One morning in a fit of pique
I made an OKCupid account. It really was a fit of pique—a “never
mind that jerk; screw my pledge to not date until December; I want to get out
of the freaking house” fit of pique. I filled out a little bit of profile
information and started answering questions. Due to previous online dating
excursions, I knew to specify the douchebag dealbreaker “flaws” right upfront:
smart, fat, uppity, and feminist. I near-immediately got QuickMatch likes, but
I’d barely filled things out yet, so I assumed they were people who found me
because the software gives search priority to new people. I ignored them and
kept filling out questions. Then I went over to QuickMatch.
QuickMatch is supposed to be people that are compatible with
me, but I saw guys with 10% match ratings. It was pretty obvious that they’d made it into
QuickMatch by rating me highly and no. No, I am not desperate. I don’t do
desperate. It was obvious that these guys hadn’t even looked at the first
paragraph of my profile; I checked a few and some had “no fat chick” answers.
(Dudes, when I say that I’m overweight in the second sentence of my profile and
you have a no fatties policy, don’t message me, fer srs.) I went to the
profiles of the guys who were over 80%. Some of them were pretty good. But there
was this one with what looked like a guy running a race—11 years younger than
me. WTF? Athletic young man seeks chubby nerd lady for something something?
Then I looked at the match percentage. 99% match, 0% enemy. That’s weird. I went to his profile.
Sing rickety tickety tin
He was smart, interesting, and funny, and he referenced some
of my favorite novels. He likes board games, likes scifi, hangs out in coffee
shops, and knows the language that I’ve been learning. I gave him a four out
of five, a tentative like because of the age difference, but a like anyway. The
system told me he liked me too, that I should send him a message. I decided
that for those stats and that bio, I could give an 11 year difference a chance;
I responded at length to his profile. If it didn’t work out, we’d probably
still have so much in common that we could come out friends.Of course, during my response, he responded to my like and I didn’t see his message. I responded to a couple of other guys and went back to QuickMatch. I started looking closely at the percentages and the enemy rating interested me. I had a guy who was 83% match with 26% enemy (83 + 26 > 100). Clearly, the enemy score could be higher than 100% - match %, so where did that come from? I started looking more closely at people’s answers to questions.
I discovered that there were questions that I considered
dealbreaker questions that these guys had answered wrong. Some of the
dealbreaker questions had been pretty obvious when I saw them. They are based
on the idea that many rapists will admit to rape as long as the situation is
described in detail, without using the word “rape.” I noticed this a long time
ago (“yes, I had sex with her knowing that she didn’t want to but it’s not like
I raped her!”) and now there are studies to back it up.
None of the people with low enemy scores had answered those rape dealbreaker
questions wrong. Many had answered
lifestyle dealbreaker questions wrong, for instance “Do you smoke?” when I am
allergic to tobacco. But there were also guys with a 0% enemy rating but 50%
match. I kept digging.
One morning in a fit of pique
I found that some of the low enemy guys hadn’t answered
those rape dealbreaker questions at all.
OK, so maybe they don’t smoke so that is fine, but what about all the other
dealbreakers?
Then I said something about my 99% match dude to a good
friend of mine who happens to be the lead developer on some dating sites, who
said he was not going to comment on the fact that I’m using his competitor and
haven’t even signed up with his site. Oops. I ran off to the appropriate one of
his sites and signed up. I also filed a bug because I’m like that. After
completing registration and going through their questions, I realized that
nothing in that site allowed me to weed out potential problem men.
I messaged my friend again and told him that unless there
were sections that I hadn’t seen, I didn’t see a way to detect potential
rapists in their system. “Rapists?” he said. “I don’t even know how we would
detect that. We aren’t designed for that but I definitely see the value. Could
you send me some examples of how you are weeding them out?”
I started a list. Then I realized that my list of problem
dude dealbreaker questions was long. They needed organization.
She drowned her father in the creek
I divided them into four categories:
· Rapist detection
Example: Someone you like is drunkenly flirting with you. You know that with a
sober mind this person would never engage in casual sex, but now it
seems that they're willing. What do you do?
Example: Someone you like is drunkenly flirting with you. You know that with a
sober mind this person would never engage in casual sex, but now it
seems that they're willing. What do you do?
o
Take advantage of the situation
o
Absolutely nothing
· Domestic abuser and stalker detection
Example: Would you—for any reason—read your mate's email or pose as him/her
online, without his/her knowledge and permission?
Example: Would you—for any reason—read your mate's email or pose as him/her
online, without his/her knowledge and permission?
o
Yes, they shouldn't be keeping secrets anyway.
o
I'd be too curious not to.
o
Only if I suspected them of something.
o
No, I'd trust them and that would be invasive.
· Misogynist or other bigotry detection
Example: Would it bother you if a date made gender-biased remarks?
Example: Would it bother you if a date made gender-biased remarks?
o
Yes.
o
No.
o
Only if they were inaccurate.
· Bad ethics detection
Example: You have just been unfairly laid off from work. As you are leaving,
you have an opportunity to steal something of value, and nobody would
know. Would you take it?
Example: You have just been unfairly laid off from work. As you are leaving,
you have an opportunity to steal something of value, and nobody would
know. Would you take it?
o
yes
o
no
I compiled a list of some of the questions to show my dating
site developer friend, organized by group, and sent them to him in an email.
The list was not comprehensive, but the distribution came out to:
·
Rapist detection: 8
·
Domestic abuser and stalker detection: 13
·
Misogynist or other bigotry detection: 13
·
Bad ethics detection: 6
So when I’m looking for these questions in someone’s
profile, I’m looking for questions from a non-comprehensive set of 40
questions. This is not a small set.
The water tasted bad for a week
Then I went back to the profiles of men with whom I had high
matches and low enemy scores. Several guys that I had around 85% matches with
had answered none of the questions
that I’d identified as potential problems-- 0
out of 40. Guys, trying to scam the enemy percentages by avoiding questions
that make women suspicious makes women
suspicious. At least it raises the suspicions of the ones who also analyze
data and have a tendency to reverse engineer business rules out of software.
One answered several questions with write-in answers that
bother me, like “people are too PC and have no sense of humor.” (Translation: I
make really offensive jokes and am not responsible when people dislike that.) He
answered none of the questions from the first three groups, but he answered a
few of the questions from the bad ethics group incorrectly, including write-in
support for eugenics. He also wrote me a message claiming to be a feminist. I
finally figured out where I recognized him from and planned to avoid that event.
Then I switched my profile to invisible profile viewing mode. *twitch*
I went through several other high match, low enemy profiles
and found a similar trend. Many of the low enemy guys had answered less than
three of those forty questions.
And we had to make due with gin
OKCupid rated seven men that I know as high matches.
Strangely, the exboyfriend that I know uses OKCupid was not in my list and we’re
alike in a lot of ways. We should have 0% enemy based on the aforementioned
questions. Two men that are my acquaintances and Facebook friends ended up in
my matches and gave me a like, so now I know which people in my Facebook feed
want to date me. Seeing a third high match reminded me that at a party I had
said to him “yeah, but I’m not your type anyway.” I didn’t understand at the
time why he replied sadly, “actually, you’d be surprised what I like, I think.”
Sorry, dude. Social malfunction. You seem nice. I don’t want to date you but
you seem nice.
But a fourth match is one of the men that I keep as Facebook
friends solely to keep an eye on them. This particular one at one point offered
me a job that I was wholly unqualified for, but I knew that part of the reason
that he wanted to hire me is that he wants to get in my pants. In addition to
knowing that he likes me, I have reports from several women who do not know
each other or know but do not like each other, that he knowingly crosses women’s
sexual boundaries. I have heard from several women that when engaging in BDSM,
he does not uphold women’s stated limits. That said, I also know of
non-BDSM-context incidents, including getting a woman drunk and high after she
turned him down, then trying to fool around with her. I also know that fourth
match finds value in PUA techniques. Here’s where this gets scary:
Fourth match answered exactly 1 of the problem detecting
questions from the first 2 groups, 1 from the third group, and I did not find
any previously unidentified problem detecting questions in his list. The only
question from the rapist set was:No means NO!
·
Always. Period.
· Mostly, occasionally it's really a Yes in disguise
· A No is just a Yes that needs a little convincing!
· Never, they all want me. They just don't know it.
He answered “Always. Period.” The other 3 options are what
PUAs argue are appropriate responses to “women’s shittesting,” ie, being uninterested. So in the case of the 1
person that I know disagrees with no
always meaning no, he answered that 1 question in the correct way, then avoided
all but 1 question in the first 3 groups. Apparently, gender bias is ok if it’s
“true.” He did, however, answer a few questions from the previously identified
ethics questions that denote poor enough ethics that makes all other answers unreliable.
Score 1 for group 4!· Mostly, occasionally it's really a Yes in disguise
· A No is just a Yes that needs a little convincing!
· Never, they all want me. They just don't know it.
With gin
I am selectively answering questions as well, omitting all
sex questions and some other questions that I don’t want people to base their
dating decisions on. I understand the motivation to skip some questions, but I
don’t like what skipping those implies.
We had to make due with gin.
I went back to Mr. 99%’s profile. I went through his
questions looking for the detection questions and every question that I’d
identified plus new questions that I identified through his profile had a
correct answer. For 1 question, he even wrote in that everything not a yes is a
no, then celebrated enthusiastic consent. High five, dude. Where did I put
those feminist cookies? I keep running out.
There was a chance that for some reason, he had gone to my
profile and adjusted his profile to match mine, a highly unlikely but quite
creepy scenario. I found additional questions for the list and he got those
right too. But in looking through his profile, I found other questions that I
thought were good for me to answer. The answers still matched; that couldn’t
have been adjusted to match mine. I probably answered an additional 50
questions but the percentages never changed: 99% match, 0% enemy.
Verdict: So ethical that some would consider it a neurosis.
I wonder if he refuses to walk against the light on empty streets because some
engineer somewhere designed this light timing and he will not disrespect that
engineer’s work. Shut up.
We have a date. I’m sure that’s better than gin, but it’s
fairly cougartastic. Rickety tickety tin.
And no, I'm not giving you creepers the full list with answers. Blech.
Tl;dr: OKCupid is the only one using your OKCupid data against you. And you've yourselves to blame if it's too long; you should never have let me begin.
