Figuring Out OKCupid Part 1: Online Dating. Friend or Foe?

In the digital age, online dating has emerged as a potential weapon for single lonely folks. But is it what everyone seems to think it is? Is it what YOU think it is? How helpful can it be to you, and how can it put the hurt on you? Read on if interested, and watch me rip the general population a new one (like I always do).

This post has a lot of text! The next post has more pictures, for those of you who are more bored without visual stimulation.

I haven't blogged in quite some time...again. What excuse do I have this time? Well, working full-time and trying to throw a thesis paper together, all while still having somewhat of a life (ha ha ha ha, okay yeah but seriously...I've been trying to!) takes up a lot of time. But this time my absence is largely due to trying to find a (new) girlfriend since I broke up with my ex in April of 2014. As of last Saturday, I have been with my current girlfriend for three months. Huzzah! Great success.

But...so what? Why should you care? I consider this a big deal because I met my current girlfriend after wrangling with the online beast known as OKCupid for roughly six months. Before I discuss OKCupid further in detail, however, I believe it better to explain the truths and fallacies behind online dating, as I see things. Then we can get started with the ugly, the bad and the good (roughly in order of commonality) of using OKCupid.

***Note that most of what I discuss in this series will carry heterosexual context, as this is what I have experience with on OKCupid.

Online Dating

 "Online Dating" is a misnomer. The term is supposed to refer to the process of meeting people through a communication medium via the internet, getting to know said people through various forms of communication, and finally meeting them in person if the two are romantically interested in each other. Wikipedia, help me out here.

Excerpt from the Internet Dating Wikipedia page:
Online dating or Internet dating is a personal introductory system whereby individuals can find and contact each other over the Internet to arrange a date, usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship. Online dating services usually provide unmoderated matchmaking over the Internet, through the use of personal computers or cell phones. Users of an online dating service would usually provide personal information, to enable them to search the service provider's database for other individuals. Members use criteria other members set, such as age range, gender and location.

(There, now I'm credible.)

Firstly, let me distinguish two terms, based on personal experience on the Internet. Internet dating is the term often attributed to two people who have not yet met in person (but may develop an intent to meet in person in the future) that are interested in each other as romantically as possible without any physical contact or affection involved, usually due to large distance and/or money limitations that separate them. These two people who are dating over the internet (hence 'internet dating') are essentially as attached to each other as possible through electronic communication, whether it be interacting with each other in an online game, chatting through text chat software such as Google Talk's messaging system or Facebook Messenger, or video talking via video communication software such as Skype.

Internet dating is, in my opinion, different from online dating. Online dating involves the certain intent to meet others in person and start dating should they click well together...but only after figuring each other out via online or telephonic communication first before doing so. And hopefully you see now why the term 'online dating' is so...bizarre as a label for this process. But it's a heck of a lot shorter than saying "Meeting people online and getting to know them and then meeting in person, the latter of which may hopefully lead to long-term dating".

But even that's not exactly what OKCupid is. So...what is it then? 

OKCupid In a Nutshell

What's a definition of OKCupid you should care about? First of all, it is one of several standout online dating sites that is self-proclaimed to be "the best free dating site on Earth." I'll skip the boring details--essentially, OKCupid is an online medium through which people may meet and get to know each other, with (usually) romantic intent. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world log in to this site to try their hand at rolling the dice, to see if they'll get lucky and meet "the one" for them.

"The best free dating site on Earth." And well worthy of that title.

All users have a profile (which will be described much more in depth in my next post) on which they can describe who they are (and edit at any time). User profiles are the heart of the site's content, and may be viewed by anyone else using OKCupid at any time--this is a user's 'face' on the site, although whether others take the time to look at it in detail is a different story. Users can view other users that match with them according to OKCupid's algorithms, and the results can be sorted via a variety of filter options. However, to actually see a user's profile and glean much more information about them, one has to click on their profile in these search results--otherwise, all they'll see is a user's username, age, matching percents and profile picture. All of which must catch someone's eyes enough to get them to click on them and view their profile. It's easy to see that this site is largely about trying your darndest to sell your strong points...or at least, what most people seem to think are their strong points.

That's great and all, but how does one use OKCupid? Not everyone is the same, but a typical OKCupid user experience often depends on gender and/or sexual orientation. Since men are designated as the "chasers" in our society, they usually pursue and attempt to court the women (keyword 'attempt', as most female OKCupid users I have had the pleasure of communicating with have informed me that men usually display absolutely ZERO tact in this department), or men if they are interested in a homosexual relationship, etc.

The storyboard is essentially as follows for a male user:

1. Create account
2. Fill out his own profile
3. Search for women they are attracted to (for whatever reasons), because so few women will seek them out
4. Look through women's profiles for stuff they like in a mate
5. If interested in a woman, introduce (I use that term loosely in this context) himself to her by sending a message to her
6. Sit and wait with fingers crossed that said female might respond with interest
7a. Repeat steps 2-6 in any order, as often as they feel like it
7b. Continue communicating with any women who have responded to him, usually through OKCupid's messaging system
8. (optional) Get mad at the lack of results, and start sending desperate messages to more women and/or change profile to reflect frustration, only to change it back a few days later to something more appealing to the twelve or so women (if that many) that would actually take the time to read it

Seems simple enough. Let's see what the typical female user experience is like (according to what I've observed/been told by female OKC users):

1. Create account
2. Fill out her own profile
3. Get message-swarmed by tens/hundreds of males a day, depending on her physical attractiveness
4a. Bite the bullet and read through aforementioned messages (possibly male profiles if she's interested)
4b. Once message inbox gets too full, empty it so it can fill up again due to step 3
5a. Repeat steps 2-4 in any order, as often as they feel like it
5b. Respond to any men she has established a genuine interest in and conversation with, usually through OKCupid's messaging system.
6. (optional) stare in bleak desperation at the screen hoping the process will ever produce some form of yield and/or add more favorites to their Favorites section on their profile and/or answer more relationship- & personality-determining questions hoping this will make her more noticeable to real gentlemen

And that's essentially how it works at face value. But I called it a beast for good reason--it ain't that simple (although it is as painful as I'm insinuating).

Since I want to do that psychological "good-bad-good" sandwich thing to make you feel like there's actually something positive about online dating (and there is, I just wanted an excuse to be blatant and sarcastic) let's cover the bad first.

The Ugly (And Bad)

OKCupid is, beyond ANY doubt, extremely frustrating to use unless you are the luckiest man/woman on the planet--which of course, none of us are.

And it doesn't matter which gender you are. It sucks. Period. Seriously, using OKCupid for a while with serious intent...it really sucks. Some will tell you that men have it hardest on OKCupid because of "all the other male competition." OKCupid has far more male users than female users...or so it seems. Gender ratio is actually difficult to tell on OKCupid due to a variety of factors that number too many to agree upon for accuracy's sake (and would put you to sleep). However, it is safe to assume that any online dating site has at least a slight surplus of male active users compared to female active users. This correlates with the earlier claim that men are the "chasers" in society, and women are most often being chased. On the other hand, some will tell you that women have it hardest because of all the pointless and superficial attention they get--AND it takes up their time having to clear it away just to have to slog through more. That they "get no respect" on a site like OKCupid, and all that after putting as much personal information as they're comfortable releasing...online. And anything that gets released on the internet is essentially public, especially on a site like this where it's free to sign up and browse profiles!

Well, it's all true. Thus, it sucks for everyone. But why exactly does it suck?

Simply put, I think it sucks because in online dating, people are (typically) not motivated to try to understand you as a person. They only look for what they want at face value, otherwise you get the cold shoulder of silence. You could be the nicest, sweetest guy or gal and be genuinely into finding someone who wants a deep, committed relationship that will probably end with marriage and children--and be casually swept aside by hundreds (or if a woman, thousands) of people who seem to take no interest in you. And if you've experienced this feeling, you know it's not fair. It isn't fair to you that others don't give you a chance. And from there, it's easy to start making assumptions about why the other gender sucks and how other guys/ladies get lucky because "they're prettier/handsomer." Thus the cycle continues, due to not knowing exactly how others perceive you. Silence is awful like that, and I'll touch more on the perception of silence from an OKCupid user's perspective in a future post in this series.

OKCupid does not show users specific guidelines of how to approach online dating on the site (although there is a public Q&A-style forum available for anyone to view, it isn't shoved in your face while you are using the site...heck, I never used it or glanced at it myself while I was still a user). Rather, it is more of a sandbox-style approach to the system--instead of offering layers of management or strictness (like what eHarmony does), you're thrown into a pool of people and have to figure out what to do to make the system work for yourself. Being an engineer, doing this essentially comes with the territory. But not everyone has the mindset of an engineer, which makes you wonder who coded--I mean, designed the site's system in the first place...

This is shedding light on what appears to be the crux of the issue: When participating in online dating, people (generally) do not adapt if they are unsuccessful. Instead, they feel pressured and limited, and feel punished and insignificant when they do not immediately succeed. Furthermore, the more they fail in an online dating medium, the more they think they're limited to what they can do about their lonesome situation instead of feeling like they can now go at the system again armed with knowledge of what did not work previously. To make matters worse, users are not shown examples of success on OKCupid--instead, they have to realize for themselves that they'll have to continue to bite the bullet and know that with enough time and effort, they can reap bountiful fruit. As if it's not awful enough, a lack of positive results often does more than just foul a user's mood: it may only further reinforce the idea (in a user's mind) that they need to do more of what they've been doing thus far, since what they've done so far seems to "not be enough." This can cause someone to become even more convinced not that their methods are more effective, but that other methods are less effective.

Given these (horribly common) circumstances, it's easy to lose sight of the big picture: the site exists for YOU to do what YOU feel like YOU need to do to make YOURSELF happy. This in and of itself will pay great dividends for those around you--being your true, honest self will cause others like you to take interest in you. You should be rewarded for being yourself. But in almost every case, that is not how the user feels.

The Good

The good news about OKCupid (yes, there are good things that can come of trying it) is extremely obvious now that we've covered the bad and ugly sides: you get to decide how to approach online dating. And you get to learn from your mistakes, or try new techniques in the hopes of getting success. The other thing that is easy to forget is that you can decide what you want within the site. You are in absolute control of who you talk to, who you try to talk to, what you put on your profile, which kinds of people/relationship(s) you're looking for...and you can always take a break from the site if it becomes too much to bear by freezing your account--and to unfreeze it, you have to log back in to the site.

Having control on the Internet is outstanding. This is the brilliance of OKCupid specifically, unlike most other dating sites, and it's also easy to forget while using OKCupid. For example, take a site like eHarmony (which I also have experience using, albeit briefly). eHarmony is a paid-subscription online dating service in which you are given the ability to view anywhere from 3-12 (or so) matches given to you by the eHarmony system on a daily basis, with maybe 1-2 others trickling in throughout the day. And that's it. You can also view user profiles that occasionally may appear in the What If? section, which is a tool on eHarmony that will show you user profiles that are almost a match with yours (according to eHarmony) and give you the chance to view them to see if you may be missing out on someone spectacular. But even the What If? section dries up quickly and only refreshes periodically. You cannot view anyone else in the meantime, whereas on OKCupid you have viewing privilege and messaging access to every single profile (as long as they have not blocked you). eHarmony also tries to put the squeeze on communication and offers you assistance on how to message others: it prompts you to request that the person you're interested in answer five closed-ended questions (pre-selected questions with pre-selected answer options) first, and then they can do the same for you...and once *that* goes through, the site says that you should now finally begin open-ended messaging. Meanwhile, OKCupid lets you do as you please and simply presents you with a blank box that you can type into. Complete, absolute freedom compared to such a closed model.

OKCupid is essentially an MMO, but for dating. Everyone starts fresh with an account that they can build upon, experiences encounters that they can remember fondly or...not-so-fondly, and it's a world that they can limit to just their screen of choice. You can use OKCupid from mobile devices as well as computers, but they amount to the same thing (well, not quite...the mobile app is a bit different and more limited): They're both a means of injecting AND removing anonymity, and the user has complete control over how much of each they can employ. Afraid of having to "resort" to online dating? Well, no one on OKCupid should know you, and you can behave how you'd best like to present yourself to others (although not being yourself is something easy to fall prey to, and will be discussed in a future post). You can also ignore any users that are being annoying in any way, or hide people matched with you in search results if you don't like them for any reason. Maybe not everyone has their heart set on being friendly to you, but you can at least blot 'em out! These actions come with their own problems (e.g. silence can reinforce bad behavior) but they provide the user with power that they otherwise usually do not feel they have when using OKCupid and falling flat on their face alongside everyone else.

The "problem" with the good side of OKCupid is...it's extremely open-ended. Which is an interesting psychological scenario: it's easy to tell what's awful and stupid about the site, but not easy to pinpoint exactly what's so great about it. If you were to ask anyone who has used OKCupid what sums up their experience, they're almost certainly going to tell you something negative. Being open-ended means it's hard to classify what's so great about it, as everyone's experiences and ideas of what's "great" are so varied. There is a typical end goal defined for everyone that means "you succeeded," which is finding the mate of your dreams, but the journey is extremely enlightening if users choose to take it that way.

Conclusion

OKCupid, (and online dating in general) has many negative stigmas that typically overpower its high points. It can both harm and hurt its users through experiences of success and (mostly) failure. As a new medium for romancing, it certainly has a long way to go, but also significant potential for those that have the patience and aptitude for iterative matchmaking. OKCupid is a sandbox, which is both its strength and the bane of its users' existence.

This post only scratched the surface of online dating and OKCupid. Next time, I'll go over the OKCupid website from a user's perspective and discuss the power of each tool at a user's disposal--and how users tend to (mis)use them and how I used them (if I used them at all). Expect lots of screenshots!