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Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail
#1

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

INTRODUCTION

With so much speculation on this topic, I thought to myself: why not just do a little original research and find out for myself? Some dating sites allow you to search for prospects see how many results come up; a search for women followed by an equivalent search for men reveals the M:F ratio. Easy enough.

Unfortunately, the most popular apps (Tinder, Bumble) do not allow for this. But some other fairly popular ones (Match, OKCupid, and POF) do. POF I just don't give a shit about because its user base is so repulsively trashy, so it is excluded from this study. OKCupid doesn't display "X search results found," which required me to manually count them, AND it hides a search result if your profile doesn't fit what he/she is looking for (so, for example, to capture all the 25 y.o. men in NYC, I had to change my [fake] profile to be a 25 y.o. woman in NYC), so because it's such a pain I only recorded a couple searches on OKC, which I describe at the very bottom. Match, on the other hand, is easy and straightforward to do this with, so almost all of my findings below are based on Match.

So what's the short answer? What are the ratios really like on dating sites? The best short answer I can give is this: Online dating ratios are unbelievably, outrageously lopsided; the degree to which is highly dependent on age and location. Here's the breakdown:

LOCATION

I played around with a lot of different locations on Match, and it makes a huge difference. As I stated, the ratios are highly unfavorable to men no matter where you go, but in terms of degree, some consistent patterns emerged. I'll just summarize those patterns below; if you're curious about a specific locale, you can PM me.

MORE FAVORABLE FOR MEN >>> LESS FAVORABLE FOR MEN

Major city centers >>>>>>>> Second tier city centers > Suburbs, spread out "uncool" cities >> rural areas

Chicks flock to where the action is in a way that men do not. That much is extremely clear. Note that for the major cities, search radius made a HUGE difference. 5 mile radius from downtown always had incomparably better ratios than a 10 mile radius. Again, girls crave to be in the heart of things.

There was a pattern in terms of region too (note- this is all US based):

Northeast >>> West coast > South > Midwest >>>> Mountain west

If you live in the mountain time zone, God help you. Seriously I couldn't believe how consistently bad those locations were.

Also, DC people need to quit yer bitching. It has one of the best ratios in the country. But not THE best.

From the above information, the #1 best location for men should be no mystery. The majorest of major urban centers, which also happens to be located in the northeast, takes the cake and it's not even close: NYC has by far the best Match.com ratios of any place in the country.

From here on out, I'll be providing numbers from both NYC (your “best case scenario” in the US) and another location I won't disclose that falls in the middle of the pack, which reflects the typical man's experience with online dating.

AGE

Remember how I said the ratios are highly dependent on age? Well, here's a great visualization of that:

NYC Match Users By Age
[Image: eQ5yGxj.png]
X axis- Age
Y axis- # of Match profiles within a 5 mile radius of Lower Manhattan; blue=men, red=women


Ouch, pretty bleak if you happen to like women younger than their late 20's [Image: lol.gif]. But remember, this is NYC, the best dating location in the nation for men. What does this same graph look like in an average location?

Typical Location Match Users By Age
[Image: dVy9Vzn.png]
X axis- Age
Y axis- # of Match profiles within an undisclosed 25 mile radius; blue=men, red=women


It gets worse. What do these graphs look like when we filter out overweight people?

AGE WITH BODY TYPE FILTER

Match allows you to filter searches by body type. The body types are self-reported and must be taken with a grain of salt, but the data is still informative.

There are two body types among the options listed that are likely to be reported by people who aren't fat; “slender” and “athletic and toned.” The other options consist of obvious euphemisms for fat, along with “average” and “curvy” which aren't SUPPOSED to be euphemisms for fat, but in my experience are typically used that way. So let's see these same two graphs above, only including men and women who self-report as “slender” or “athletic and toned.”

NYC Match Users By Age, Non-Fat Body Types
[Image: gDK0T4b.png]
X axis- Age
Y axis- # of Match profiles within a 5 mile radius of Lower Manhattan reporting as “slender” or “athletic and toned”; blue=men, red=women


Typical Location Match Users By Age, Non-Fat Body Types
[Image: r8xDRAM.png]
X axis- Age
Y axis- # of Match profiles within an undisclosed 25 mile radius reporting as “slender” or “athletic and toned”; blue=men, red=women


NOW we're really shedding some light on why it's so difficult to meet quality women via online dating. But wait, remember that the latest graph is a *middle of the pack* location. It is not especially bad compared to most. What does an especially bad location look like? Just for fun, gentlemen, I give you the worst ratio I could find- El Paso, TX:

El Paso Match Users By Age, Non-Fat Body Types
[Image: CFO52TN.png]
X axis- Age
Y axis- # of Match profiles in El Paso, TX reporting as “slender” or “athletic and toned”; blue=men, red=women


Yes, that really is 67 men and 1 woman at age 20, and 41 men and 0 women at age 24.

ACTIVE USERS

Match allows you to only include users “online now” in your search, which if repeated at a bunch of different times, gives you a sense of the ratio of ACTIVE users, rather than just the number of profiles created, most of which are no longer in use.

If there's one silver lining, it's that the female profiles appear much more likely to be active users than the male profiles. I suspect that many men create a profile, realize they're fucked, and quickly give up.

Below are average numbers of “online now” users, ages 21-29, checked a bunch of different times hours apart:

NYC (5 mile radius of lower Manhattan) Average # of “Online Now” Match Users, Ages 21-29:
ALL BODY TYPES: 33 men, 42 women
“NONFAT” BODY TYPES ONLY: 17 men, 18 women

Typical Location (25 mile radius) Average # of “Online Now” Match Users, Ages 21-29:
ALL BODY TYPES: 91 men, 52 women
“NONFAT” BODY TYPES ONLY: 44 men, 14 women

OKCUPID FINDINGS

As I allude to in the intro, despite it requiring manual counting and being a royal pain in the ass, I did a couple of searches on OKCupid. To get a sense for the entire spectrum of 20-somethings without counting every single age, I only searched ages 22, 25, and 28, and only for NYC and the same “typical location” used above.

The interesting thing here is that, unlike on Match, the ratio held roughly constant at all three ages. Thus, I'll only report totals for all three ages:

OKCupid users, online in the last week, ages 22, 25, and 28:
NYC (5 mile radius of lower Manhattan): 1715 men, 979 women, Ratio=1.75 men per woman
Typical location (undisclosed 25 mile radius): 1240 men, 378 women, Ratio=3.28 men per woman

Okay I lied, I did search one more location. OKC allows for international searches, and while NYC is the US's version of a “pussy paradise,” I was curious about the whole world's premiere location for getting laid...

OKCupid users, online in the last week, age 25:
Manila (5 mile radius of city center): 419 men, 378 women, Ratio=1.11 men per woman

There you have it: NYC is closer to Manila than to the rest of the US in terms of OKCupid ratio.

CONCLUSION

I neglected to provide a ton of commentary/interpretation, because I think the graphs and numbers speak for themselves. One thing I will say is: looking at that graph of non-fat body types at the “typical location” (yeah it's where I live, that's why I won't disclose it) made me feel a lot better. I went from thinking “why do I sometimes struggle on these things, what's wrong with me?” to thinking “how do I ever have success on these things, geez I must be fucking superhuman.” Not that I predominantly use Match, but I'd think Match numbers are highly indicative of online dating as a whole... actually Tinder and Bumble are probably MORE male-skewed if anything, due to their hookup reputation. I'm hoping this post will help other men feel better about their struggles, too.

Also, if you're wondering why I didn't slice-and-dice the data this way or that way... there are infinitely many ways to slice-and-dice this data, and I wanted to keep this post from getting long and boring. If you have a specific question I didn't address, feel free to PM me.
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#2

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

This might have been useful in 2008.

Quote:Quote:

With so much speculation on this topic

No is speculating about this anymore on a broad level and there have been tons of posts on this forum and elsewhere discussing online ratios and why things are the way they are. Why isn't this in the Game forum by the way?

Quote:Quote:

the most popular apps (Tinder, Bumble) do not allow for this. But some other fairly popular ones (Match, OKCupid, and POF)

No one considers OKC, POF, or Match to be popular by any definition in 2018. OKC was on deaths door years ago.
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#3

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Interesting thread. It shows why a surplus of men in their 20s is pairing up with older women in their 30s and beyond.

The quantitative aspects of the OP have been known for a while and I have to echo the post above that this thread is more relevant to the pre-tinder era.

Tinder has not only eclipsed old school dating sites but it has nearly ‘real life’ too. You don’t have to be on tinder to be affected by it. I was catfished by a 4 whom I met through SA. She had a smartphone in her pocket that routinely told her that she had 100s of unrequited right swipes on tinder. This led to aloof passivity whereby she’d log in just for the ego boost and to see if Chad was among the masses.

There is too much emphasis on gender ratios on forums. Female activity / passivity rates are just as important. Yes they relate but not always. The gender ratios are good for men on eharmony, Christian sites and Instagram but female passivity here is very high. One reason for this passivity is because tinder isn’t very far away - especially on Instagram, where it props up women’s attention needs.

The only site that promotes female competition anxiety and therefore activity is SA. It does this by restricting men’s membership by premium membership fees and stoking hypergamic attraction from women. But as I mentioned above, tinder isn’t far away.
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#4

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

It was always obvious to all of us that there's some massive imbalance (although no one really knew the degree), but try showing these numbers to a married person who's been out of the game for years. They won't believe it. Seriously, if you even scratch the surface of how skewed online dating is with someone who hasn't lived it, they straight up think you're lying.

Better yet, show these numbers to a single woman. Many are so delusional they actually think there are MORE women than men on dating apps, I kid you not.
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#5

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

18-26 year old women don't get on match. 28-46 year old females do.

I've been using that shit for a decade now, since I was 16.

Cattle 5000 Rustlings #RustleHouseRecords #5000Posts
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Game is the difference between a broke average looking dude in a 2nd tier city turning bad bitch feminists into maids and fucktoys and a well to do lawyer with 50x the dough taking 3 dates to bang broads in philly.
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#6

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Quote: (09-10-2018 06:49 PM)Delta Wrote:  

It was always obvious to all of us that there's some massive imbalance (although no one really knew the degree), but try showing these numbers to a married person who's been out of the game for years. They won't believe it. Seriously, if you even scratch the surface of how skewed online dating is with someone who hasn't lived it, they straight up think you're lying.

Better yet, show these numbers to a single woman. Many are so delusional they actually think there are MORE women than men on dating apps, I kid you not.

Why do you need married men and single women to believe how hard online dating is for you? What are you trying to achieve?
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#7

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Quote: (09-10-2018 09:37 PM)StrikeBack Wrote:  

Quote: (09-10-2018 06:49 PM)Delta Wrote:  

It was always obvious to all of us that there's some massive imbalance (although no one really knew the degree), but try showing these numbers to a married person who's been out of the game for years. They won't believe it. Seriously, if you even scratch the surface of how skewed online dating is with someone who hasn't lived it, they straight up think you're lying.

Better yet, show these numbers to a single woman. Many are so delusional they actually think there are MORE women than men on dating apps, I kid you not.

Why do you need married men and single women to believe how hard online dating is for you? What are you trying to achieve?

Because they say shit like this:

Married men: "if it's so hard to meet girls, why don't you just use online dating?"

Single women: "you should really use Tinder, it's really good." -- from a girl in NYC no less. She personally found it great and assumed that I would do. She's in her mid 20s, in great shape, outnumbered by men (see OP graphs)

Not that I personally tried to show them, but I can see how it gets annoying to the point that some men would feel the itch.
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#8

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Quote:Delta Wrote:

OKCupid users, online in the last week, age 25:
Manila (5 mile radius of city center): 419 men, 378 women, Ratio=1.11 men per woman

There you have it: NYC is closer to Manila than to the rest of the US in terms of OKCupid ratio.

What if you broke that down by age and body type? NYC still has a lot of fatties and the excess single woman population is due to older women.
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#9

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

It's interesting how all these women assume that men have the same experience as they do. Thanks for more reasons to avoid going on-line. It totally sucks.

You also need to factor in how many women are serious about finding a man. This will rule out all the cam whores and psuedo-prostitutes who use these sites. Also, throw out all the women who just want to play games.

I don't know if there is a way to make on-line sites not suck.
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#10

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

the solution is to create a app or website where only the women can message a guy and search the profile.
maximum 5 messages a day per women.this will cut out all the spamming and nonsense on these websites and apps.
and this will make women take some effort to search thru...this will also make it even and fairer.
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#11

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

The main complaint women have isn't that there are too few men, but that they aren't the right men.

Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Since women only experience men they "select", they view online dating as being skewed towards men's short-term hookup mentality. They don't realize that there is an army of men who aren't even getting a chance to demonstrate what they have to offer, or that by selecting Chad, they insure a pump-n-dump.

Women always blame men:

Quote:Quote:

She blames the “bro culture” of Silicon Valley and the tech genius of young menand a handful of female peers — who bonded in college and went on to build sites that suited their own social needs.

Obviously, the 80% of the 80/20 rule are invisible in this analysis.
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#12

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Quote: (09-10-2018 09:37 PM)StrikeBack Wrote:  

Why do you need married men and single women to believe how hard online dating is for you? What are you trying to achieve?

I've gone into this in other threads so I won't repeat all the details, but, I'm not the type of guy people think would struggle to land a decent woman. The fact that I do struggle and have long dry/single spells leads people in my life to come up with all these wild speculations about what might be wrong with me. They believe that any reasonable person (of either sex) can easily find someone of similar value, and that people who struggle either are totally fucked up individuals, or have ridiculous standards.

Naturally I'm going to try and explain to these people that it's not like they think- all dating venues, and especially online dating, have insane ratios and the women have choice overload that men do not. And no one who hasn't seen it can believe it. It just doesn't make sense to them.

It's clear this imbalance is being deliberately concealed. Take the article questor just posted- it reads like every other shitty news article about online dating, as though the experience is similar for both sexes. Obviously, if you're going to have a real discussion about the problems with online dating, the very first thing you'd need to mention is that (at least for the <30 crowd) over 3/4 of the users are male and average women have effectively unlimited options groveling over them, while even exceptionally fit, witty, good-looking, successful men struggle like hell to land a date with anything but the absolute bottom of the barrel. That cannot be omitted in any honest discussion about online dating, but it always is in the mainstream. I get that the companies that run the dating apps would want this hidden, as it would be bad for business telling 90% of men their product doesn't really offer any hope, but how has no journalist figured this out and reported on it? I know most journalists are pretty dumb but it's just so fucking obvious. Something isn't right.
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#13

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Quote: (09-10-2018 09:41 PM)BlueMark Wrote:  

Because they say shit like this:

Married men: "if it's so hard to meet girls, why don't you just use online dating?"

Single women: "you should really use Tinder, it's really good." -- from a girl in NYC no less. She personally found it great and assumed that I would do. She's in her mid 20s, in great shape, outnumbered by men (see OP graphs)

[Image: giphy.gif]


Why they say what they say? I think I got the answer. You can tell them but it will require for them time to process and they probably won't believe, though it they will, they might become better people: "Honey, what you're saying is full of availability bias, survivorship bias, correspondence bias, selection bias, and few others but these should get you started".

____________________

My Adventures in Game updates on the go: twits by Max Detrick

Unbowed. Unbent. Unbroken.

I don’t ever give up. I mean, I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated.
-- Elon Musk
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#14

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

I think ksbms nailed it with the "why". If these people care enough to listen I'm sure it could be explained succinctly in a 15 minute conversation. Who knows if they'll accept it. Fuck em if they won't listen though.
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#15

Online dating ratios: The real scoop, in detail

Quote: (09-11-2018 11:02 AM)questor70 Wrote:  

The main complaint women have isn't that there are too few men, but that they aren't the right men.

Water water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Since women only experience men they "select", they view online dating as being skewed towards men's short-term hookup mentality. They don't realize that there is an army of men who aren't even getting a chance to demonstrate what they have to offer, or that by selecting Chad, they insure a pump-n-dump.

Women always blame men:

Quote:Quote:

She blames the “bro culture” of Silicon Valley and the tech genius of young menand a handful of female peers — who bonded in college and went on to build sites that suited their own social needs.

Obviously, the 80% of the 80/20 rule are invisible in this analysis.

The link to the How tech bros ruined dating for young people article is an excellent choice. It does illustrate the systematic exploitation of both sexes for monetary gains through human susceptibility to behavioural conditioning, and applied to online dating through gamification. Sadly, it does end with the online apps' users like "pigeons [...]transformed into compulsive gamblers, addicted to the high of occasional machine-driven winnings." There are a few winners at the top but the overall equation's net result is lose for all participants and win for the apps' creators.* The answer is simple. Bypass the middle-man who's a Shylock and trickster in disguise miming you with all that is gold but, in the long run, all that gold will turn in the ashes. Be your own sailor, choose real man's game, and navigate all that happens (and that can be controlled by you) under your command only in the real world.

* OK, women get lots of men to choose from, but it doesn't necessarily makes them happy thanks to paradox of choice as well as inherent instability of the dynamics these apps introduce into people's life. There's no striving to be better and to develop if there's always an elusive bigger, better deal out there for both sexes.

____________________

My Adventures in Game updates on the go: twits by Max Detrick

Unbowed. Unbent. Unbroken.

I don’t ever give up. I mean, I’d have to be dead or completely incapacitated.
-- Elon Musk
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