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.
On the bisexual thing, all of my quiver matches (prior to deleting my OKCupid account) were guys, and I was never matched to a girl, despite selecting “bisexual” as my orientation. Perhaps your match selection criteria is more to blame than “OMG people lie about being BI to impress their heterosexual prospects or hide their homosexuality!”
As a previous commenter stated, there are a lot of lesbians who are not interested in dating bisexual women, and a lot of gay men who are not interested in dating bisexual men. It’s more of a warning label for those groups, than an invitation to others. Female bisexuality has this college, party girl reaction. It’s not so much seen as a legitimate sexuality as an invitation to a threesome. While people are able to clearly distinguish between pizza delivery in porn and reality, it seems they lack that ability regarding someone who is attracted to people, not their plumbing.
And please don’t even get me started on all the bi anglerfish on this site. Clever article, it was amusing. But again, I don’t think you can legitimately extrapolate all of your conclusions.
As far as the bi’ girls dating only women goes, under “looking for” most of them list “Girls who like bi girls”. More than one open up that they’re not even interested in dating guys anymore. While I can understand it, it doesn’t make it not vaguely frustrating. I think the match search filters need to take this into account.
Is the data on bi messaging habits for all messages sent, or just initial messages sent? For some reason I read it as the latter…
Given that men message women a lot, and may be especially into the idea of a bi girl, is it possible that a lot of bi women who only message women do so because they just don’t need to chase the men?
How about OKC profile listing FICO score, liquid debt and liquid assets next to the annual income, so that if the person has worked hard in the past, and now living below or beyond the means?
I think something that has to be remembered when looking at the data for bisexual folks is that many use online dating as a low-risk way to seek out same-sex relationships. Just like for homosexuals, it’s easier and safer to use the internet for same sex dating. Whereas looking for opposite-sex relationships in real life poses little threat other than possible rejection.
This is an instance (and I think the next post will probably be one, too) where it wouldn’t hurt to do some qualitative analysis alongside all the number crunching.
i read this blog and confirmed alot of the feelings i had myself, especially regarding gender trends. i always assumed that those proclaimed bi (males and females) predominantly went for one or the other gender, and the data proves it.
as for height, as a legitimate 6 ft 2 inch’er its sad to see us tally’s have been discredited by others claiming our fame.
I’ve noticed a lot of the Bi profiles are married women looking for a female partner.
I haven’t looked at many male profiles so i don’t know if the trend follows there as well.
But I wonder if the statistics would be as skewed if only single Bi individuals were considered.
Bisexual male user here. I definitely message far more women than men – by about a four to one margin – but that’s because more gay men message me (by about that same four to one margin). I have a marginally greater sexual interest in men, but women are the ones I tend to have long, stable relationships with. So this affects my tastes when browsing the site.
Another factor is that I have certain “types” that I like in men and women. My taste in men runs towards adventurous and outgoing guys, and I am fortunate to live in a gay-friendly location where it is easy to meet men like that in real life. By contrast, the women I look for tend to be bookish and introverted, and they’re the sort to stay at home reading or using the Internet rather than hang out in bars or go to the park. So OKC is ideal for meeting the sort of women I like, but the men I like are easier to encounter in person.
@DJ, you claim to be a genius with a great profile, but you have spelling and punctuation mistakes in your response. Maybe you need to check your profile again to make sure it really is grammatically correct. Grammar/spelling issues can turn a girl off quickly, but so can bragging about your level of intelligence which, if you talk about it in your profile, may explain the reason you’re not getting responses to your messages.
I do wonder what percentage of people on OKCupid decline to list their income at all. I know I mention in my profile that I am employed, but I don’t display my salary; I just don’t think it’s anyone’s business and certainly don’t mind being excluded from searches people may make for certain income categories (if that’s a possible search criteria). Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the real difference between stated income and real income is actually more than 20%.
Once again, great post. Nerd it up for us, so we can find the truth in online dating! It’s a shame that same data set isn’t available to the general public, but obviously, there’s a reason for that.
Also, I found it hilarious that “DJ” above mentions his super IQ, but then goes on to make some very obvious spelling and grammatical errors.
Well, it would seem logical to me that, since men are far more likely to hit on women than women are to hit on other women, a bisexual women would have much fewer messages from other bi/gay women than from guys. (There’s still a lot of faker girls out there, but I think the ratio’s a little less than people think).
I wish there was a way to check how many people are lying about their height! I’ve had my honest height on here from day one, but I wonder if that’s just because I’m very tall. Is height a problem for other guys?
Also, someone up there was asking for a weight entry…that would be a good idea. Despite my own weight tending to get me dropped off search results (6’4″ makes you weigh more, girls – if you’re looking for a guy over 6’3″ and under 150#, good luck with that!), the ‘body type’ thing is REALLY open to interpretation. And lying. Although it is a really good indicator of who’s massively insecure with themselves.
Brb, must add 2 inches to my profile if this is the norm ^^
Hrm, sounds like I need to increase my listed height and income and take down my recent picture with glasses. I mean, all the cool kids are doing it!
It would be interesting to see the height reported versus age. I know that as people grow older the often grow shorter. Despite this well known phenomenon, my grandfather still tells me he is 6ft tall. I know that I am 6ft (no exaggeration
), and since he is several inches shorter than me I’m quite certain he is not anymore. I do however believe that he was at one time. Could an explanation be that people are reporting their best height as opposed to their current height ?
Doot, paraphrased:
Everyone likes dick.
the end
LoL, this was interesting to read and awesome. I put in my zipcode and age and it came up someone my age makes an average of 22k a year. I actually make three times that but I live here because it’s cheap…
Now I feel like I need to add 2 inches to my listed height so people knocking 2 inches off of guy’s height are getting an accurate number instead of an inaccurate one.
Also, I’d really be interested in seeing the stats on the amount of messages a man who lists their income as – or “Rather not say” get compared to the values given in this article.
Dori said as far as the height thing I actually look taller than my height because I am plus sized I think she meant that she looks wider than her height….
I, too, want to see the stats on people who decline to state income. I leave mine out because I don’t want to seem like I am boasting. At 25 I make a decent income (nothing above six figures mind you but well above what the widget predicts) and I’ve wondered if announcing it would work to my detriment. I think it could also break down into the value system (religious beliefs, activity interests) of the person messaging/receiving messages. My guess is that a hippy-dippy nature loving artist wont restrain their responses to high earners as much as say a club going high powered lawyer in a miniskirt.
@DJ
As a fellow research scientist I can tell you that grants are, in fact, taxed as income friend. You might want to hire an accountant because, if you haven’t been paying taxes you are probably going to find yourself in some really hot water really soon.
Well here’s the thing.
When I had 5’7″ and 30k/yr income listed I never got a single message.
I put down 5’10” and 60k/yr income and my inbox had 6 messages the next day, and women started replying!
It’s no wonder men lie.
When I go on a date, there’s no way to tell how much money I earn and I could always say I didn’t know how tall I was (driver license is always the wrong height/weight anyway) or clicked the wrong number… and if she has a problem with me being shorter I can always end the date leaving *her* feeling shallow.
Win/win for me. lol
Okay. Interesting topics…good to know that a lot of people are lying. I’m interested to know if you have studied how many of these “guys” are truly married or in a relationship but saying that they are single…even how many of the girls…I’m just interested in the guys though…:)
The one thing I would change is the income indicator. The zip code does not indicate what the salary might be; therefore, if you guaged income by the profession they indicate that would be more accurate. Don’t you think?
Thanks for letting me air!!
Pamela Sue
I’m not surprised about the women height drop-off thing as many of the taller women I’ve seen on here also specifically say something along the lines of “Sorry guys, but I’m looking for someone as tall or taller than me.”
I am dismayed that I go in the “burn in a fire” category as I just value experiences and adventures far far more than working more at a job I hate for more income.
I will admit that I’m a bisexual woman who tends to only message guys on this site, and I feel pretty okay with that.
For the same reasons you stated in your findings, I feel much more secure initiating with a woman at a gay/lesbian bar than I do online. A lot of the women who say online that they are lesbian or bi are simply curious and I don’t want to spend time emailing and getting ready to meet in person to have her cancel at the last minute, or worse yet, spend an evening finding out that I’m an experiment.
Conversely, as an (actually) 5’10” woman, men tend to not approach me so much in person when I go out. So I approach men online and women in person.
Fascinating as always, but your data doesn’t support the conclusion that “taller men have more sex than shorter men”. Instead, it supports the conclusion that “taller men are more promiscuous than shorter men”.
Maybe shorter men tend to have fewer partners, but longer term? Maybe not, but the data doesn’t really tell you who’s having more sex.
This was WAY below standards for an OKTrends post. Lesson to be learned, make sure the staffer that typically writes these things reviews anything an intern (or this person if they aren’t an intern) writes.
This is absolutely fascinating stuff!!!!
Kudos to the ….. i don’t know what to call them …. the okcupid people? Kudos to them for thinking this stuff up. Actually, what i think is, the okc crew are in reality social scientists posing as match makers. LOL And doing a damn good job of it too.
I would have never in a hundred years, have recognized that the data available here could be used in such an insightful public service manner. To say nothing of cooking up the techniques to grab it and make it meaningful.
Again, Kudos!
RE: the bi-analysis. did you only include people who identified as single? possible that bi-girl and straight-boyfriend are on OK?
This is consistently the most interested blog on the internet. Keep them coming.
I wish OKC would incorporate the EXIF metadata into the site – not directly of course, but an average percentage – “This person’s pictures are more recent than xx% of their peers!”. OKC is above average for everything else, so I don’t see why they couldn’t.
Duh, I don’t need okcupid to get gay sex I have never ever had any difficulty at that tyvm. On the other hand, as a way to figure out straight people yay okcupid. SO yeah, I list myself as bi most my messages are to chicks but you know why? Because I don’t need a dating sight to go cruising.
many or most bisexuals, like myself, go through phases in life where we are primarily interested in one sex. and other phases where we are primarily interested in the other. it’s just a normal part of being bi.
This post needs metric units and the income/age-grid for women also for side-by-side comparison. Otherwise, so much win like always. I especially enjoy any chance of feeling moral superiority: I’m exactly as short as I say…
I’ve actually noticed working in the tech industry that guys tend to be taller than your average citizen. Perhaps online guys are just taller than the average U.S. demographic?
I don’t think your salary calculations give very meaningful data.
In my age/location demographic (San Francisco Bay Area men around 30), the calculator provides salaries that are two or three times less than what I’d expect for my *dating* demographic (college-educated professionals). I posit that OKCupid has a disproportionately higher number of people in my dating demographic than the general population. Especially if the underlying data includes families, where not everyone is a wage-earner.
Such a difference would be further exacerbated if you consider the shift of professionals waiting later in their lives to marry, as described in “Red Families v. Blue Families.” It’s not surprising that you’d find this demographic of people on OKCupid. So, the data doesn’t necessarily indicate that people lie about their income, but it may actually be the case that people on OKCupid make more money.
This research is highly biphobic and quite infuriating. OkCupid is using a narrow definition of bisexuality according to which not only all bisexuals have to be interested in both men and women (rather than a variety of genders, not all of which have to be male or female), but we also have to do that at the very same time. In addition, this statistic does not account for real-life practices, behaviour, fantasies, social surroundings, sex, romance, relationships and all the other elements that make out a person’s sexual orientation.
This research is obviously (and painfully) ignorant of the entire field of bisexual studies and bisexual theory, using outdated and conservative definitions and research presumptions.
How about learning something about the topic you’re looking into before you go and deny the existence of an entire sector of the population?
really, does grammar turn a girl off? What a fucking waste of life that person must be. It’s a dating site, not a goddamn job resume. That’s why these things are needed at all, these websites. It’s because sickos like to go shopping for mates. If you met someone in person you nut case, would you make the guy write down an essay before you determined if you want to give him your number? Get real, you just proved why you’re here.
Worst part about this? People that read this are going to think I’m two inches shorter than what I put on my profile, which would be inaccurate: I am what I say I am. Just because it doesn’t match the distribution of the world doesn’t mean OkCupid has a perfect distribution of all the possible heights, jumping to the conclusion that everybody lies.
Self-identified bi, here. (Who is among the ~20% who message both.)(Men more often than women, because the selection of non-straight women on OKC in my locale is very, very small. But I digress.) The “Bi, but” phenomenon exists off-net, too.
(1) As you note, gay people sometimes identify as bi to – presumably – ease their or their close ones’ anxiety. That your data suggest this is a stronger trend among men than women conforms to the popular saying that “Men are gay, women are bi” – for some reason, men are more likely to be polarized and women are (relatively) more likely to be bi.
(2) Physical attraction and partner-search don’t often correlate. There’s a pretty big percentage of bi people who acknowledge that they are attracted to both sexes, but are only interested in establishing a relationship with one. In this case, identifying as “bi” is an honesty clause – “Just because i’m not interested in marrying another women doesn’t mean I don’t look. (And I don’t want you to give me any prejudiced shit, so i’m telling you right now.)”
(2a) Sometimes people are physically attracted to both genders but emotionally to only one. I’m specifying it separately because this one isn’t about social comfort and also, it serves to illustrate the complexity of bi identity.
(2b) The amount of prejudice involved is immense. Identifying as bi *can* be a defensive measure – “My last boyfriend threw a fit when he found out I had kissed another woman and liked it, even though I was clear that i’m with him now/am not interested in women in a serious manner, and I don’t ever want to be in this situation again, so let’s scare people off.”
(3) Curiosity clause: someone declares an intent to try for either, and probably means it, but other behavioral forces are at work.
(3a) Younger people may identify as bi until they figure things out for themselves.
(3b) Mid-range adults an up (after the first divorce, etc.) may identify as bi because, well, it’s the second experimentation stage of life in Western society.
(4) And then there’s the Small Places clause: someone’s geographic range holds match-able people of only one sex.
(That said, I have to say i’m somewhat horrified by those numbers and would kind of like to tell behavioral-polarized who identify as bi “Thanks a lot for convincing the rest of the world that bi people don’t exist!”)
As a Psyc. student who is female and 49 years old, I have found this to be quite interesting. I look forward to further posts on this and other subjects. I am on O.k. Cupid and the new site on Face Book. It’s a trip of discovery!! Keep up the good work guys and girls !!!!!
Hey okcupid!
I have a question:
Of the messages that you monitored from the bisexula users:
How many were actually flirtatious?
Can you please make your next blog in the like vein, but how many straight men message gay men and hos many straight women message women please.
There are many gay men on this site that say a vast amount of gay men list themselves as straight and are straight out explicit, so please list all those statistics as well.
Thanks and thanks for the website!
Okay, I lied about my annual income. I put myself in the $250,000–$500,000 bracket, whereas my earnings to date add up to a little over $1,500,000. If the IRS can use a three-year average when determining the taxpayer’s collection potential, so should I, for the sake of making a more reliable representation. In other words, reasons for understatement can countermand incentives to exaggerate.
Here’s an idea that will change online dating (or so I hope)
(Side note: I should patent this and sell it to dating sites, but I’m not going to. Instead, I’m disclosing it in a public forum, so anyone can use it)
Profile pictures should be slowly blurred as they age, so that, visually, you know how old each picture is.
I’d love to see okc implement this feature!
Interesting stuff. Especially the bit in the comments section where everyone feels the need to 1up the original post with their superior intelligence. Maybe OKC should do data on internet geniuses.
So in other words, a fantasy is just that and the real push is the disguised lopsided approach.
http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2010/07/time-to-find-out-about-the-biggest-lies-people-use-in-internet-dating/
What about Pansexuals? I talked to one yesterday that didn’t like the fact they had to be listed as “bisexual”. Also I am 6’3” and I am Listed as 6’3”. Also I didn’t lie about my Income.
would it be great to be 6’5” and make more money? sure?
Is it the truth? no!
Stop the lies!
Like others have mentioned, you need to break down the “bi” category into single bis and partnered bis. If a bi is partnered, are most of their messages to the opposite sex of their partner or the same? A male who is “bi” with a female partner and messaging only to other females is NOT bi.
To S,
No matter what you say, or how learned or enlightened about sexuality you think you are, there are only two genders. It is encoded in your DNA. Scientifically, objectively, undeniably, there are only two genders, male and female.
I appreciate that you may be trying to draw distinctions between gender-roles. Pick a new term to use as a definition, “gender” is already taken, and it is defined to be whether or not you have a y chromosome.
I actually think that these bisexual charts are very illuminiating. First of all, keep in mind that there is a big difference between personal identity and identity reported as a filter on a dating site. I identify as queer and my behavior is pretty middle of the road bisexual. When I used okcupid, I wasn’t interested in dating boys at the time, and I definitely wasn’t interested in getting an inbox full of messages from guys I wasn’t interested in. So I reported lesbian, contrary to my identity, but more effective in terms of filtering. I’m sure there are all kinds of individual reasons for reporting something in line, or not in line with the actual activity on a dating site. Trying to draw conclusions about lifetime identity from online dating site activity is really short sighted.
I agree completely with what Alex H says re: the salary graphs. And I thought of another graph which would highlight the fallacy in comparing to the population at large, and might give you another variable to correct for when using population-wide statistics.
It’s roughly political party affiliation. I don’t believe okcupid explicitly measures partisanness but they measure a lot of indirect signs of it. And the same goes for political scientists, sociologists, and psychologists. There are numerous measures out there which suggest that people become more conservative as they age, and at a certain proportion.
So if you compare the expected and reported conservativeness of your users, you will expose many of the selection biases at work in the okcupid population. Might be fun. Of course, it’s a slippery slope. Once you start correlating your user group to various personality attributes, you could waste months of your life identifying the personality types most likely to use your website.
On bis. For me it happens in waves. I meet a woman I like and most all my communication is with her. Then I meet a man I like and most of my communication is with him. I am actually actively dealing with both a woman and a man now in my love life. This is the first time ever I have had 2 relationships: 1 a man, 1 a woman. It is a big change as I figure out how to balance this.
I am not a member of okcupid. Just thought you might want some perspective.