women for whom there is a really large pool, which is not all women, it just creates a lot of extra noise to sift through but it's not really quality.

From what I heard, nobody gets anything serious started in clubs. Bars are probably better but, quite honestly, I don't feel safe going to a bar by myself late in the evening.

I completely concur with the notion that the pool of "compatible" dates is a total myth. That's a total pile of excrement in need of swift disposal.

I always ask myself: can a person that looks like me, is as smart, has as much money etc... be successful in this situation?

The answer (for me) has is almost always "yes" and so the question becomes how did they do it? What failing of mine should I repair?

Here's another thing society does that heavily penalizes "unattractive" men: Men are strongly stigmatized for wearing make-up for personal (as opposed to professional) use. It really isn't fair. A good foundation and some concealer goes a long way.

I don't think attractiveness matters past initiating the first date in a cold relationship. Who knows, is it because I've gotten older? Getting to know someone makes their face so dynamic and expressive. Every human face is pretty once you get to know it that way. Perhaps that is why it's easier to date people we're already friends with: we already know how pretty and interesting they are, what more could one want?

I'm guessing this isn't so much the case in other cultures as I had a few male Korean friends who wore light make up.

Oh, of course. It even changes with time within the same culture. In the United States at least, away from major cities with a strong culture of liberal individuality, there are extreme social pressures culminating in even violence that police the conduct of both men and women when it comes to self-expression through makeup and fashion.

Attractiveness overall seems a more valued trait in women, though, to a rather catastrophic degree. I think men should be allowed to use makeup, and I think the small amounts that would help others wouldn't notice, but, overall, I don't think the fact that women are supposed to constantly worry about their makeup or their hair or their fashion so disproportionately is an advantage. I got the impression that men don't wear makeup mostly because it doesn't really matter. That's a lot of time better spent doing almost literally anything else.

High hills is another example.

On the other hand I tend to prefer women who use little to no makeup . It's not necessarily a one-way discrimination, though I agree the reaction is more of an automatic response people in this culture will hold towards men who choose to do so.

Understand there is a ratio of 10 men to 1 woman on every dating website.

Any criteria that reduces the number of choices is good for women as it makes their lives easier.

"Well, if I meet someone online he has to be as good as possible right? They are so many men here."

I 100% agree with your post and I have similar experience in my life. While in real life, we build some kind of background via the way we communicate, get things done and how we come across. All of this is missing online. At dating sites, most of people play with prejudice. I think women do not feel safe at these dating sites so they keep their options reserved.

Your anecdote rings with how there are many people who hold racist tendencies, but exclude their friends of said race from those tendencies. Essentially when they think 'all X' they mean 'all X besides those whom I know'

Is it racist to have physical preferences that conform to "race"? If I were, for example, to like tall men, and therefore have a preference for men of a race which is stereotypically tall, does that make me racist?

It's a very complicated question because human relationships are complicated.

I would say no, and in fact even having a preference for something like skin complexion isn't enough to make one racist. What is racist is stating the preference in terms of race and categorically denying that one would ever be attractive to a person of <race> or <skin complexion> or whatever. I think it would be pretty ugly to say that you would never date a short person, regardless of any implications for one's ideas about race, too. Like, it's different to say "i find tall people attractive" versus "i find short people unattractive".

Personal preferences aside, the way society signals which physical features are desirable and undesirable is racist. This is largely commercialized and driven by marketing departments these days but it is rooted in all sorts of institutions that govern the desirability and undesirability of certain bodies. So, as an individual, signaling one's preferences can feed into this structural power that decides who is pretty and who is not. Individual preferences are almost certainly partly influenced by messages society sends us and it's important to keep that in mind.

Yeah, it is by definition. If you are excluding somebody just because of their race (even if they are tall, handsome, or whatever else your are seeking on a partner), then it is.

It is fine, there is nothing wrong with it, as you should do whatever you want with your romantic life, but it is racist as you are excluding a group of people from your dating pool just because of their race.

Am I also a sexist because I am not gay?

No. Any dictionary definition of racism suggests a feeling of superiority over the race in question. Romantic preferences have nothing to do with it.

What is racism? I was under the impression there is no scientific validity to the concept.

I think this whole idea of race should be put down, euthanised. I like to mock it by comparing people to dog breeds. We don't call the English Pointer and the Miniature Shar Pei different races, but they have distinctly stronger difference than English compared Chinese people.

In an effort to reclaim my preferences I can often be hearding saying things like "I don't mean to sound racists, but could you pass the salt" at the dinner table.

By tendencies I was meaning making jokes like "Having kids is great, you should, unless you're brown. There's enough brown people already"

Being an Asian does not imply unattractiveness. It's one's other properties that determine attractiveness (muscular body, etc).

Considering Asian as a property of unattractiveness is racist. Even if you are an Asian yourself.

Clearly what was meant was that an average white person who was asked to imagine an attractive potential partner, would image a white person of the appropriate gender. Thus asians do not look like the image of "imaginary attractive potential partner" of most people (in the US). This doesn't mean that asians are unattractive. Just that most movie stars are not asians.

White-Asian marriages are something like 80% white male/asian female, 20% white female/asian male.

"Asian" is not an indicator of unattractiveness; "male Asian", on average, is.