We spent 6 months testing to see if online dating really works or not. Buckle up, because our findings are wild.
We’ve all seen those ads sooner or later. A dating website or service crops up selling itself as the ultimate service to meet people and find the match that’s been missing in your life. Obviously, if you’ve already found someone in your life, those ads really don’t apply, but maybe you might find yourself recommending to others who are still looking to give it a try. On the flip side, maybe you can’t help but wonder if maybe you can roll the dice and try it yourself. After all, what’s the harm in giving it a try?
Well, lucky for you, I’m putting myself out there so you don’t have to to find out first hand if online dating really works or not. This in an effort to provide an unfiltered perspective on what it’s really like using these sites. I spent 6 months testing a huge slate of online dating sites and documented my experience along the way in a massive investigative journalism project. I can safely say this project tested my mental health like no other journalism project I’ve ever conducted. While my expectations were low, I didn’t think it was truly this bad. So, buckle up and enjoy the misery and ugliness I went through all this year. This was, after all, one wild ride that requires multiple posts to fully describe.
Motivations and Expectations
To begin with, we need to set the stage to showcase that this was a legitimate test to see if these dating sites well and truly work.
The first question is who to use as a test subject. Since I didn’t think it would be fair to put someone else up to try online dating when some refer to these apps as a version of hell other than eternal flames, I decided to put my own sanity on the line by using myself as the test subject.
Now that we’ve established who is being used here, am I an appropriate candidate? Well, for one, I am legitimately single and legitimately looking. What’s more, as my profession generally requires, I am also open minded and only focused on results. That means that if my expectations doesn’t match reality, I am open to saying, “Yeah, I was wrong and this was a much different experience then what I was expecting.”
As such, I genuinely put my best foot forward to give these websites and apps the best possible chance to succeed in my quest to find someone. After all, I’m well aware of the shady tactic of trying to guide results to a conclusion that meets the persons expectations (ala confirmation bias). To me, this typically invalidates the results of the test and only further showcases the bias of the people conducting the test. Believe me, in several other debates, I’ve seen this happen time and time again. Since I’ve actively criticized these practices in the past on the part of others, this project was also a way to show that I am capable of not only criticizing these practices, but can actively avoid these research pitfalls myself and actually put in the work to produce results myself. With the resources available to me, I very much want to do this project properly.
So, let me state up front what my personal expectations were when going into this. I personally expect that these dating sites and apps will completely and utterly fail to find someone for me. At best, I might get a quick date or two, but I doubt that I’ll find someone and I’ll come out of this still single. That was my expectations going into this.
Preliminary Research to Ensure Success
While general failure is my expectations, I put in a bunch of research to determine what people say helped them succeed. After all, as I’ve said, I wanted to actually give these apps and services every opportunity to succeed. So, I conducted research by checking out what different people had to say about what helps a person succeed in these environments in finding someone to date. This was a combination of reading different articles, talking to people, and just generally trying to understand people in general.
Throughout all of this, I was able to establish a number of points to help success.
First and foremost, use multiple pictures of yourself. Since my personality is basically someone who genuinely cares for others and contains a lot of empathy, the narcissistic idea of constantly taking pictures of myself was never really something that I did. As a result, it was difficult for me, but I was able to dig up some decent pictures of myself that accurately reflects what I look like today. So, pictures? Check.
The next thing is to fill out your profile in a complete and honest manner. This is because blank or low information profiles don’t help your cause. Since writing and describing things is a much bigger strength, that I was able to do – even in short form character limited spaces. Honesty is just second nature to me as well given my independent journalism background, that was second nature to me as well. As a result, I highlighted as many of the positive aspects about me as possible. Full, honest, positive profile? Check.
A third bit of advice was to communicate with others. Given the nature of being a single male, the male to female ratio on these sites do me no favours. So, messaging is also a huge thing. Some call it playing a numbers game because your going to get rejected a lot anyway (isn’t that a positive sign from the get go?). What’s more, be polite, nice, and honest. Open conversations in a respectable manner and try not to be a “creep” in these. Women are not a slab of meat. This could very easily include talking about something mentioned in the profile in question. Does the, in my case, woman say she likes playing cards? Maybe open with that. It’s all about at least initiating a conversation and getting to know each other better. So, good positive communications? Check.
Fourth, these things take time. You probably aren’t going to find someone right away. So, what is a good period of time to use these sites? That varies widely, but some say 3 months, others say 6 months. Some even start talking whole years. I don’t have 5 years to work with as there has to be a cutoff point at some point. So, I went with 6 months as that is both a reasonable amount of time to get some kind of result while at least having a report while I’m still young afterwards. So, 6 months? Check.
Finally, use multiple services. Online dating tends to be location dependent. One site may be very effective in one location, but be a total shit show for another location. That happens. If you have a bad experience on one site, it doesn’t necessarily mean that is reflective across all dating sites and apps. So, try and find a service that works for your area. A great way is to just try each service and see. So, use multiple services? Check.
I personally think that this is all great advice. As a result, I felt like I was able to give these services the best possible chance to succeed in doing what they say on the tin. So, I went into this with these concepts, idea’s, and strategies in mind.
About Myself
So, with these strategies and concepts in mind, let’s talk about myself for the sake of transparency. Obviously, different sites frame things differently, so this is just general information we are using here. The formatting will differ from site to site. What you’ll see below is the general gist of what my profile is like.
First of all, education: I am, indeed, educated. I have a university education and an honours diploma from a separate college institute. All of this is from recognized institutes. This is great because it shows not only initiative, but also an aptitude to not only start something to better my life, but also completing something that involves hard work and sacrifice. What’s more, being successful was not a one-off thing. I’ve been put in multiple environments and have shown that I can succeed in them.
Second: employment. I do, in fact, have a day job that I’ve held down for over 5 years. This shows that I am reliable and not just floating around in life randomly, unable to hold down jobs. It is a job with benefits and a pension. Additionally, I’ve been working on building a small business along the way. This, again, shows initiative. What’s more, this shows that I can not only take on responsibility, but handle responsibility in pretty big ways. It’s an excellent way to show that I am capable of full blown adulting.
Third: lifestyle. I don’t smoke, do drugs, or drink alcohol. This shows that I’m capable of taking care of myself and am able to resist the temptations of unhealthy activities that society has to offer. Personally, I think for a number of women out there, this is actually a red flag because they generally view that as someone who doesn’t actually have fun at all. I can’t really prove it, but I also can’t disprove it because plenty of people have one of these three as a general vice. I just never picked up any of those habits (I know, it’s not actually a bad thing in the end, but I know it’s also not exactly normal either).
Fourth: Religion and politics (but I repeat myself). Generally, I’m Christian, but not Catholic, though I’m by no means hardcore on that. So, someone who is less religious would technically fit in. Politically, well, things have moved around so much in recent years, technically, I’m considered “liberal”. In actual practice, I’m actually moderate given that I assess both major sides in equal measure, but because society has travelled so far right that a few have taken to growing a moustache and speaking German in the last decade, technically, I’m liberal. Might be a turnoff to hard right people, but you’re going to be shutting off some people on that front either way.
Fifth: Financial. I wouldn’t call myself filthy rich by any means, but by many societal measures these days, I’m by no means broke either. This is, in part, because I do long term investing and have for years now. I also donate to good causes as well along the way. This reflects my caring for others quite nicely.
Finally: physical attributes. This doesn’t personally mean much to me, but apparently, it’s a thing for others. I am 6 feet tall and work a physically demanding job during the day. So, I have some pretty decent muscle and can lift 40kg objects (not that I recommend it). I’m not a body builder, but I’m no slouch physically, either. I also have done cycling in the past, so I have decent cardio to boot, though I wouldn’t call myself an athlete. Just someone who does physical activity.
That’s the general gist of the overall profile. It is all factual and honest. No gimmicks to ensure that the sites fail by any means and I am actually legitimately looking for someone. Some sites might require me to tweak the definitions to conform with what the standards are, but I’m generally keeping to that general idea.
Generally speaking, this is actually quite the high bar. Not everyone is university educated. There’s plenty of people who, at most, made it out of high school. It could be higher, of course. I don’t have a doctorate by any means. My education isn’t necessarily a STEM field either despite my specialty in computer science and law when it comes to my given field of choice. Still, not bad by any means. So, it could go both directions there. Also, being completely clean is not exactly the easiest accomplishment to have, but hey, at least I reduce my chances of getting cancer, so that’s something as well.
At any rate, generally speaking, this is not a bad profile to have. There’s got to be a woman out there that would find that good, right? Well, that’s what we’re here to find out.
Coming Up Next
This wraps up our first part. I felt that it was important to be upfront about the framing, the ideas, and how I’m presenting myself on these sites. This to make it clear that this was actually an open, honest, and genuine attempt to find someone.
From there, the idea was to just write down my experiences of these sites whether or not they are within my expectations. I’ll be going over the different sites I used, the sign up process, and my experience of using each site. How it is all broken up into different posts depends on how much text ends up in each section. Still, this series is going to continue soon.
