In short order, here's another post about my online dating adventures! I'm going to be focusing on Tinder and doing a good bit of analysis about what I've observed/experienced... I wonder if there have been any interesting actual sociological/psychological/etc studies done recently about online dating.
Anyways, some of the things I'd like to analyze/comment on.
Names
Firstly, fairly soon after I started using the app, I decided to keep a list of the different names that I saw on profiles. This was sort of inspired by reading the names subreddit. I noted all of the names (well, most), not just people I decided to swipe right on/accept (I marked those with an asterisk). So far I have 343 names although accounting for names I forgot to record or wasn't near my list to record, that might be more like 375 or so? I'm not quite sure. There were definitely a good amount of Zacks/Zachs/other spellings, I noticed, as well as a good number of Alexs. (that's interesting, that two of the more common names I noticed are at opposite ends of the alphabet. I may have had a little bit of a familiarity bias going on regarding noticing the Zachs/Zacks/etc) Some of the rarer/more interesting names I came across were ones like Holden or Harrison. There was a decent amount of diverse names, that were Indian/Latino/etc. I'm going to chalk that up to the area being pretty diverse; I don't think I would have had that many if I were Tindering in say, Nebraska or something. So far, I think I've only noticed one person that I actually know of in person. I thought maybe I would've seen a few more, but I guess not (so far, at least). I don't really have much of an interest in matching/theoretically dating someone on there that I see and happen to actually know of in person; if I had wanted to date them I would've done it already is how I look at it. I would make an exception for one person, but I don't think that person uses this app. Or at least I haven't seen a profile of theirs yet. If I did, I'd probably scream a little bit internally. Although it's possible that my opinion regarding people I know of in person is shared by other people. Who knows.
Swipes
Out of the approximately 375 people I've swiped on, I swiped right on 24 of them, according to my list. I'll round up to 30 for those who I might not have recorded on the list. That makes about 30 out of 375, which is about 8 percent (did I do that math right??). I think in my recent readings about Tinder, somewhere I read that women tend to swipe right around 15 percent of the time (I'm not sure if that statistic is accurate/came from a reliable source), so if we're to believe that, I'm bit below average (ie, more selective. What can I say, I have standards!) in that department.
Swiping criteria
Here might be a good place to mention some of my criteria regarding which way I swipe.
Some things that make me swipe left (reject) are as follows (especially if there's a combination of these things):
- Clear evidence of redneck-ness/conservative ness (such as pictures that show pickup trucks, hunting, obvious mentions of conservatism in pictures or bio)
- Smoking (cigars, cigarettes, weed, etc)
- Not good looking
- Bad pictures (bad resolution and/or lighting, group pictures where it's hard to tell which one is the person whose profile it is, especially when there aren't any good, clear facial pictures. For the record, I took all of my profile pictures myself and I think they look pretty decent)
- Facial hair
- Tacky drinking pictures (usually also a group picture) or other tacky pictures
- Bio left empty
- Music taste (if they connected Spotify) that's vastly different from mine (basically, stuff that's pretty far out of the realm of rock, which is a fairly broad category that I'd say most of the stuff I listen to sort of fits into somehow)
Some things that make me more likely to swipe right (accept) are as follows:
- No facial hair and generally good looking
- Decent biography (as in, gives you some actual information about them) that's not just some stupid joke or something (for me, that's just not really attractive)
- More than one picture (at least 3 is probably a good amount - clear facial picture, one that shows more of their whole body, then other pictures to fill out the remaining slots. Ideally no more than 2 out of 6 should be group pictures - the person should be easily identifiable. The main picture should be of just them without other people, although animals/pets are acceptable)
- Overall they should come across as thoughtful and intellectual (as I'd like to think I am)
- Similar interests to mine (this would probably be something in the bio, although theoretically, maybe one of their pictures shows them reading a book about murders or something)
- Similar/not too vastly different music taste to mine
- Instagram connected so I can see their pictures and potentially get a little better of an idea of what they're like
I think that pretty much covers it; I can't really think of any other specific criteria at the moment.
There is an overload of dog pictures on people's profiles; apparently guys think that improves their chances. A dog (or cat) picture, for me, does not guarantee a swipe right, but it's not necessarily a negative thing either, as long as it's not somehow a dog/cat picture as well as a tacky (drinking or otherwise) picture.
Matches
Currently, as of late Sunday evening, I have 24 matches in total, which is nearly the majority of the people I swiped right on, at least my approximation of how many people I swiped right on. Again, I can't speak for these people being discerning or indiscriminate in their swiping. I think two people unmatched me, which I only noticed because I remember messaging them. So it's possible there have been some other people who unmatched me, but because I wasn't messaging them, I didn't notice.
Messages
I think it should be up to the person with the less informative bio to message first, for the most part. I think that's fair. I've given these people a decent amount of information to work with that they could comment on/about (ISTJ/INTP, linguist, copy editor, set decorator, good looking revolutionaries wanted, no conservatives need apply, 60 wpm, etymology, crochet, reading about murders/etc, making a pinata with precious documents [that's a reference to something in a David Sedaris book; I'm not sure if anyone would notice]). Plus I guess if they wanted to be shallow they could compliment my appearance.
Out of 24 matches, I have 11 message conversations, so about half of my matches either messaged me or I messaged them. Here's a little bit of analysis on that. 8 of them had at least one back and forth message. 6 guys messaged me first. I messaged 5 guys first. So about half and half so far, which isn't so bad, I think. Pretty equal there. One guy's message I didn't respond to because it was really boring and didn't give me a good impression. I'm looking for thoughtful, intellectual people here, you know. 2 guys I messaged first but they haven't responded yet, aside from the guys who unmatched me. Both of the messages I sent were things that, given that the person is interesting/capable of conversation enough, could be given a decent response to, rather than some boring message like "hey there" which doesn't give the recipient much to work with.
The first conversation I had after downloading the app was with a guy who wasn't exactly that interesting and, upon a bit of messaging, didn't seem particularly compatible to me. So I've stopped conversation with him but haven't unmatched - maybe I should. He also came across as a bit desperate, which isn't so attractive. Maybe he wouldn't have had to act so desperate if he were actually/more interesting. Quality score: 2/5 (vaguely entertaining, but in the end, not that interesting/compatible)
4 conversations, aside from the one mentioned above, haven't really gone very far. 3 of them have (at the time of publication) been left with my response (I guess the other people could technically still respond at a later date, but I'll take it as that they're not that interested for now), but another one is one that I haven't responded to the guy. So that's about a third of the people I've matched with and have conversed with; they've been less than impressive. Too bad. It's probably their loss (does me saying this mean I have good self esteem??). Or maybe both of us just wouldn't have ended up being that compatible.
3 conversations (including one with a guy who unmatched me because I hadn't responded quick enough for him... I left him hanging like... overnight and some? I feel like a day and some is a perfectly decent amount of time to allow, but apparently this guy doesn't. The other commie was more interesting anyways..) have actually gotten somewhere more or less interesting. I'll count those, as far as conversation goes, as wins in my book. Maybe only 2 because the one guy unmatched me.
So, out of these two conversations that are still going (as in, the guy is responsive and hasn't unmatched and I'm feeling compelled to keep the conversation going), one is with one of the self proclaimed communists I matched with and another is with a guy who is the copy editor of his college's newspaper (the "future starving linguist/copy editor/set decorator" line actually netted something!). The communist seems a bit more interesting/better at conversation, but the copy editor guy isn't too horribly bad. Although he hasn't been quite as responsive, I'd say; I've exchanged more/longer messages with the communists. Maybe, instead of delicate, semi-preferably blonde guys, my type is actually communists?? That's news to me!
Both of these guys messaged me first about something in my bio - the communist mentioned my "no conservatives need apply" notice and "Good looking revolutionaries wanted" and the copy editor mentioned about him being a copy editor at his school's paper. The conversation with the communist started off being about politics, basically, which we both noted was a pretty depressing, dark and grim topic although we exchanged some nice meaty messages about it, which I like. It's good that we're not drastically opposed, politics-wise. Then we moved on to food, which is generally a positive topic, unless you're talking about it in the context of "I eat too much and I'm getting fat" or "I think I have food poisoning"... Currently I've left that conversation on a question about what he spends his time doing (so basically, hobbies/interests, that kind of thing) and what he's studying. Given the content of his previous messages, I'm pretty confident that he'll give me a decent response to this question.
As for the copy editor, I asked him a bit about working at his school's paper and does he plan on becoming a journalist after college, as well as his opinion on the AP Stylebook rules, and along with that I mentioned their recent changes regarding terminology referring to drug addicts (a phrasing they don't want you to use). The messages from this guy are a bit shorter, but still not too bad. Although I feel like I'm doing a little more of the work in this conversation and he could be a little more engaged, or something. But still, not horrible. I sort of feel like I'm interviewing him, trying to get some good (or maybe I mean better; he's been decent so far) answers/conversation out of him which is... good? bad? I'm still willing to give him a bit more of a chance; he's giving me a little bit to work with, at least, but maybe not quite as much as I'd prefer. I asked him about what he thought about the media's performance regarding their coverage of current politics, and he maybe could've given me a longer answer there. I asked him to elaborate a little on that and that's where that conversation stands so far. So we'll see where this goes. He seems pretty decent as far as I can tell, and it's cool that he's a bit involved with journalism, but he could be a little better at/more engaged in conversation, I'd say. I can't really say if I should take this small-ish shortcoming as a sign of lack of interest, or if I should just take it as in maybe there isn't as much going on in his head as there is in mine. Not to say that he's dumb or anything, but maybe he just isn't quite at the level of thoughtfulness as far as personality goes that I ideally prefer in someone I'm going to be conversing at length with.
One conversation could possibly go somewhere but it's only 2 messages long so far, so I can't really say. I'm pleased that the guy messaged me about one of the things I had written about in my bio, the part about me reading about murders/unsolved crimes. So we'll have to see where this one goes; I think it has potential, at the very least.
Photos
When I first downloaded the app, I only had one photo that I didn't think was really good, although I still got some matches. Pretty quickly I made it a point to get some better pictures of myself to add to my profile, as well as work on a bio. So, I put up the following 5 photos and removed the one I originally had:
For my main photo, I used one of me that's taken pretty much from the side although my head isn't completely turned away from the camera. It's definitely from an angle though, so it doesn't give the absolute best view of my facial features. I'm wearing this red shirt, and I'm actually at a pretty similar angle/pose like the model in this photo. On the side closest to the camera, I slipped the shirt a little bit off my shoulder and posed like I was adjusting it, pulling it back up. It's not a full profile view of my face, but again, definitely at an angle. I guess I sort of wanted to replicate the feeling of that one picture of Peter Sarsgaard, where the shirt is partially on him and you can see his back and he's looking over his shoulder. To balance the angle of this one out, I have other pictures where I'm looking more straight on at the camera.
My second picture is of me in a striped t shirt looking at the camera with my head tilted slightly. It's just a regular t shirt; it shows a bit of collarbone at the neckline. The third picture I used was one I took in the mirror of a fitting room where I was trying on a bright floral dress; it shows a bit more of my whole body although not really my figure because the dress wasn't super form fitting or low cut. The fourth picture I used was one of me in a crop top, which was sort of revealing (compared to my other pictures) but certainly not scandalously so. Tinder crops pictures to square, so maybe an inch or two of my torso/ribcage area skin was showing. Collarbones, arms, and upper chest area (there really isn't that much to see there, plus the crop top was black which I think has a minimizing effect) visible in this picture. Again, this picture is nowhere close to scandalous, nothing's hanging out all trashily or anything. It was pretty much like this picture cropped to slightly above where this model's waist is, although I just stood there and didn't really pose/smile as much as the model here is doing. For my last picture, I put one of a crochet project although it isn't of me working on the crochet project. I think it's alright in context of my bio mentioning crochet.
All of my pictures I took myself and I don't have any group pictures/pet pictures, which might not be the best, but I think I'm doing alright. I want to convey with my profile that I'm a thoughtful, intellectual (and maybe kind of artsy?) individual and I hope that's what comes across. So that means no tacky group photos where maybe I look like I'm a fun and "interesting" (by what I assume other people's standards for that might be, I guess) person, but in my mind I just come across as tacky. Although I'm sure there are guys out there who like/don't mind what I consider to be tacky. Somewhere I read that it's better to wear brighter colors in profile pictures because they're more eye catching than neutrals, so I tried to keep that into mind a little bit - hence the red shirt and the striped shirt, instead of one of my many gray shirts.
Tinder has a "smart photos' feature that's supposed to show you which photos are most effective. They switch out your various photos and calculate which ones result in the most right swipes, I think is how it works. I turned that feature on to see what the results would show. The results were that my original main photo was the top photo, second was that of my crochet, and third was of me in the crop top, fourth was me in the t shirt, and last was the fitting room mirror picture of me in the floral dress. I wonder why that one was the least popular; I don't think that it's a horrible picture or anything. The reason for the crochet picture being second might possibly be that because I had it last originally, and for people who looked at all my pictures, they just ended on that one and that's when they swiped right. As for the crop top picture coming in third, perhaps that was because showing a bit more skin sealed the deal for some people? I don't know, I'm just speculating here. I probably won't remove the fitting room picture for now, but if I end up taking a better one in the future to replace it, maybe it'll get replaced. I wonder if the order of the pictures is going to change again.
All of this and I've only been using the app for a couple of days! Anyways, that's it for now although I'm pretty sure I'll have more to say on all of this fairly soon. Particularly updates on how some of the conversations are going. I don't think I've noticed any Peter Sarsgaard lookalikes yet, although there have been people who are otherwise good looking.
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