Tag: dating

Need any more #YOML proof?

Useful tweeting from MuzikSnob,

If you need any more proof about the kind of people who signed up to the Year of Making Love.

Darren wasn’t just on Take me out series 2 ep 3?, but also involved in the year of making love episode 3.

You got to wonder how many other things he and others have been on? YOML attracted a number of people who seemed to be attracted to the limelight for maybe the wrong reasons? Who knows?

At least he didn’t mess around with single mother-of-three Olley and had the guts to tell her why. Maybe putting a massive dent in her confidence? Shame for her really

Want To Make A Dating App That Actually Works?

Crazy Blind Date

With all the thinking about maybe joining the mobile dating challenge, I remembered seeing this…

Want To Make A Dating App That Actually Works? Design It For The Ladies

Online dating has matured from Internet fringe activity to full-blown phenomenon. Online dating apps? Less so. With the exception of the wildly popular Grindr, hooking up via your smartphone has been an anathema to app developers and a hazard to those looking for mates, a kind of no-man’s-land between skeeze city and sociopath village. “Another day, another creepy mobile app,” observed the New York Times’ Nick Bilton, writing about the spectacularly creepy Girls Around Me app.

There’s a really low perceived value for dating apps right now,” agrees Gene Liebel, chief strategy officer at Brooklyn digital agency Huge and the force behind CrazyBlindDate, a mobile app for OkCupid that launched yesterday. “There’s a lot of failure in this space. But being first to market a thing is overrated. We spent some time on this, and I think in this case, we got it right.”

I actually quite like the idea of Crazy Blind Date.

Crazy blind date reminds me of a cross between OKcupid’s Locale and How about we. Not sure if this is designed for ladies but per-se but I can imagine women being a little more comfortable than whats currently on the market.

If you build it for women, the thinking went, the men will come (the reverse, historically, hasn’t worked so well). “We figure men will endure a little more pain,” says Liebel. “So everything, from the design to the algorithm, is geared to giving women a successful dating experience.” That meant building an infrastructure of safe public places to populate the location list, a safety net against dates gone wrong. It also meant putting the focus on meeting more men, in smaller doses–a romantic test drive to see if things click, rather than weeks of online browsing and messaging

 

An experiment in mobile dating…

OKCupid!

For years now I’ve been dating using websites and speed dating. I have also at the same time been reading people’s accounts of there dating, such as 52 first dates. Every once in a while I moan about the lack of transparency and data from dating sites and if you know me, sometimes over a couple of drinks I swear I’m going to write a book about my dating experiences.

So with all that in mind, I read the blog post “taking my dating life mobile a social experiment” with a lot of interest.

Basically Senior Writer for ReadWrite.com Dan Rowinski is going to use mobile dating apps to gage there success rates in finding love. Of course there is rules…

I have to set some parameters here, or this type of experiment could completely take over my life. So here are my ground rules:

Parameters

  • I will actively use dating apps for at least one month to meet actual people.
  • I will use a variety of apps (Android and iOS) to get a good sense of their depth and variety.

What I Will Do

  • Approach each connection with an open mind and respect.
  • Apply the rule of “half your age plus seven” to how old a date has to be (nobody in their late teens or very early 20s).
  • Notify dates that I am writing a series on dating apps.
  • If I make a meaningful connection and start a fledgling relationship with someone I meet, I’ll terminate the experiment.

What I Won’t Do

  • I won’t actively use the dating apps to just look for a “hookup.” No trolling for sex on my smartphone.
  • I won’t recount much in the way of specific details about my dates. Yes, I’ll share a few anecdotes here and there, but if you’re looking for salacious gossip, click elsewhere.
  • I won’t do anything to endanger my physical, emotional or financial safety.
  • I won’t lie to make myself look better or misrepresent myself in any way.
  • I won’t ignore possible connections in real life that didn’t originate on my smartphone.

The Apps I’ll Be Using
I chose the following apps because they represent a good cross section of new, interesting, location-based, social and traditional approaches. I won’t be using any traditional websites affiliated with the services, should they exist. For instance, when I use eHarmony or Match, I’ll only use those sites through their apps and over email to my phone. Here they are:

  • Let’s Date – Popular new app that allows to browse anonymously for connections.
  • Tinder – Location-based app that allows you to see who’s nearby, their pictures and snippets from their Facebook profiles.
  • eHarmony – There should be at least one traditional dating site in here to provide a counter to mobile-only apps.
  • OkCupid – It’s free and has a decent app.
  • Blendr – Among the several sub-tier dating apps in contention, I’m going with Blendr just because it looks the least troll-y.
  • Martini (if applicable) – Group dating app that just came to the Apple App Store.

Now the question is do I join in and try it out for myself?

In the past I have used Okcupid and Plenty of Fishes mobile apps and its been fun in some cases.

Don’t get me wrong I’m interested to find out what could happen and find out if mobile dating is any good or not. Mobile dating is a different take on the same idea? I did propose this as something different a while ago.

10 things men and women judge each on

When Imran sent me this piece of dating data, I thought on first look… “here we go with the stereotypes…” and is sub 10,000 really enough for a decent amount of data about online dating? I guess theres so little open data, that even 5000 people from Match.com is worthy of looking at? However in some defence its always good to have biological anthropologist Helen Fisher on board somewhere.

After a little read I was surprised how interesting the results were…

Right on the most loved up day of the year… Here’s some data and feedback!

What men judge women on

What women judge about men

  • Bad looking Teeth is a turn off for sure, and I don’t mean the shade. Just bad odd looking teeth. Never really thought of it as an indicator of that persons diet but for example smokers teeth is a total turn off.
  • I’m totally rubbish at grammar, but I decided if I can spot something wrong, then there must be something seriously wrong. This is clear to see when using certain sites.
  • Hair and Clothes isn’t such a bad thing, but I do look for a unique style. Of course glasses is always a plus, specially the rectangle framed ones.
  • Tattoo’s, I’ll be honest and say I can’t stand tattoos. Little tiny ones isn’t so bad but massive ones are just a large turn off for me. Not sure where it comes.
  • Nails and hands isn’t such a deal breaker, I do like soft hands.
  • Accents are tricky because I’ve been out with woman who I couldn’t even understand. She was lovely but I didn’t get a word she was saying.
  • Shoes like clothes and hair, i’m more interested in seeing a bit of unique style, something which speaks about their personality. I would never turn someone down just because they had crappy shoes.
  • Couldn’t give a toss what car they drive and frankly most of the woman I’ve dated carry  iphones or blackberries. If I dated one which had a rooted Android phone, I honestly would be amazed

A year of making love redeems its self?

Year of making love

If you don’t already know my own personal experience of BBC Three’s year of making love and the crazy things which have followed…

However last night it was time for the whole thing to be played out on BBC Three. I had feared the very worst but what was churned out on TV wasn’t so bad. Nope the TV magic or the beauty of editing pretty much cleaned away the slate of last year. With it also the grand claims of a record breaking attempt, 500 couples, blah blah, etc…

Interestingly during the show there was no official hashtag, so we used the #yoml hashtag which a few of us had been using during last years recording. Most of the comments were reasonably positive about the show which seemed to focus more on the couples than the experiment and process.

Even Laura said…

Looks so smooth, sleek, quick and efficient.. The magic of television!

Was I in the show? Yes I saw myself twice but only really passing shots. The clearest is when Cherry Healy is talking to a guy and there’s me in background.

Most of the shots for the show focused on the start of the day when everyone was happy and still expecting great things to happen. However there are some shots where its clear the audience has thinned and are a lot less enthusiastic about the whole thing. In actually fact there was other signs of the conflict which was unveiling…

Loved seeing all the empty seats – that looked really really good……. Not

Steve G said on the unofficial YOML Facebook group

Nicely edited…the only evidence of the farce that day turned into was when Cherry and the scientists were discussing the matches you could hear the unmatched being called out like cattle like we were…
Yes I remember that moment too.. Being called out like Cattle lead to the sides and then being told they’ve changed their minds.
The scientific nature of the show was played down, because frankly it would have been a major sticking point for me. No matter what they say on the programme, we have the producer on camera talking about speed dating the leftovers. Once again you can’t claim science and then throw people into speed dating…

Ian Arundale said…

YOML is a good advert for online dating algorithms! isItscienceOrLuck

To which I said no its not… Actually the science or luck is a interesting one… Being TV and the heavy editing they will show a selection of couples with a bias to the ones who last the longest. If we go on the first week, a possible one serious relationship out of 4 isn’t too great. I would suggest luck is in play more than science at this moment. This is why I’m very interested in the science behind it all as it gets to the bottom of something much greater…

With enough Big Data can algorithms work on some of the most human of things… falling in love?

Unforgettably, this show isn’t going to provide any answers…

Matthew S and Matthew K pointed out…

They didnt talk about the compatibility test at all!

Yeah, very true, the science was brushed over very quickly. TV has really strict guidelines about faking things, and we know there was lots of manipulation going on so they clearly had to be very vague about it!

Actually we were asked to make personal videos which you will see popping up on the show now and there… Of course I did my own and I have now made it public here.

BBC Three turned a smouldering wreck into a tiny little pebble which will satisfy the BBC Three audience I’m sure.

My part to play in it was minimum which was good because frankly Laura is a great woman and I have to say my match which I finally got after many months, seemed slightly off on the face of it. Actually would you like to know who my match was? Well it was woman called Olivia Pinder. I did write to her once but never heard anything so just decided she wasn’t interested or she was as fed up of the whole shame as myself. Then my YOML friend Cristina Conti asked if I had heard anything from my match and convinced me to give it one more shot. Of course I didn’t hear anything, so that was it. Plus frankly I had enough of it by a certain point…

Would I ever do anything like this again? Well if its a dating show/experiment no. I felt like I brushed close enough with those people who have words like “model” and “promotions” in their résumés & had been on other TV shows! Just there looking for stardom?! This so isn’t me and I am still very surprised they let me take part at all.

Almost at blows

Steve G posed a interesting question,

Gotta feel for the people who had sat through until 8pm (like myself and it was 9pm) and didn’t get a match however I don’t know whether I would of preferred that and not knowing then having being matched last minute…

Personally I always wanted to know who my match was… the not knowing was frustrating because I knew someone knew but didn’t want to tell me unless it was in front of broadcast cameras. The moment I knew, it wasn’t such a big deal anymore. Even when I heard nothing back, it wasn’t a problem. I think the not knowing was the problem.

My brush with mainstream TV has been too close for comfort, to date I’ve gotten away with it. Maybe thats a sure sign I should avoid at all costs from now on… I’ll keep watching just to see if some of the friends I made are on there but otherwise this is one experience I can mark up as a close shave.

Living the life of Seinfeld

New York, USA

I’ve been re-watching the Seinfeld TV series and getting a whole new outlook on the series. In some regards seinfeld’s life is very similar to my own and I seem to share the geeky level of critical analysis of the mundane. Maybe because that’s what makes life much more interesting. The analysis of relationships and life isn’t just smart but ever-so perfect…

Anyway I came across important life lessons learned from watching seinfeld

Dating is brutal

An important life lesson from Jerry Seinfeld

The reason that dating can be so brutal is the scrutiny that you put each other through. Because whenever you think about this person in terms of the future, you have to magnify everything about them.

The guy will be thinking “I don’t think her eyebrows are even. Could I look at uneven eyebrows for the rest of my life?”

And of course the woman’s looking at the guy, thinking “What is he looking at? Do I want somebody looking at me like this for the rest of my life?”

Good stuff…

Is online dating all its cracked up to be?

Black Mirror series 2

Off the back of my blog post about online dating… Imran added a little more context by pointing at some more related stuff by Dan.

There was quite a few things I wanted to talk about when reading “A Million First Dates” by that guy again

The positive aspects of online dating are clear: the Internet makes it easier for single people to meet other single people with whom they might be compatible, raising the bar for what they consider a good relationship. But what if online dating makes it too easy to meet someone new? What if it raises the bar for a good relationship too high? What if the prospect of finding an ever-more-compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, in which we keep chasing the elusive rabbit around the dating track?

And therefore, cue the obvious paradox of choice point…

The Paradox of Choice, the psychologist Barry Schwartz indicts a society that “sanctifies freedom of choice so profoundly that the benefits of infinite options seem self-evident.” On the contrary, he argues, “a large array of options may diminish the attractiveness of what people actually choose, the reason being that thinking about the attractions of some of the unchosen options detracts from the pleasure derived from the chosen one.”

Although I’m a massive fan of choice and I have problems with Schwartz’s conclusions in the book, I can see what Dan is getting at. Theres a feeling that if it doesn’t work out you can try again easily enough. I wouldn’t go as far as to say this amount of choice has made me less likely to make things

At the selection stage, researchers have seen that as the range of options grows larger, mate-seekers are liable to become “cognitively overwhelmed,” and deal with the overload by adopting lazy comparison strategies and examining fewer cues. As a result, they are more likely to make careless decisions than they would be if they had fewer options, and this potentially leads to less compatible matches. Moreover, the mere fact of having chosen someone from such a large set of options can lead to doubts about whether the choice was the “right” one. No studies in the romantic sphere have looked at precisely how the range of choices affects overall satisfaction. But research elsewhere has found that people are less satisfied when choosing from a larger group: in one study, for example, subjects who selected a chocolate from an array of six options believed it tasted better than those who selected the same chocolate from an array of 30.

I think the comparison of chocolate and dating is a weird one. I guess if your treating dating like picking chocolates, then somethings wrong? There is a aspect of the grass is greener on the other side but I think its a maturity thing…

As online dating becomes increasingly pervasive, the old costs of a short-term mating strategy will give way to new ones. Jacob, for instance, notices he’s seeing his friends less often. Their wives get tired of befriending his latest girlfriend only to see her go when he moves on to someone else.

I don’t know if this is true but I certainly felt my parents shifting about on the other end of the phone when I talk about the last date I went on. When I would mention a woman’s name from week to week, they would sometimes say “oh you’ve mentioned her a few times.” and if I mentioned her name more than a few times “oh she sounds pretty serious?”

Also, Jacob has noticed that, over time, he feels less excitement before each new date. “Is that about getting older,” he muses, “or about dating online?” How much of the enchantment associated with romantic love has to do with scarcity (this person is exclusively for me), and how will that enchantment hold up in a marketplace of abundance (this person could be exclusively for me, but so could the other two people I’m meeting this week)?

This one is very interesting… I have to admit date after date you do loose a certain amount of excitement. The weird thing is depending on how things came about would change my level of excitement. For example meeting women through plenty of fish was not that interesting, mainly because I found them quite young and sexually motivated. OKCupid was a little more mixed but I’d admit it wasn’t like the first few months.

But its not just online dating… A lot of my other dates have been through speed dating and likewise the excitement has died down.

And its funny that I met Laura under totally different circumstances…  Also funny I met Sarah in a non-dating situation. Both I met through the medium of the internet but not via online dating… Could there be something about online dating which is slightly self destructive, for some of us? (I do know people who met and are very happy now)

If things didn’t work out with the lovely Laura, I would go back to online dating but I’ll be honest and say I was kind of fed up of it. I have met some good and very bad woman. Some of them I’m still friends with, but there is no way I feel compelled to go back to that. The notion I personally wouldn’t be as committed isn’t true in my own case. There is nothing pulling me back to that lifestyle.

It could all make a great episode of Black Mirror, endless searching and never being contented. But in reality life isn’t that complex/simple. Thoughts of love overwhelm the brain and we soon forget what it use to be like being single…

Welcome to Love in the Time of Algorithms

Imran sent me a link to this book titled Love in the time of algorithms which instantly I instantly liked…

Love in the time of algorithms

The description is exactly what I would write if I was to publish my own thoughts instead of talking about it and doing it. Actually this post pretty much sums up what I think the book is going to cover

“If online dating can blunt the emotional pain of separation, if adults can afford to be increasingly demanding about what they want from a relationship, the effect of online dating seems positive. But what if it’s also the case that the prospect of finding an ever more compatible mate with the click of a mouse means a future of relationship instability, a paradox of choice that keeps us chasing the illusive bunny around the dating track?”
 
It’s the mother of all search problems: how to find a spouse, a mate, a date. The escalating marriage age and declin­ing marriage rate mean we’re spending a greater portion of our lives unattached, searching for love well into our thirties and forties.
It’s no wonder that a third of America’s 90 million singles are turning to dating Web sites. Once considered the realm of the lonely and desperate, sites like eHarmony, Match, OkCupid, and Plenty of Fish have been embraced by pretty much every demographic. Thanks to the increasingly efficient algorithms that power these sites, dating has been transformed from a daunting transaction based on scarcity to one in which the possibilities are almost endless. Now anyone—young, old, straight, gay, and even married—can search for exactly what they want, connect with more people, and get more information about those people than ever before.
As journalist Dan Slater shows, online dating is changing society in more profound ways than we imagine. He explores how these new technologies, by altering our perception of what’s possible, are reconditioning our feelings about commitment and challenging the traditional paradigm of adult life.
Like the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, the digital revolution is forcing us to ask new questions about what constitutes “normal”: Why should we settle for someone who falls short of our expectations if there are thousands of other options just a click away? Can commitment thrive in a world of unlimited choice? Can chemistry really be quantified by math geeks? As one of Slater’s subjects wonders, “What’s the etiquette here?”
Blending history, psychology, and interviews with site creators and users, Slater takes readers behind the scenes of a fascinating business. Dating sites capitalize on our quest for love, but how do their creators’ ideas about profits, morality, and the nature of desire shape the virtual worlds they’ve created for us? Should we trust an industry whose revenue model benefits from our avoiding monogamy?
Documenting the untold story of the online-dating industry’s rise from ignominy to ubiquity—beginning with its early days as “computer dating” at Harvard in 1965—Slater offers a lively, entertaining, and thought provoking account of how we have, for better and worse, embraced technology in the most intimate aspect of our lives.

Its not available till Aug 15th but is available to pre-order if you so wish…

I’ll be keeping an eye out for this one and hopefully if Dan does a book tour or something I can rope him into doing something in Manchester which has the 2nd biggest singles population in the UK behind London. Maybe it can be a special #smc_mcr event or maybe a return to prestonsocial with something more solid?

The obvious thing would be to do a relationships 2.0?

Its not the first time I’ve seen Dan’s name come up, he wrote this critical piece about dating algorithms. Which is one of the pieces,  which got me thinking about dating sites and are they actually doing what they claim to be doing? His articles reads similar to my own blog if you go by the titles alone. Just need Onlinedatingpost and Datinginsider for a full house? Anyone know how to contact any of these people?

Openess when it matters most?

I’ve been thinking about the fact I’m now in a relationship with a lovely woman and no longer on the dating market but the weird thing is, we met via a friend of a friend not online dating or speed dating etc…

I know everyone says, “when your not looking it will happen” but frankly I can call balls on that theory (in my case at least). I may not have met Laura unless I was openly dating and discussing my experiences on twitter.

This openness has its advantages and disadvantages I’ve found… But for all the taking the piss out of myself (you know who you are), I feel like I’ve helped people to be more open with there inner thoughts.

So while reading along together again…it got me thinking…

I thought long and hard before submitting the above to Marco. Divorce is a subject that, despite its sad prevalence, remains taboo. Divorce is generally discussed behind closed doors, on long phone calls, or via whispers in crowded restaurants. I do not regret my decision to be public about my experience, though. I received many responses, often from people who are going or had gone through something similar. Those people found comfort in knowing that they were not alone, and that is justification enough.

Me and Laura are divorcées and I maintain the fact you will never know how bad things can get until a divorce. I do feel slightly sad I didn’t share more at the time but it was a shame thing. No one wants to talk openly about the end of a relationship but in actual fact thats when we probably need to talk and be open the most.

Anyway its a good read and raise a number of interesting thoughts… Of course I hope to never experience divorce again…

Over drinking and dating don’t mix

Thanks Tim for sharing this on Facebook… Reminds me of this date I had one time, maybe the worst date I’ve ever had.

We met in a bar in deansgate locks (yeah classy I know but I was new to Manchester). I was 5mins late at the very most. When I spotted her, she was sitting at a table alone with 4 pint glasses in front of her. Only one was full and I thought well maybe she was with friends before. It became clear that was the wrong assumption very quickly. Me being me, I couldn’t help but ask about the pint glasses after ordering a drink. She said she was nervous and it helps calm her nerves while starting to slur her words. About 5 more minutes and it was clear she was clear starting to become very drunk.

I did something which I’m not proud of. Went into the toilet called up a friend and got him to call me soon after. Yes just like the movies… (I didn’t know what else to do, and because it was one of my earlier dates, not so long after getting divorced. I wasn’t so outspoken as I have become). The call came through and I must have won an award for that performance. However I do think she would have noticed as she was getting more hammered by the moment.

A few days later, she did text me and I did tell her, I don’t think it was going to work mainly because I’m after someone confident but I wished her luck. I did also say my friend was feeling much better after his accident and he was glad he could rely on me (therefore continuing the lie).

From my experience drinking and dating only works to a certain extent. Once you over step the mark, things can go wrong very quickly. Knowing your limits and sticking to them is essential unless you want to sleep around (and frankly a lot of people do… join pof.com) Beer googles applies to wine and cocktails as much as beer. And think about how your coming across to the other person… Who wants a leechy leery drunk as a partner?