Testing dating site hypotheses with data
As a dating coach — and former economist, to boot — I always have a set of hypotheses I know that can be proven true through the work I’ve been doing for the past 12 years. Most have to do with dating sites: people’s satisfaction (they often directly correlate to their last date, for better or worse); preferences (most want to “date up,” again for better or worse); demographics of users (apps skew younger, while more traditional websites skew older); and people’s incentives (I have a biased set of clients, most of whom want a serious relationship).
(As an aside, the way I got into this business was by keeping a detailed spreadsheet of my own online dating experience!)
The Pew Research Center recently published findings from a survey to better understand single Americans. Below are the top insights from the survey, conducted last summer. How did my thoughts compare?
1. 30% of adults in the United States are single. 47% of those younger than 30 years old are single, as are 21% of ages 30 to 49.
What does this tell us? We already know that people are waiting longer to get married compared to previous generations, and this data confirms the trend. And interestingly enough, a much higher percentage of men younger than 30 report being single (63%), but when you get to the 65-plus crowd, there is a much higher percentage of single women (39%). This could be due to men looking for younger women (a trend I wish would go away) as well as that women have a longer life expectancy than men.
2. Of the people who reported being single, more than half (57%) said they were not currently pursuing a relationship. Of the rest, 13% said they were looking for a committed relationship, leaving the other 30% to be looking for some other sort of relationship, casual or otherwise (much to the dismay of many of my clients, most of whom are looking for a serious relationship).
3. A higher percentage of women than men say they are looking for a serious, committed relationship.
Anecdotally, with my clients, my straight female clients only want to date a man who explicitly says he is looking for a serious relationship, whereas my straight male clients are more flexible, being open to whatever relationship may come their way. The latter, to me, is a much healthier way to look at dating. Rather than trying to backfill people into this arbitrary outcome (often marriage), I recommend meeting people and determining based on each individual connection what the nature of the relationship should be.
4. 45% of people who defined themselves as single used an online dating site in the last year. This is honestly a lower percentage than I would have guessed, especially with the pandemic making online dating the only way to meet people for a while. Of course, the percentage of people using online dating sites is skewed to the younger folks, with 26% of those older than 50 having tried a site in the last year.
Other findings worth mentioning:
■ Tinder is the most-used online dating site, followed by Match, Bumble and Okcupid.
■ More than half of respondents say their online dating experience has been a positive one. (Let’s try to increase these numbers!) The issue here is that people often have recency bias, meaning their perceived happiness or success on the sites is based on their more recent dates/ relationships.
■ Women get more messages than men. This is no surprise.
■ The “paradox of choice” is real. When presented with too many options, people are often less satisfied with their choice.
Based on the data, it seems that the hypotheses I put forth at the beginning are true, but I know these ideas barely even scratch the surface of what information we can glean from doing more research in this area.
All in all, online dating is simply a tool. Used well, it can have great results. But, results can vary day to day, date to date. Just have your wits about you, keep reasonable expectations and know that the whole purpose of online dating is to get offline and in person.
Looking for more info? Check out the full survey here: https://pewrsr.ch/3yaeybu