Hacker News Reader

Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

It's funny... doing all this 'hacking' to create profiles with awesome match %'s... is pretty pointless. In my personal experience, a match below 80% is a red flag (serious incompatibilities), but above 85% there aren't any big differences.

Like he said, he went on 55 dates, but only three second dates. The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time. And the "three second dates" means his filter wasn't even that great -- he probably would have done better just simply browsing on the site, and only directly messaging the girls he found interesting in the first place.

But the real interesting thing here is the clustering into 7 types of women -- that's fantastic! I'd love to read more about that -- if he could write it up in a blog, OkTrends-style, I feel like it could get a huge number of hits. I think tons of people, including myself, would be interested in the details, especially if he did it for both men and women.

View on HN

I spent about one year on OkC @ approx 40minutes/day on the site, and got about 20 first dates, 10 second dates, 2 third dates, and 2 fourth dates. They were almost all 85+% matches, and weren't that hard to find. However, I would say that my manual filtering probably took way less time than he spent implementing his models.

He probably learned more engineering and advanced math while I learned how to read subtle messages of profiles, project the right ones of my own and know what's worth talking about ahead of time by having conversation online first.

He probably got the satisfaction of 'hacking' the system, while I had more efficient expenditure of money (dates can get expensive on average for guys when you decide to at least offer to pay).

None of my OkC prospects looked like they would work out long-term, though I'm still good online friends with over half of them. I flippantly shut down my account 3 months before I would have to leave the country, because even if I met someone I didn't want to be in a long-distance relationship, so I decided to save myself the trouble.

And then met a girl the very next day (not kidding) that I really hit it off with when I wasn't looking, and we're planning to go traveling in Asia next month (it's been 7 months).

I'm a diehard hacker and nerd and all, but when things like this happen, it's hard to not wonder if the traditionalists do have a point when saying you can't figure these things out with numbers. At least not when people are gaming their numbers :)

The math is super-fascinating though, and I hope OkC team does some research into it and integrates some of the ideas: obviously they wouldn't want to support uber-profile optimization for multiple groups, but maybe help find the right groups, etc.

I do think his biggest win as a male on OkC was being able to generate all the inbound traffic he would want with no invested marketing on his part (besides writing his scripts). That's something even the most skilled male OkC connoisseurs find difficult to do.

Edited: to add last thought.

One thing his hacking did accomplish was to generate leads/dates without him having to concoct tailored messages manually. I can see how that could be too much of a burden for many. OP managed to replace that psychological barrier with numbers and algorithm (with which he was much more comfortable) and got to the same end result.

IMO that's something worth pondering. We're all good/bad at different things, while the world typically sets us up with one "standard" way of going about things. Establishing secondary, albeit less efficient routes, may be a lifesaver for many.

(apologies for the rather abstract writeup)

"And then met a girl the very next day (not kidding) that I really hit it off with when I wasn't looking"

This, IMHO, is the best advice. I remember the Dalai Lama's advice about finding happiness. How do I find happiness? "Stop lookin, be happy", he said.

Same with dating. How do I find a date? Stop looking. More exactly, live life, and in time, you'll meet someone.

Part of the reason why is that someone sort of on the hunt isn't that attractive, because such a person isn't being totally natural, or themselves. The dating game becomes false. That is subtly there to see, and is a turn off. If not then what you get is potentially two false people under pressure to maintain something.

Yeah, I know, it can't work for all, circumstances, time, and all that. But so far, regardless of who I have passed this notion on to, regardless of their situation, in time, its worked. And worked solidly.

Unfortunately, this is something people do get fretful about, and then decide something has to be done.

> Same with dating. How do I find a date? Stop looking. More exactly, live life, and in time, you'll meet someone.

That is a rather good philosophy in general, but for an average guy like me, the key to finding a good partner was exposure. By that I mean being active in a larger group of people that includes both men and women in a reasonable ratio, and where people communicate with each other.

Most of my time is occupied by my PhD studies in CS and I spend my free time with a good book or a movie. If I "stopped looking" with these hobbies and didn't do anything else, I simply wouldn't meet any single potential partner at all.

"Stop looking" may just mean "act like you're not looking", which is generally a good advice -- people are put off by subtle signs of despair in your eyes. But consider increasing your odds by raising your exposure, ideally while doing something non-desperate.

Suggestions: Some martial art that appeals to both genders; Mountain climbing; being more active on some gender-balanced discussion group or fan scene.

>This, IMHO, is the best advice.

Sure, it works well in Disney movies.

> "Stop lookin, be happy"

It's true that happiness comes when you're settled with your lot in life. But you will instinctively rebel if you settle too early, on too little; this site is sort of dedicated to the art of not settling too early.

Alan Watts said: (paraphrased)

Life is not a journey pilgrimage with an important goal at the end, it is a musical thing and you are supposed to laugh and sing and dance along the way.

For the full text, check out this cool youtube animation made by the Southpark folks from his lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERbvKrH-GC4 (animation style is Southpark-like, content is Alan Watts)

Enjoying your life does not imply getting satisfied with what you have.

You can enjoy your journey and be thankful for what you are having at the moment, not only the finish.

Translating this to our members of startup: concentrate on your activity, rather than focus on getting your first million.

A thing I've been thinking about: you're not supposed to be "eager", at least not apparently eager, but still go on 50+ dates with random people? How do you make it not feel like work? I think I'd get depressed, sadly. In my mind, meeting someone should be all casual. But what do I know. I like the persistency though.

> The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking, it's just a question of time.

That I disagree with, 4 years and hundreds upon hundreds of hours sunk into OKC, and I've had maybe 2 dozen dates from it.

Knowing how to optimize the site would be very useful. From pictures (OKC has MyBestFace that helps with that) to profile text. This guy obviously had good pictures (great pictures alone can make a profile, for either male or females), a decent profile, and the ability to write good opening messages.

Without at least 2 out of 3 of those, online dating becomes nearly impossible.

In 2008 I did something similar with OkCupid, but for totally different reasons (friends with benefits) but instead I would find a girl I liked, who was also not looking for LTR, then use fake profiles running scripts auto answering every question to find the answers to all the questions she had done since they are normally hidden. I filled out my real profile exactly the same so we would be a 97%+ match. I then would msg them hey we're a match, I'm going to go shopping for clothes at <insert hipster district with lot's of foot traffic> hey do you want to come with? What's your phone#? Never failed. Phone is important because it shows you are serious and have confidence. Messaging back and forth gives the girl time to reject you, or they think you're a time waster. I'd hang out, buy them a bunch of clothes, get a drink, laugh a lot and then have a bunch of sex.

Each girl I ended up dating anyways for about a month or so because I had to move so often for work back then, but after getting to know them I found their question answers were largely meaningless, since it's a public site with their identity on it they of course lied and faked almost every question or purposely kept answers conservative in case somebody they worked with spied on their account and discovered their secret fetish or something.

This guy's method of mass visiting other accounts and never having to write opening messages is excellent though.

This is why I wish they had the internet when I was dating pre-my married days.

After I figured out OkCupid I had about a 30%-40% message to date success rate. I've shown friends and while they haven't had quite my success they've drastically increased the number of responses they receive. The key is to keep it simple, 3-4 sentences. First is a funny line about something in her profile to grab her attention, next comment on something shared, finally a funny open ended question. One or two messages later ask her out for drinks.

Don't just say "hi" or write a book, that just doesn't work.

Now I've been off the market for a couple years so things might have changed but more than likely they haven't.

Agreed, I've used other sites, not OkCupid, but ended up with the same result. I keep it dead simple, write a couple of lines, and if they respond with a hint of interest, I just ask them out for something casual. It works really well. Approaches that failed...

1. Short messages like you said, 'hi, how are you?'. They basically get deleted instantly.

2. Long, thoughtful messages. I'd write a few paragraphs trying to make some jokes, and talk about what we have in common, and then ask a handful of questions about their interests. First problem, it's a lot of time on my end. Secondly, they need to invest a lot of time to respond. It's like those e-mails that you'll get to tomorrow, and then the day after, because you know they're going to be time consuming. Same thing, and eventually, they just say forget it, and never reply. Meanwhile, ask one fun question, and they can reply within a few seconds, and you're more liking to get a response.

3. Trying to keep a conversation rolling before asking them out. It goes downhill fast, and with every message, you risk them disappearing, or someone else grabbing their attention. I've lost count at the number of people I was talking with, everything sounded great after a handful of messages, then they fell off the face of the earth. Once again, ask them out after the first reply, and you don't have to worry about that happening.

In short, simple message, ask them out fast, and don't try too hard. Easy for you to write, easy for them to respond.

I should collate all these responses like yours and the parent comment and compile an eBook I can market like Nathan Barry - "OkCupid for Geeks". And then retire on the proceeds.

asking out early for me works opposite way, maybe i am not fancy enough with just offering to grab a coffe together.

Hmm, maybe don't make it sound too formal.

Bad. Would you like to get a coffee together sometime?

Good. I'm heading into town on Saturday, do you want to grab a quick drink at XYZ cafe early afternoon? They make a mean espresso. Anyway, I need to run for now, but let me know!

Something along those lines usually works for me. I might be analyzing things too much, but with the second example...

1. You're already going into town, it doesn't sound like you just sit at home, but instead you actually get out. Also, this coffee isn't the focus of the day, it's just a quick get together, and not a big deal for anyone.

2. You make decisive plans, which sounds confident.

3. You said you need to run, once again showing you're a busy person, with a life.

Also, keep in mind you're going to get turned down. You can be Brat Pitt, and you'll still get turned down more times than you can count. Don't take it personally, just tweak up your profile, photos, and messages so you get a little better response rate, and that's all you can do.

Good advice, I don't mind beeing rejected as much as earlier first times are worst :) When I grew some confidence I got better response rate so for anyone reading this: break anxiety loop, don't mind that much.

Change your income to say "Greater than 1 million / year". The women will come to you. They might not be the women you want, but it's a much smarter attribute to lie about than say your height which she'll figure out right away.

I don't think the goal is to get any random women to talk to you. This can be achieved much easier. The goal here is get the specific kind of women - ones that you'd enjoy being with - to notice you and talk to you. It's like "I want to meet a person, any person" (just go out and you're done in about a minute unless you live in a desert) and "I want to find a friend" (that may be a bit harder and may not just work by stopping random strangers and asking them to be your friend, they'd probably think you're panhandling).

Have you had an opposite gender friend review your profile?

The generally accepted rule is 1) Be attractive and 2) Don't be unattractive. That's more than a bit reductionist, of course, but tweaking your profile text or message texts only helps at the margins, assuming you don't have deal breakers. com2kid isn't going to be getting dozens of inbound messages a month just by revising his profile (sorry, com2kid).

(On the other hand, updating your pictures genuinely can give you many, many more views, messages, and responses.)

Sorry, but this is just bullshit. It's what guys tell themselves because they can't write reasonable profiles or write non-creepy messages to women.

I've read what most guys send my female friends on okcupid. Not just the random idiots, but what i would think would be otherwise intelligent people. It often comes off as desperate or creepy.

It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive. But I'm an average looking guy, but i have no problem finding dates on okcupid.

I've summarized the average guy profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/RegularOKCGuy?disable_mobile=...

(humorously, this profile gets almost as many likes as my real profile)

Realistically, have someone of the opposite sex that is the type of person you want to attract, read your profile. Ask them questions about what they like and don't.

That will solve your profile problems. As for messages, this is harder.

Did I say a typical guy can't get dates on OkC? No. It's easy to--I'm somewhat below average in the looks department, but I had a steady stream of dates (probably averaging somewhere between 1 and 2 per week) on OkC while I was on it (until I met my current partner on it).

The point is that you're not suddenly going to triple or quadruple your inbound message rate or reply rate by improving your written profile. This much is clear, and the fact that your average guy profile gets nearly as much positive attention as your real profile indicates as much.

However, smartly choosing quality pictures is probably the one thing anyone should do, and you're going to get far more value back for the investment than putting hours writing a profile slightly more witty and more interesting than your previous profile. It triples, or quadruples, or quintuples your reply rates.

ETA: Another way to look at it is this: someone who writes a boring profile and sends stilted messages will, at best, only be able to write a slightly less boring profile and won't in general be able to improve their crappy messages (with the assumption that the profile or messages don't contain stupid dealbreakers in the first place), no matter how much effort they put into the rewrite. If writing is an area of weakness for you, then rewriting isn't going to do much good for you. On the other hand, crappy pictures can be replaced in a matter of hours with something that anyone can tell is much better, even if you're not generally considered attractive.

"The point is that you're not suddenly going to triple or quadruple your inbound message rate or reply rate by improving your written profile."

I strongly disagree.

I have A/B tested written profiles on okcupid and elsewhere, and found it matters a lot.

" This much is clear, and the fact that your average guy profile gets nearly as much positive attention as your real profile indicates as much."

Actually, the attention is mainly from women who think it's hilarious :)

"However, smartly choosing quality pictures is probably the one thing anyone should do, and you're going to get far more value back for the investment than putting hours writing a profile slightly more witty and more interesting than your previous profile. It triples, or quadruples, or quintuples your reply rates. "

I don't disagree with this either.

Far too many people have profile pictures that they don't look comfortable or confident in. For example, too many people dress/etc based on what they think people think looks good, instead of what makes them feel actually confident and attractive. They look uncomfortable as hell, and it's completely obvious to the outside world.

It's certainly true that it helps to be attractive

I think specifically in this context what is meant is 1) have good pictures 2) don't have bad pictures

Even OKc harps on pictures, because they know from their data that pictures are important.

Yes. In fact, if you have good pictures, okcupid will let you know. Among other things, you will get an email that says "We just detected that you're now among the most attractive people on OkCupid. ...", once the clickthroughs on your profile increase.

(I thought they send this to everyone, but it turns out not to be true, it's related to profile clickthroughs. See http://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2012/12/20/is-being-one-of...)

They also have the mybestface stuff, which helps a lot.

> I've summarized the average guy profile here: http://www.okcupid.com/profile/RegularOKCGuy?disable_mobile=....

Annoyingly enough very similar to my profile! :P

But yeah. I have a good job, I go to the gym and workout, what the heck else am I expected to do? I'm working my ass off to make a positive impact on the world. Fuck if I am going to drop that so I can be a narcissistic asshole, quit my job, and fly around the world discovering myself.

As for the messages I send, I try my best to be original and different, for example,

What does make you laugh? The silliness of life? Those who take themselves too seriously, or those who take themselves not seriously at all? Both are amusing in their own way, though I cannot understand why one would pain themselves by taking life seriously!

Not to say life is without value, life most certainly has value, and helping others is the noblest of callings.

But, well, I own a 5 foot long remote controlled floating dolphin. I gave up on being 100% sane long ago. Technically I am sane, but I do enjoy having fun toying around with things. I also drive a bright orange car!

What about yourself? What is your alarm clock set to? I once set my dad's cell phone ringer to a rooster crowing. He was not pleased, although my mother almost fell out of her chair laughing.

(My current alarm is Violin music, in all honesty, it is not that good at waking me up!)

That message apparently didn't go over very well!

Other messages are sent such as

Hmm, a good cup of coffee may be easy to find, but I have had to teach myself how to make a good cup of tea! I find the ritual itself can be fairly relaxing. (Depends on the culture of the tea of course, some teas are easier to prepare than others!)

Is your work in the heathcare industry on something like replacing old people with robots? Someone should get on that. I know for a fact that the day I turn 60, I want a super strong steel alloy robot body.

Actually I might take that offer a bit sooner than 60, it'd be hard to wait!

Which also apparently didn't go over well either!

Your messages sound really stilted and like you're really nervous. They jump from one random topic to the next, without actually showing anything uniquely you.

> But, well, I own a 5 foot long remote controlled floating dolphin. I gave up on being 100% sane long ago. Technically I am sane, but I do enjoy having fun toying around with things. I also drive a bright orange car!

What this says: I own toys, you should know about them! Also, I think I'm "crazy!" And I have an awesome car, look at my success!

It makes you sound kind of like you're filling your life with things because you've been socially rejected. If that whole block of indented text was your entire first message, then it's incredibly rambly and full of similar flags.

One of my most successful stream of messages went something like this: noticing that my potential date lived in Cambridge, I asked if they had explored the area (they said they were adventurous in their profile). When they responded with "Yeah, I've found some cool stuff", I then asked if they'd found the secret staircase that led to the lair of angry geese on the river?

This establishes both that 1. I've actually read their profile, and 2. I have some knowledge they would be interested in, and that they can share in.

Here's how I'd rephrase your second message:

I noticed from your profile that you enjoy a good cup of tea. Do you make your own, or have you visited a lot of different tea houses?

You're not overwhelming the other person with information, just asking a question that, if they've shown an interest, they're generally really happy to expand on. Don't treat your messages like emails or letters, but more like instant messages. Keep them short and easy to respond to, and let the other person tell you some of their story.

Edit: Also, don't ask so many things! It's hard enough for someone to want to answer a single question you ask them. Answering 3 or more is too much effort: if they wanted to start answering your first one, but kept reading instead, you've failed to convert, and by the third one they've likely skipped on to someone else's message.

This is the right approach. Just ask a simple question that shows you read the person's profile and ask them to expand on something you would like to know more about (and it should be something you are genuinely curious about). Also, stay away from anything romantic/sexual, and you'll stick out way more compared to all the crazy/creepy guys that are messaging her.

The point about the orange car was meant to be self deprecating!

(The $10 inflatable dolphin is supposed to be cute, ends up being really freaky looking, go figure!)

The dolphin was actually something I brought into work for my team to play with, we had a good chunk of the building watching as we flew it around our atrium. The problem is, it is hard to capture that I am the sort of person who is always thinking of ways to help make his team happy without writing really lame sentences like this one!

I do write more sane messages, to a girl who had mentioned that she liked eating animals,

What is your favorite mammal to consume? I've been on a lamb kick lately, lamb burgers stuffed with basil and spinach are so good! Put some goat cheese in the very middle, and life is divine!

and in other food related messages!

There is a place in the ID that sells durian milkshakes. The shakes are a bit on the strong side. :)

What other sorts of weird things have you had? I think squid jerky was one of the more interesting foodstuffs I've tried.

Overall, after 4 years of trying I've yet to find a good way to write messages. :/

Try ending with the question, rather than leading it. For instance, taking your line about weird foods and flipping the sentences yields this:

    I think squid jerky was one of the more interesting foodstuffs I've tried. What other sorts of weird things have you had?

The revised phrasing is more conversational. Ending with a question gives them something to go on. Otherwise they finish reading the message wondering what squid jerky is like and why you would say "foodstuffs" when you could use "foods" instead. And don't use weird language like that. Just say what you mean, simply. Your messages read as if you're trying to fill them with personality. ("Life is divine!" comes across as weird.) Stop using exclamation marks.

You don't want to put too much information into messages. When you say less the other person will fill the blanks with their imagination, and people tend to be optimistic. They'll see you as they want to see you. Whereas your messages are full of a subtext that makes you seem over-enthusiastic and a bit "quirky!" (in other words: annoying).

Sorry for being blunt, just calling it how I see it from the few messages you have posted.

> Try ending with the question, rather than leading it. For instance, taking your line about weird foods and flipping the sentences yields this:

My sentence structure is almost always question first then statement, not the best form, but one that seems to come naturally to me. I'll work on flipping it around!

Then again I enjoy abuse of English in general, one the sign offs to a message I sent went as such:

With the names of artists hanging in the air, I shall end this message, with hopes of hearing a reply.

(That one did get a reply!)

I have done other hideous things on OKC as well, including getting into a short story writing contest with an English teacher one time. That was enjoyable. :-D

IMNHO this whole (parent) message (less the quotes) sounds a lot more confident, sane and interesting than all those quotes put together (or taken separately). Perhaps you just need to relax and write as if you were talking to people here on hn. (I think the keyword in that sentence is people).

If the women you respond to aren't interested when you're being honest -- why bother sending them messages at all? (Lame, casual sex, I guess -- but there must be easier ways to go about finding that than hanging out on a web page?)

So, where's the secret staircase that leads to the lair of angry geese on the river? It sounds like a fun time for me and my wife.

The north bank of the Charles, along the bike path, has all kinds of secret, discoverable places. I actually can't remember the exact location anymore, but I know it's where the path is about 30 feet above the bank.

Dang those are some awkward messages.

To me that comes across as trying too hard.

DISCLAIMER: IANAW

That profile is hilarious. Maybe I'm giving the average OKC woman too much credit, but are you sure they aren't picking up on the satire?

Plenty of average and unattractive people are in happy relationships. That "rule" is just something that uninteresting people tell themselves to try to avoid taking responsibility for their situation.

So you'd say the real rule is "be interesting"?

The problem is there are plenty of people with passionate, interesting lives, but who aren't good at communicating that interest, or have interests that don't appeal to (most of) the opposite sex.

In dating, where first impressions are everything, it's often more important to appear interesting than be interesting.

The real rule is "be interested". Being interesting follows from that, but being interested is the part you can control.

I've found that when people have persistent difficulties finding a partner, it's almost always because they aren't actually interested in the women they date, but have some platonic ideal of a woman that they think they ought to date and so are dating the wrong people.

Sure (I too have read 'How to Win Friends and Influence People') - but that only works if the other person is already interested in you. One sided interest just comes across as creepy.

Depends on the context. One-sided interest that's fixated on one particular characteristic comes across as creepy - it's obvious when it's a physical characteristic, but it's also just as creepy to be particularly interested in someone's career, or house, or car, or any other thing. One-sided interest that's diffuse tends to become two-sided interest, because it makes you seem engaged with the world, and that's a very attractive quality for a lot of people. Basically, be interested in everyone and you'll find that everyone is interested in you, while if you're interested in only one person she probably won't be interested in you.

Pretty sure that's the furthest thing from my problem. Women love talking to me.

> Basically, be interested in everyone

I think the main advantage of this is that it keeps your options open. It is a numbers game, after all.

I don't think I'm ugly[0], but it is hard to be sure! ;)

I have a friend of mine who is short (generally considered a disadvantage) and who has one miserable picture, but his messages are good enough that he has a good success rate on OKC. (His messages also violate every guideline, they are at least 5 paragraphs long and very in depth!)

The problem is, it is disheartening in the extreme. Spending years going to the gym and getting in shape, get promotions at work, buy a house, all for naught.

Doing the math, I figured it'd take me a 3 or 4 dozen dates to get used to socializing with women in a dating environment. The problem is in the last 2 years my success rate at getting dates has plummeted, I used to be able get a date a week w/o issue, now, months upon months of work to get one date. Ugh. This obviously sets back progress of skill acquisition.

It is annoying, I am one of those people who is otherwise successful, but the amount of contact I had with women before joining my current team @ work was almost nil, so an entire skillset[1] isn't there. OKC helps because it creates a way by which to meet women (for reference only one of my friends has any contact with women either!), but it involves what distinctly looks like black magic to be successful on it.

[0]http://ak2.okccdn.com/php/load_okc_image.php/images/150x150/...

[1]Recognizing non-verbal cross-gender communications. A subset of non-verbal communications in general of course, but there are (thankfully!) now good written resources on general purpose non-verbal communications.

Join a dance program. Your issue seems to be lack of confidence around women in general, not specifically in a dating environment. Get comfortable with your body in an environment where a lot of women are. And don't try to date the women you dance with, at least not initially.

Dance is just an easy thing to join: you could also go to underground music venues, join a co-ed softball/volleyball/tae kwon do team, take arts classes at a community college or join a book club at your library.

Another vote for dancing! I used to dread dancing for many years. Then I found tango. Argentine Tango has been an amazing positive dimension to add to my life.

My confidence in social settings in general and particularly with women has been greatly improved. It's a great balance to programming and problem solving activities, too.

I second the dance idea -- I took up salsa dancing and similar styles years ago, for a couple years straight, and it made a huge difference. Your posture, your comfort around women, your confidence -- it'll do wonders.

Getting used to people touching is already sort of weird. It is odd because of how different it is even amongst Americans. Being born and raised in Seattle, guys never really hug (hah some days the handshake is even uncertain!), but I have recently made friends with groups from other areas of the countries and it is interesting seeing different standards of expected physical interaction.

But yeah, dance classes have been recommended to me. I'm doing improv right now, which is already helping a good deal, it is a different set of experiences.

This is fantastic advice! I think dancing above all others will speed up the process of confidence around the ladies.

I can't say this is advice, but more of personal anecdotes that may give you some insight you might be missing.

I started using OkC to prove to an unreasonably paranoid (male) friend who was somewhat desperate to get a girlfriend that he should try it. He was based in Boston, myself in San Francisco. I would check profiles out from both locations and link him ones that I thought he might like. I was mostly just enjoying poking around the first month. I seriously approached the first girl that I did only because she played StarCraft. Ironically, the most dates (5) with a single girl off OkC I went on was with that first girl!

What worked for me there was picking a characteristic to look for that isn't "the sum of all features that would make my ideal girlfriend/wife" to find a person. And not something generic like "games" or "math" or "music." In my experience, even a specific TV show or music taste is not something people really relate over (I tried following a TV show to get along better with a girl I had a huge crush on who raved about it). If there's something specific you spend a lot of time on that you care about, try to find that. Talk about that. Try to find someone you would just love to geek out with, not because you're lonely and/or in need of a partner.

A lot of my other approaches were very similar to your messages. Asking lots of questions, showing an interest, proving I read their profile. Even though girls always demand you show you read their profile, dont ask that much. Just one question TOPS in a single message. Don't be that ridiculously interested in knowing everything about her so quickly. Just imagine the progression you had with getting to know your closest friend you know. It didn't start with you sitting across a table bombarding each other with questions. Pick one thing that catches your interest that you think would roll well. Go from there.

It's all about playing on your interpersonal strengths (everyone has something here). Mine is in being ridiculously passionate about a few topics (eg: education, women in technology, cross-culture romances) fairly popular among women in my preferred demographic. I am also even more passionate about game design and experience design, but I try not to get into that unless the girl expresses interest. And I always lay the disclaimer of how much I'm going to geek out when we get there. I too am uncomfortable with people-touching (although I very much wanted to not be!), so it took a while to get over that. Your weakness seems to be general communication discomfort around women. Takes a little getting used to. Of course you will get frustrated, but if you let any frustration show, it will heavily backfire. So try to keep a check on it!

However, as you can probably gather from my comment above, I think OkC (and online dating in general) is a difficult medium to make more than a superficial connection via. Context is everything. "Met online" just doesn't spark the magic. You need to have a better genesis story to even put you and the partner in the right mood.

Good luck!

PS: You're most certainly not unattractive. There's definitely a significant segment of women which definitely intersects the set that you'd be interested in that would find you attractive, and that's all that matters.

Online dating is tilted much more in favour of women odds wise than "real life dating".

If you are at all able to approach a woman in real life and introduce yourself, do that instead. You'll get far more social interactions far faster (you don't even need to successfully ask anyone out to start improving).

As suggested elsewhere - joining a dance group or something is great for an easy environment for introductions. But even walking up to total strangers on the street and introducing yourself typically gets better responses than online dating. Where online dating beats "real life" is in using sheer volume to compensate.

Back in the day when chat rooms were filled with actual people rather bots, this was a great place to talk with the other gender without much fear. I actually meet my wife through a MSN Chat room.

I think that one big disadvantage for those who work in a highly technical field (engineer, scientist etc), contact with the ladies are quite few, this means opportunities for interaction will be significantly smaller.

Yup, that I have. Everything is so very subjective though, even pictures!

I thought HN of all places would celebrate this - a growth hack by a down and out mathematician. He just increased his inbound funnel by many multiples. He's now "killing it" and has been acquihired by his target. ;)

Well, he did it the standard way but was only able to go on 6 first dates in 9 months of trying. By hacking the match % he was able to have more women view him and then message him and go on 55 dates. Article also states that when he messaged a woman it took 3-5 messages to get to where he could set up a date but when the women messaged him first it was as easy as a single reply to begin setting up a date.

> If he could write it up in a blog, OkTrends-style, I feel like it could get a huge number of hits

He released a 37 page eBook with an easy-to-implement blueprint: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2

"The 55 dates really isn't too hard to do without the hacking"

I think it depends where you live. In some places you can have as many dates as you want, in others, it's even difficult to have someone read the messages you sent. I experienced both.

"he probably would have done better just simply browsing on the site, and only directly messaging the girls he found interesting in the first place."

He'd already tried that, the article claimed. The problem is that he didn't know what was important to the women he was interested in, and so didn't know what parts of his life to mention in the OKC profile, to attract first dates from women he, as you note, might well have messaged anyway.

If he doesn't know what the women he's interested in are interested in, i'd seriously question whether he's the person the people he's looking for, are looking for.

I think a large number of essentially useless dates bears this out

I think the main point here is that one has to enable his luck. I mean, meeting somebody you'd fall in love with is luck. You can not use data for that. However, you could use data to enable yourself to meet enough people so that the luck had chance to happen. Of course, it is not the only way - it's just one of the ways. And, I guess, a way that appeals to the HN crowd :)

Agreed that the clusters is interesting! Having bots visit girls with high match percentage and thereby direct in-bound messages from girls seems huge as well. Seems like girls are more likely to message you if you have such a high match. He definitely drove a ton of first-dates with minimal per-unit effort. Your point about the conversion rate of 2nd-date is still valid.

I've been off the site for many, many years now, but I could find a difference between 85% (which I would have considered low), 90% and 95% in most cases, but what I found worst was that I couldn't weight major red flags enough so even a 97-98 could have one or more.

4 years ago, I met my fiance on OkCupid. Our percentages were: 11% Enemy, 71% Friend, 69% Match

He has published a book http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HY351S2 that might have more of the details.

aww, I miss OKTrends :(

Reply on news.ycombinator.com