Nerds. As we all know, the Internet is a great place to pretend to be someone you're not. For instance, here's me in Second Life having a great time:

Anyhow, in many online situations, self-misrepresentation is totally harmless. Like, who cares if your Halo 3 avatar is taller than you are in real life? Or if flickr thinks you're single when you're really married? But in online dating, where the whole goal is to eventually meet other people in person, creating a false impression is a whole different deal.
People do everything they can in their OkCupid profiles to make themselves seem awesome, and surely many of our users genuinely are. But it's very hard for the casual browser to tell truth from fiction. With our behind-the-scenes perspective, we're able to shed some light on some typical claims and the likely realities behind them.

Let's get started.
"I'm 6 feet tall."
REALITY: People are two inches shorter in real life.
This whole post was inspired by an amusing graph we stumbled across while trying to answer the question Do taller guys have more sex? The answer, to a degree, is yes, and I'll expand on that in a little bit. But in this case what was more interesting than the sex was the (supposed) tallness of the guys.

The male heights on OkCupid very nearly follow the expected normal distribution—except the whole thing is shifted to the right of where it should be. You can see it better when we overlay the implied best fit below (pardon the technical language):

Almost universally guys like to add a couple inches. You can also see a more subtle vanity at work: starting at roughly 5' 8", the top of the dotted curve tilts even further rightward. This means that guys as they get closer to six feet round up a bit more than usual, stretching for that coveted psychological benchmark.
When we looked into the data for women, we were surprised to see height exaggeration was just as widespread, though without the lurch towards a benchmark height:

On a somewhat humbling personal note, I just went back and looked at my own profile, and apparently I list myself at 5' 11". Really, I'm a touch under 5' 10". Hmmm.
As for whether it even makes sense for people to make such an obvious and easily disproved exaggeration, the jury is out. We've found that taller people, up to a point, have more sex:

But as far as messages go, shorter women actually seem to get more attention:

These are the average weekly unsolicited message totals by height; you can think of these as the number of times a person is "hit on" out of the blue each week on OkCupid. a 5' 4" woman gets 60 more contacts each year than a six-footerThe genders are plotted on different scales because of the eternal fact that men almost always make the first move, so women get many more unsolicited messages.
It's plain from these two charts that women six feet or taller are either less attractive to men or are considered too intimidating to message. The data also raises the interesting possibility that these tall women are much more likely to sleep with a man who does approach them. Compare the 6' 0" woman to her 5' 4" counterpart: the taller woman gets hit on about two-thirds as much, yet has had slightly more sex partners.
"I make $100,000 a year."
REALITY: People are 20% poorer than they say they are.
Apparently, an online dater's imagination is the best performing mutual fund of the last 10 years. Here's what people are saying on OkCupid, versus what their incomes should be:
Use the slider to watch as people exaggerate more as they get older. As you can see, people advertise disproportionately high salaries for themselves. Just to pick a symbolic amount, there are consistently 4× the number of people making $100K a year than there should be.
Note that in formulating the "expected" lines for each age we were very careful to adjust for OkCupid's particular demographics: we compared every individual against the average not just by age but by zip code. Here a breakdown by gender of the exaggeration rates:

A woman may earn 76 cents on the dollar for the same work as a man, but she can fabricate, like, 85 cents no problem.
We did a little investigating as to whether a person's stated income had any real effect on his or her online dating experience. Unsurprisingly, we found that it matters a lot, particularly for men. This is a by-age messaging distribution:

These bold colors contain a subtle message: if you're a young guy and don't make much money, cool. If you're 23 or older and don't make much money, go die in a fire. It's not hard to see where the incentive to exaggerate comes from.
"Here's a recent pic."

REALITY: The more attractive the picture, the more likely it is to be out-of-date.
The above picture, for example, was over two years old when it was uploaded. How do we know? Most modern cameras append text tags to the jpgs they take. These tags, called EXIF metadata, specify things like the exposure and f-stop settings, gps information if your camera has it, and, of course, the time and date the photo was taken. This is how programs like iPhoto know when (and sometimes where) you've taken your pictures.
Analyzing this stuff, we found that most of the pictures on OkCupid were of recent vintage; site-wide the median photo age at upload was just 92 days. However, hotter photos were much more likely to be outdated than normal ones. Here's a comparison (the age of a picture below is how old it was when it was uploaded to our site):

As you can see, over a third of the hottest photos on the site are a year old or more. And more than twice as many hot photos are over three years old (12%) as average-looking ones (5%), which makes sense because people are more inclined to cling to the pics that make them look their best
Another useful (if somewhat unorthodox) way to take in this graph is to follow the horizontal gridlines. If you trace out from "20%", for example, you can see that 1 in 5 average-looking photos is at least a year old, meanwhile, among the hot photos, nearly 1 in 5 is at least two years old.
It also turns out that older people also upload older photos:

The upshot here is, if you see a good-looking picture of a man over 30, that photo is very likely to be out-of-date. Not to get personal again, but my own OkCupid photo shows a Burberry-dressed 27 year-old, strumming away on his guitar. Meanwhile, I turn 35 in a couple months and am writing this post in the same shorts and tee-shirt I've been wearing for a week. Time waits for no man, unless that man doesn't update his personal information.
"I'm bisexual."
REALITY: 80% of self-identified bisexuals are only interested in one gender.
OkCupid is a gay- and bi-friendly place and it's not our intention here to call into question anyone's sexual identity. But when we looked into messaging trends by sexuality, we were very surprised at what we found. People who describe themselves as bisexual overwhelmingly message either one sex or the other, not both as you might expect. Site-wide, here's how it breaks out:

This suggests that bisexuality is often either a hedge for gay people or a label adopted by straights to appear more sexually adventurous to their (straight) matches. You can actually see these trends in action in the chart below.
Again, this is just the data we've collected. We'd be very interested in our bisexual users' thoughts on this single-sex-messaging phenomenon, so if you'd like to weigh-in please use the comments section. Please note, everybody, that we don’t assume that bis should be “into both genders equally.” We only assume that they should be into both genders at all. The swaths of red and blue that you see in these sexuality charts represent people who message only one gender. The purple areas are people who send any messages, in whatever proportion, to both men and women.

In this chart, throughout the teens and twenties, the male bisexual population is mostly observably gay men. By the mid-thirties, it seems, most of these men are more comfortable self-identifying as gay and have left the bi population. By the end of our chart, 3 of every 4 bi males on OkCupid are observably straight. Meanwhile, the proportion of men who message both women and other men holds fairly steady.
The proportions for women are more consistent over time:

12% of women under 35 on OkCupid (and the internet in general, I'd wager) self-identify as bi. However, as you can see above, only about 1 in 4 of those women is actually into both guys and girls at the same time. I know this will come as a big letdown to the straight male browsing population: three-fourths of your fantasies are, in fact, fantasies of a fantasy. Like bi men, most bi women are, for whatever reason, not observably bi. The primacy of America's most popular threesome, two dudes and an Xbox, is safe.
In gathering data for this last section on sexuality, we found so much interesting stuff that we're making it the topic of our next post. We'll look at the messaging, searching, and stalking (!) patterns of gay, bi, and straight people and see what else we can learn about the sexual continuum. Until then, no lie: thanks for reading.
I’ve always thought of myself as an honest person, and OKCupid has validated that. SWEET!
Of course, since I *AM* 6′ tall, I had less incentive to lie, it seems.
Firstly, I really thought this was a fascinating post. Thank you for examining the data.
My minor bones to pick are that height is sometimes tricky to pin down (income less so), and the repetition of the stereotype that bisexual women are some kind of near-universal fantasy for men.
While I’m sure there are exceptions, I think it’s very easy to pin down income (W2s, 1099s, etc.). Most people should be able to arrive at a fairly reasonably close, if not exact, estimate of their income.
Height is probably similar, but I will say that I list my height as what I was measured at the doctors office from a physical in the year 2000. I haven’t been measured since then. In all honesty, I rounded up one-quarter of an inch, because as a guy, I’d rather do that than round down three-quarters (see the graphs for why). Now, a lot of people have told me since then that they don’t think I am that height, but I haven’t really ever taken the time to measure, so I just kind of keep it. I’m surprised at how often people care, frankly.
It’s also a little unfair to claim that “three-fourths of your fantasies are, in fact, fantasies of a fantasy”. It makes men out to be hypersexual horndogs cruising the interwebs for bi women. Granted, I think the sentence is fairly tame compared to my hyperbolized version, but this is how stereotypes are perpetuated. In such a data-driven post, it almost seems out of place and/or to reflect the author’s potential stereotype.
Cheers!
I identify as bisexual and do no initial messaging. Even if I did, I’d have far fewer ladies to contact.
Finally income analysis!
I’ve been haphazardly bouncing my income around for a long while and sometimes announce i’m doing so in my profile and sometimes do not. I’m glad to see my very anecdotal evidence backed up with hard data.
Now to further that line of questioning… Is there any percentage of users that are likely making more than they state in their profile? the graphs didn’t seem to indicate that – and of course the data says that wouldn’t be a prudent move from a messaging standpoint.
I wonder if saying you make more than you admit to on here would actually get you anywhere – if you’re actually a high earner and want to make sure you aren’t fighting off gold diggers you’d want to not mention that you make big piles of money so likely there is actually a higher % of people that are exaggerating their income to offset that small % of people understating their income…
This post may now screw me over for honesty. I am 5’6. I say I am 5’6. Does this now mean that I have to adjust for rational expectations and say that I am 5’8?
Perhaps one of the reason that so many of the self-reported bi individuals only message members of one sex is that they are already in a relationship of some form. I’ve come across a LOT of profiles of girls who claim they are bi but in a committed relationship with a man and are looking for women either for one on one or group. Typically these girls list themselves as “available” instead of single. In your data crunching did you include only people who report themselves as single or did you include everyone on the site? It would be interesting to see if there is a difference between the single and available charts.
Re: lopsided bisexual messaging patterns.
Firstly, I can imagine lots of situations where you might only be *looking* for one sex, because the other sex finds you. I.e. if you are a straight-appearing bisexual female, you might get plenty of male attention on a day-to-day basis, but have to actively search for women.
In my case (“bi” on OkCupid, “queer” if you ask me in in real life), the women that I tend to be interested are a much smaller portion of “women interested in men” than guys I’m into are of “men interested in men”. Not because I like women, categorically, less than men, but the things I like in women (androgyny and/or masculinity, for example) are a) rare and b) much more common in women who identify as lesbians than in women theoretically interested in me. Therefore, I mostly interact with guys on OkC.
Another possible explanation on the bi’s: they already have a partner of one gender and are only using OkCupid to find the other gender. For example, an attractive woman might have no trouble meeting men in real life but is using OkCupid as a way to experiment with meeting women.
Great article as usual!
Bisexual does not necessarily mean you like both sexes equally. It means you like both sexes. Also, identity/orientation and behavior are two separate things: you can identity as bi and fantasize about both sexes but in practice tend to date one sex more than the other. God forbid I find boobies sexy but find guys so much easier to date and hit on!
Your break down of bisexuals is faulty, because you assume they should be messaging both equally. You aren’t accounting for the bisexuals who are only looking for the gender they are currently not interested in, and that it is perfectly natural for a bisexual person’s per-gender interests to wax and wane with the tides, so at any given time they may very likely be looking for something specific. For any bisexual I know, the times when they are equally seeking both genders is in the minority, and that is no detriment to their bisexuality.
In regards to your findings on bisexuality, I do have a couple pieces of information to input.
1. While your website is very gay- and bisexual-friendly, it is not very transgender- and queer-friendly. It is possible that a portion (albeit not a large portion) of the findings of this study are due to the subject’s listed gender. As a transgender person, I have had two profiles on here up until recently (now I only have one, as I am undergoing hormone therapy), one of which I used solely to contact men as a man and one of which I used solely to contact women as a woman, as that is how I function in romantic relationships. Both had me listed as bisexual.
2. Regardless of what someone lists their sexuality as, it is possible that they are looking for something specific at the moment. The fact that I am just as likely to be interested in men as I am to be interested in women and vice versa does not preclude the possibility that I might wake up tomorrow and really only be in the mood to be with just a man or just a woman.
3. I think many bisexual women are turned off from responding to women because the majority of the messages they get are from girls in relationships looking for something on the side or looking for threesomes.
Likewise, many bisexual women are turned off from responding to men for the same reasons. Any variation could be chalked up to people in certain age ranges receiving certain types of messages from their peers.
As far as bisexual men go, I can’t give solid input, as I am generally not perceived as male despite my gender identity. However, I speculate that bisexual men are more likely to be approached by men than women. There is not the same heterosexual fetishization of bisexual men as of bisexual women.
As a bi girl, if I message more women online than I do men, it’s because I’m more likely to find men to date in real life. Since I’m femme, people don’t assume I like women, so it can be harder to find female partners in everyday situations. If I want to meet guys, all I have to do is walk down the street or go into a bar; if I want to meet girls, either I have to wear a rainbow patch (not exactly my style) or go online.
If only we could see income inflation by actual income, and height exaggeration by actual height!
Although I am myself a straight male, among my several bisexual friends I’ve noticed that most will only actively pursue relationships with one gender at a time.For some, the gender of preference shifts back and forth over sufficiently long time-scales; for others, the genders are seen differently (for example, one might be interested in casual sex with girls while pursuing relationships only with guys or vice versa). I think the data you find here may suggest as much the fact that the label “bisexual” is used as a catch-all for a lot of different sexual identities as some conspiracy or wide movement of casually ‘bi-curious’ sorority girls.
According to your income calculator, I make 48% more money than the average person in my area. That sounds about right…
I really think the data makes you hurry into conclusions, other than that, I love this blog!
as always, so informative! well written
It would be really interesting to see how the OkCupid population might actually differ from the norm in terms of height and money.
Could be that since taller and higher-earning men are more likely to be contacted by women, that they are less likely to be single (and thus on OkCupid).
Or it could be that taller and higher-earning men are actually more confident in their ability to find a date and thus more willing to participate in OkCupid.
Then again, maybe they are just liars
I think I’d rather lie about my income in the opposite direction. I’m on my way to pharmacy school, and will, eventually, be in the $100k+ category. But who wants a partner that is more interested in their money than their personality? Not me.
The income calculator tells me that women in my age range make about $20,000 less than me. That sounds very very off unless all these women are poor grad students.
Regarding the bisexuality: I identify as bi (actually I don’t like to identify at all but that would be the closest thing to it). I, however, mostly message men. This hasn’t always been the case, as a couple of years ago I was mostly into women. Who knows where the pendulum swings next? I feel that labeling myself as bi is the most upfront, honest way to go, rather than have some conversation about it later on.
“A woman may earn 76 cents on the dollar for the same work as a man, but she can fabricate, like, 85 cents no problem.”
Sorry this is completely false.
Doing the SAME work, with the same backgrounds, same education, etc..women make very close to men, otherwise we’d have lawsuits flying left and right.
It’s just that there are more male executives, managers, etc. that allow men to make more than women in general..but controlling for occupation/tasks, women do not make less.
Otherwise a great post.
Why did you use U.S. Men/Women for height comparison instead of U.S. Men/Women That Use the Internet or are Interested in Online Dating? I mean, you know that people who post profiles are not the entire population, yeah? How do you know that the overall demographic of people who use computers and are also interested in online dating isn’t two inches taller than the general population? Same thing with income, and actually I’d say more so with income.
As a bisexual, the flaw in your thinking is that bis must necessarily always be into both genders equally. For example, I know many bisexual people who are already in a relationship with a person of one gender, and only use OKC to meet a person of the other gender. Or that a person can identify as bi, yet have a stronger preference for one gender than for the other.
Looking at that data, I’m not surprised.
What are straight male messaging patterns?
I have a number of guy friends on here that I occasionally message. And am honestly open to making just friends but the majority of my messages go to women.
How many messages does one need to send to both genders to be considered “Sends to both” category?
Although OKC is bi/gay/lesbian friendly, it’s not so poly/swinger/alt (psa) lifestyle friendly.
I think the majority of bi woman looking for other woman are not a reflection of sexual preference, but could likely already be in a relationship, but only looking for a partner to join them and since it’s less likely for both the man and the woman to be bi, the bi woman will seek only bi girls.
This is our case in point. We both have a profile on OKC, We both chat to bi girls to explore options.
P.S. Any chance you will add support for poly/swingers sometime soon ? *smile*
As someone who identifies as bisexual and is currently in a relationship with a man I met through this site…
I messaged both men and women during my active time on the site, but tended to message men more. Why? Because… One of the previous commenters mentioned the fact that a lot of the bi women on here are already in a relationship and looking for another woman as a sort of on the side or threesome thing, which I wasn’t interested in. I also had a few bad experiences messaging lesbians because a few of them accused me of calling myself bisexual to go with some sort of trendy interest in women or being a fence-sitter
So after a while I got a little timid/shy about messaging women. That’s all.
In the “How Many Messages a Man Gets by Age & Income” graph, you left out a column for unreported income. I don’t report my income ($100K) because I don’t want it to be a factor in whether a woman contacts me. But I am curious how often men who don’t report their income receive messages compared to those who do. Because if I’m greatly reducing the number of messages I’m receiving, I may decide to report my income.
As a bisexual woman, I have only ever messaged men on the site, and it’s certainly not because I’m not interested in both. In fact, I would say that I lean slightly more towards women. I message men because men are easy to message. I’m far less worried about rejection or being seen as creepy and weird, especially as I am not a particularly attractive person.
I don’t think that the conclusion “Most self identified bisexual people are not actually bi” can be drawn from the fact that most only message one gender.
About the “Messages a man receives per week by age & income” graph, can you let us know how that copares to men who leave it blank, or select “I prefer not to say”?
Your evidence does not suffice to prove that people are exaggerating. One simple explanation is that someone who is (or considers themself) more attractive is more willing to try online dating. Controlling for age, sex, and zip will not eliminate this bias.
Great data, and I’m thrilled you guys are putting it to good use. Some methodological quibbles:
a) On the photos, there may be some trouble with the conclusions you draw from your analysis. Namely, I may look the same as I did when I took my “hot” picture, but if I don’t take a lot of pictures – or, take a lot of “hot” pictures – then the nice-looking one I post is going to be older, because I may remember a particularly good shot of myself from 12 months ago but a casual bar shot gets forgotten. What can be said is that the old “hot” pictures are *not* representative samples of the collection of self-pictures that person has at their disposal – but we cannot be sure about the cause of it’s non-representativeness. (Physical changes like weight gain that make it accurate for a past time but inaccurate at present? Maybe: or, it being a better-than-typical shot of the same face and figure, making it atypical both when taken and posted? Or – and here’s the escape clause – taken at an opportunity [swimsuit on a beach; suit at a wedding] that has not presented itself recently.)
b) There is also some reason for hesitation on the height and income claims. First, let’s grant what is obvious: if any guy has *ever* ‘topped’ a height mark (5’9.25″ say) they are going to round *up*. Further, the shift from the normal distribution around 6′ make it clear that guys are pushing particularly hard for that mark. That said, 2 inches may overstate the height inflation. There are reasons to question whether OKCupid is a representative sample – though there are reasons to ask whether they might be shorter (they have been less successful at meeting people in real life, where height plays a big role) or taller (more educated=delayed pairing despite being healthier, wealthier and wiser).
c) It might be worth analyzing whether there were somewhat distinct populations among OKCupid males – I wouldn’t be surprised to see something like a bimodal distribution on all of these factors. The variable to divide the groups on would be behavior on OKCupid. Take the guys dropping notes to women who appear to be open for shorter-term engagements and put them in the ‘cad’ category. The guys writing primarily/exclusively to women seeking relationships, they’re the ‘dad’ group. (You can use further information to make this division more effectively – content of the male’s photo [shirt off may mean looking for short-term fun], how he spends his time on the site, frequency of journal entry, tests taken, and profile changes,etc.) I would expect greater height and income exaggeration among the cads than the dads (the latter perhaps anticipating ‘getting caught’ and a greater cost to it), though there are certainly reasons for expecting other distribution shapes as well.
Please note, everybody, that we don’t assume that bis should be “into both genders equally.” We assume that they should be into both genders at all. The swaths of red and blue that you see in the sexuality charts represent people who message ONLY one gender. The purple is people who send any messages, in whatever proportion, to both men and women.
— Christian / OkTrends
Does this data account for non-answers?
My guess is that people who are shorter than average, or who make less money than average, would be less inclined to answer the question int eh first place. This would skew the data towards above-average respondents.
On the income in particular, In my experience, a lot of people find the income question off putting or downright offensive, so they’re inclined to answer it in a ridiculous fashion – ie, select one extreme or the other from the drop down. My strong suspicion is that this is a less reliable data set than the other characteristics.
On the bisexual question, there are *a lot* of reasons a genuinely bisexual person would only message one sex or the other – including a genuine preference for one or the other, their relative ease dating one or the other in real life, comfort with their sexuality, whether or not they already have a partner of one sex or the other, etc. So I wouldn’t read too much into that data.
Interesting post.
There is no proof here that anyone is lying about their sexual orientation. It seems that the author of this post is (understandably) confounding identity, attraction, and behavior.
Social scientists currently define sexual orientation in 3 ways: sexual identity (as gay, straight, bisexual, queer, etc), sexual attraction (ex: fantasies and desires mostly towards people of the same sex, towards both sexes equally, exclusively towards other sex), and sexual behavior (ex: had sex with 3 men and 0 women during past year).
A person might identify as bisexual and be attracted to very few men, but that wouldn’t mean he or she was lying about his or her identity. For example, some women are mostly attracted to women but also very attracted to certain men. Or, as other commenters have noted, someone might identify as bisexual, be attracted equally to men and women, but choose to date only men for any number of reasons.
Another possibility is that many of your “lying bisexuals” are those who don’t fit well into boxes (as noted by the trans commenter). For example, a man who exclusively dates transgender people who identify as female might feel that “bisexual” is a more appropriate box than “straight”. It is unlikely that a third of bisexuals are in this position, but there must be some number.
For people who are interested in female (bi)sexuality, I would recommend Lisa Diamond’s recent book “Sexual Fluidity”.
You do realize that most people who put $200,000 for income are just doing it for a laugh, right? If I see a 22 year old college kid claiming he’s a millionaire, I don’t think he’s actually trying to deceive anyone, I think he’s saying “this question is dumb.” Is this factored into your analysis?
As a bisexual woman who actually is attracted roughly equally to both sexes, I still send a lot more messages to males than females. Here are some reasons:
1. This is the big one — women are intimidating. Guys on dating websites are just happy to get messaged. Girls, on the other hand, are very selective and fussy — even with other girls. I would say I’ve received replies from 70-80% of the men I’ve messaged but only 30-40% of the women. (I should actually check the numbers sometime.) Unless a guy is ABSOLUTELY gorgeous or intelligent, I have no qualms about messaging him, but women are just scary!
2. A very close second to the last: There are far fewer gay/bi women than straight/bi men. Therefore, my choices are limited. Pretty simple.
3. Sadly, I just don’t have much in common with the women my age, especially the gay ones. I’m into science and computers and they’re into queer politics and bell hooks. I’m just far more likely to find a man I actually have something in common with, as much as I’d love to meet a woman who shared my interests.
Hopefully that gives some insight!
If you actually read the profiles, it becomes clear awfully quickly why tall women get messaged less – they very often explicitly mention they’re only interested in men taller than them. To be fair, the case may well be true for the shorter women, but it’s less necessary for them to state it. Because short women have many more potential taller mates, they’re likely to get more messages. As a guy who is 5′ 8″ (OK, 5′ 7 3/4″) I’m totally happy to message a girl who is 6 feet tall, but I typically don’t bother if they’ve explicitly said not to.
This is why I hate the label “bisexual.” Even though biologically, there are two sexes (more if you count genetic anomalies such as intersex and people with more/fewer chromosomes), the range of gender identities and sexual orientations is so much wider than that. That’s why I prefer the term “pansexual.” If there was something else that meant “I don’t care what genitalia you have, I judge you as a human being,” I’d embrace it.
Even though OK Cupid is a dating site, some people are members for the tests or just to find friends. If that’s the case, maybe some of the bi people are in a relationship and looking for friends of one sex or the other. I look forward to the next entry and hope to see more breakdowns.
My observation with the bisexual female profiles that I’ve seen is that a lot of them are in a stable long-term relationship with someone of one gender, and are looking only for relationships with someone of the other gender, “to complete the set” I guess. The bisexual wife who’s looking for a threesome that will fulfill her husband’s fantasy without becoming threatening to him seems pretty common, and would account for what is seen in the graphs.
I think the bisexual thing could be even more pronounced than shows, when you consider that some people here including me message people as friends or in respect of a journal. I’m bi but I approach few women because I find it more difficult – I do approach them and men too as friends though, ie with no expectation that it might become sexual.
(Good blog, by the way, and I was very surprised that more 5ft 4 women got messages, I wouldn’t have guessed that trend.)
re: Bisexuality
The thing is bisexuality isn’t as simple as being equally interested in both genders all the time. Some people who are attracted to people of both genders can have a tendency to be more attracted to one gender than another. If you’ve had a history of being involved with someone of the same sex, don’t see anything particular that’s changed, and happen to currently be attracted to people of the opposite sex, then different people are going to come to different conclusions about what the right label is. (Note: the people who decided to change the label aren’t going to come up with this data model.) Remember: even if you’re currently really into one gender, sometimes partners react badly when you “come out” to them later. (Wait, your last ex was a girl? How could you _lie_ to me about your orientation!?! It’s not hard to see how someone might let their profile do the coming out for them.)
btw, I’m not clear on the time frame in which you measured these messaging trends. Years? Months? That sort of detail matters.
Also, just a heads up, bisexuals are told alot by non-bisexuals that they don’t exist. You’re kind of stepping on a trigger issue for people with this one.
Excellent post.
Your blog posts so far have been an inspiration to me – how (awesome) data analysis should look, and it always makes me think – look at real data.
Please keep writing
Agree with Christopher above: I am shocked that you left out the “didn’t want to brag/confess about income” slot. For future analysis, whenever there’s the option for members to opt out of reporting a particular item, it’s crucial to show how this affects the trends. In fact, you really ought to redo the charts here, where applicable.
The demographic income analysis is interesting, but it seems pretty likely to me that income for OkCupid users is skewed up — though it’s been getting more popular, it’s still reasonably obscure and seems to attract a smarter, better educated crop than your average random sampling from a given zip code.
I agree that there’s a problem with assuming that “bisexual people should be into both genders at all,” with “into” defined by their messaging habits on OKC. I think other people have made most of the points already… I have in the past listed myself as straight, because I’m *almost* exclusively into men, I date women very rarely, and when I do I meet them in other ways. Also, I find that identifying myself as bisexual leads to a lot of shallow, idiotic “u r hot, let’s hook up with your gf” messages.
The very first thing I see when I hit back to OkCupid? A female bisexual woman on the front page, stating they have no interest in males.
I’m 5’9″, identify as 5’10” (mainly because some of my shorter friends say they’re 5’9″) and have trouble getting tall women to give me the time of day. In fact, many tall women (5’7″ and higher) say to not even message them if you’re shorter. Once you get to a certain height that’s above average, excluding those in the average pool decreases your available suitors by quite a lot. If a 6 foot tall woman says “don’t message me if you’re short” then why would I waste my time?
Hi,
First of all I just want to say that I absolutely love this blog. I’m a couples therapist with a specialization in sex therapy and have always had a fascination with large sample size analysis of human dating and sexuality. I think you can understand why this website is an absolute goldmine for me!
Anyway, I had one bone I want to pick with this particular post. Specifically, I’m wondering why you used messages received as your metric when comparing to reported income for men. Given that it’s much more common for men to be proactive and it’s entirely possible that there could be significant differences in raw level of messaging over the income range I would think that simple messages received would be a relatively poor way to look at men’s success at online dating. Perhaps % of messages sent that result in substantial contact would be better, particularly if you also looked at patterns in characteristics of who the messages are being sent to.
Also, I’m a bit curious about how common it is for OK Cupid users to report their income on their profiles. I haven’t done online dating myself, but it seems to me that this is a little crass and/or mercenary. Is it nearly universal practice or are there significant portions of the community that don’t report their income? For those that don’t report, is that a significant hindrance?
Love the blog and am eagerly awaiting the next post!
One interesting thing about the income chart is that if you are 21 and 22, 70K to 80K is worst that you can be making in terms of getting dates. I can understand why money would matter less, but why would people making more get crushed like that? My only theory is that 70 to 80K is about the entry level pay of tech companies, and women really don’t like tech companies new hires for some reason.
Well, this goes just goes to prove stereotypes are what they are. They are generalizations…and they *are generally* true! Women do like men that make more money.
The height matter, I’ve noticed it myself. I meet people that say they are 6’0″ or so and I am taller than they are (I’m a true 6’0″, with no shoes…I actually might be taller than that by a bit). Just either means they like to lie, or they can’t measure their height…
The taller women will get less messages for the reason someone stated above. They say they want someone taller; sometimes even say a good 2-4 inches taller at least. They also tend to be more blunt (read bitchy) than the shorter ones. Plus, it’s usually the shorter girls that get those nice curves. Taller girls *are generally* lacking in that department.
The one thing that bothers me here is the bisexuality part. I have been long pondering that how is it possible so many women say they are bisexual? It’s ridiculous since most of them even say on their profile that they only want messages from other women. That would make you LESBIAN/GAY! I think it’s just a social trend to bring attention. A lot of guys do fantasize about threesomes and girls use that to their advantage.
Data is up at the top. I’m not just pulling things out of my own speculation anymore.
Tug on the purse strings and you’ll find a woman’s heart.
I love the income analysis. I love how it goes from red to green based on how much money a guy makes.
Being in the red zone myself, I know I’ve gotten what, oh, 2 messages in the 4 years I’ve been here? Something like that…