I'm Not the Only One

Turns out, not entirely surprisingly, that I am not the only one using online dating services for the purpose of research. An article was published in the New York Times a few weeks ago by the title of "Love, Lies, and What They Learned". It basically talked about how online dating services have become an amazingly valuable resource for gathering statistics about dating and relationships. They had some very interesting findings indeed. Here are some of my personal favorites:

1. 81% of people lie about their height, weight, or age in their profiles. Women list themselves as about 8.5 lbs thinner on average, with men subtracting two lbs. Men round up their heights, by about a half inch on average.

Sooo basically we're all a bunch of liars. I actually said I was 20 on my profile in order to get a wider range of responses, and I really wasn't surprised by this statistic. Everyone is going to embellish their profile a little bit in order to attract more responses from other members.
2. 80% of contacts initiated by white members were to other white members, with only 3% to black members. Black members were ten times more likely to contact white members than vice versa.

What!? This was actually really surprising to me. Maybe it's because I grew up in an extremely open and accepting family or something, but it has never occurred to me to not date someone because they were of another race. It just seems outdated to me.
3. Women prefer men that are slightly overweight but wealthier and men prefer women that are slightly underweight with wealth not factoring as much.

Again, really not surprised by this one. Women traditionally want someone that can offer them financial security without as much of an emphasis on physical appearance, and men traditionally want to date someone extremely attractive. It does say something about America's ideals of beauty that men prefer underweight women, however.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/fashion/online-dating-as-scientific-research.html