Python Scripting and Analyzing Your Way To Love 188
fiannaFailMan writes "Wired reports one mathematician's mission to find love online by data mining from OK Cupid and applying mathematical modeling to optimize his profile(s). His methods included using 'Python scripts to riffle through hundreds of OkCupid survey questions. He then sorted female daters into seven clusters, like "Diverse" and "Mindful," each with distinct characteristics.' But the real work began when he started going on dates."
Sounds creepy .... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the real thing here is that someone needs to be building a dating website for nerds (assuming it's not already happened).
Start with the proposition you've got a pool of educated individuals working in STEM-type jobs, and go from there. Then you at least know you're working with a pool of people who might have some chance of being interested in your collection of Star Wars figurines, or who want to debate the relative merits of Jar Jar as a character.
Because, really, if you tell the person you're on a date with that you used Python scripts to categorize people into several containers ... you're not gonna get a second date, and the one you're on might end abruptly as the awkward silence turns into thoughts that you might, in fact, be some kind of creepy stalker.
BEGIN NERD VOICE
I've done stochastic analyses of your responses to questionnaires and exhaustively compared your responses to other women on this site, and I calculate there is an 45.2% you might like me. You're the highest score yet!
END NERD VOICE
Really, don't be that guy.
Re:Sounds creepy .... (Score:5, Insightful)
So the real thing here is that someone needs to be building a dating website for nerds
So, thousands of guys fighting over a few hundred guys pretending to be women? You should set up a Kickstarter for that.
Match your crazy early (Score:4, Insightful)
Finding true love is really nothing more than matching your personal with either the same or a complimentary crazy in someone else. Wearing your crazy on the first date is risky, but reduces wasted time on those who are incompatible with your personal brand of insanity.
Guy is foolish. (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Categorize women into 7 categories. That looks to me to be valuable, but the article did not discuss all 7 categories. It ignored the only interesting thing this guy did!
2) Set up multiple profiles and use machines to initiate action with thousands of potential women.
3) Went on hundreds of dates in a relatively short amount of time.
His 'success' was statistically insignificant AND totally unrelated to his math. Anyone that goes on hundreds of dates and find the right woman.
You want to impress me? Have the algorithm pick 5 women and have them all be very interested in you. Picking 100's of women with lots of failed dates is just a NORMAL DATING LIFE.
Analysis? More targetted scattergunning (Score:5, Insightful)
Whilst what he did was very clever, at the end of the day he manipulated the scoring so that his profile was placed in front of thousands of womens search results because it had a high match percentage (that normally would never have been seen).
The TL;DR version of this story is that if thousands of women see your profile and, at the same time, are told by a website that you're a high match to them, then you've got a very good chance they'll contact you. Which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
That, to me, is the digital equivalent of (the old advice) that you'll never meet someone unless you get yourself out there.
Re:Limited potential (Score:5, Insightful)
How many times IRL have you heard a female friend say "Looks don't really matter to me. I'm just looking for a nice guy,"
Zero. I have never heard a woman say that. I think the idea of the woman who says this is made up by men who have no other quality other than being "nice" and want someone to blame for their lack of romantic success.
Re:I'm gonna say something funny now. (Score:2, Insightful)
Testosterone is not a bacteria. There is no rational or bacterial reason for me to jerk off. Genetic preference for youth, beauty, symmetry, etc. are indicators of health and fertility for humans, not bacteria.
What is interesting is that men are less choosy than women. The breeding strategy of the ape female is to select the highest quality mate, due to gestation duration and childcare costs on her existence. Meanwhile the male reproductive strategy is to sire as many offspring as possible. So, just randomly assigning the guy a date most often will work fine so long as the gal is into him.
However, boredom is becoming a significant risk to long term relationships. Primitive mating drives have fuck-all to do with divorce rates.