Python Scripting and Analyzing Your Way To Love

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."

TED talk

[kwiecmmm]

I watched a TED talk about someone who did something similar.

http://www.ted.com/talks/amy_w... [ted.com]

Limited potential

[petes_PoV]

His data analysis and harvesting will help the guy get a first date with more women. But all he's doing is trawling for ones that match what he thinks he wants. To get a second date his real-life personality and interests have to match what the other person thinks she wants.

Even with the women in question also choosing him on the basis of his tailored responses, he's simply increasing the sample size (i.e. the number of first dates) he gets, without really addressing the quality of the data - how closely the women match him in reality and vice-versa.

One of his descriptions in the article "star signs and all that crap" (or words to that effect) indicates that he still hasn't really "got" the women in the database. By dismissing what they consider important in a profile (the "crap") he's not helping himself. Maybe he should have turned around his search. Instead of hacking his profile to get more matches, he should consider modifying his personality to be more attractive to what the larger numbers of women feel they want in a man.

But I guess to a techie, every problem has a technical solution. No doubt all the first-date restaurants will thank him for his patronage and his (later, but maybe not much later) divorce lawyer will also be suitably grateful.

Re:TED talk

[i kan reed]

TED is now basically full of pseudoscientific bullshit and ego-fueled self-promoters.

Re:Guy is foolish.

[Dr_Barnowl]

Yeah, for me the problem is getting that date count up.

I've so far been online dating for about 9 months, I've dated only 6 women. Of these :

* The first one entered into a relationship with me that lasted a couple of months, during which I didn't bother with dating sites for obvious reasons
* The most recent is promising, but we've only been on one date, and because of distance and logistics, the next date is proving hard to organise

I'm on two subscription dating sites (one is match.com) and two free ones (Plenty of Fish and OKCupid). Of these, I've had two dates from OKCupid, two from POF, one from Match and one from the other subscription site, so on this tiny sample the free sites work better than the paid ones... although they all barely work at all.

I estimate I've probably messaged around 120 women, being picky*, sending proper tailored messages that actually respond to things in their profile, mostly concentrated in POF, OKC, and Match. (the last site is an odd one that only lets you browse a certain number of women per day that it picks out for you, and most of the profiles on there are very poor because their sign-up process numbs the brain). When I actually get a response, I think my "date rate" is around 50%

In contrast, I went speed dating and out of a pool of 13 women I got two "mutual matches" and 5 / 13 expressed an interest in dating me. Clearly something is wrong with the way I express myself online. I've had women turn me down on the grounds that I was "too intellectual for them"... I'm not sure if this is a reflection on me, or the dating pool concerned (POF and Match.com seem to be more "everyman" than OKCupid which is definitely more artsy, professional, and intelligent in tone).

The main surprise for me so far has been how many vegetarians OKCupid matches me up with....

* defined as only messaging women that I actually find attractive