The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating

July 7th, 2010 by Christian Rudder

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.

As a public service, we've decided to make our income calculations available. The following widget will calculate the statistically expected income of your potential matches; you give it a gender, an age, and a zip code, and it'll spit out a salary. Then you can confront your dates about exactly how much money they probably do or don't make. Fun!

. . .

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.

842 Responses to “The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating”

  1. Nick says:

    As other people have said, a whole lot of bisexuals on here are “bisexual” but only looking for relationships/sex with one gender, whether because they’re in a relationship with one already, because they don’t have any trouble finding attention from one gender, or, the single most common example that I run across, they’re actually a profile for a couple on a unicorn hunt listed as a “bi woman”.

    One thing that would help a great deal is if OkCupid could scrap (or supplement) the bi/straight/gay system for something more like the “looking for” section. I don’t care if someone’s bi, or gay, or straight. I care if they want to date men.

    Personally, I tend to send messages to women (although I have certainly sent them to men), partly because I’m more attracted to women on average but partly because I don’t *have* to message men. If anything, I wish fewer of them would message me, and that the rest would get a more realistic idea of their chances.

  2. Michael says:

    Regarding the bisexuals, did you control for the bisexual people being single? Because the majority of bi people I run into, online, are in one relationship, but looking for a second. Most partners of bisexual people feel less threatened by a member of the opposite sex.

    How does the data look if you get rid of all the “in a relationship but looking” people?

  3. Aaron says:

    OkCupid users are different from the general population.

    There is no reason to expect that they’d have the same income or height as the general population.

    Height is correlated with income and race.

  4. Aaron says:

    I for one never lie about my income, I just never state it. Why? Well I’m in the 100+ category and while I am sure stating it would get me a lot more attention and hits from women, it would attract the wrong type women. If you’re interested in my money and not me, then I don’t want to know you. As for my height, I have always stated it accurately (I’m 5’ 6”) and never lied. Have I received responses from women rejecting me purely because of my height, you bet! But any women that is so superficial as to reject a guy for no other reason but this, is so shallow I would not want to be with them anyway. I cannot understand why people lie about such things. I’m mean how is your date going to feel when they find out? If you can’t start a relationship with honestly what hope is there? Same goes for pictures. All the pictures on my site are accurate to how I look. I have however meet women on dates that clearly have pictures that are more than a few years old, and it always amazes me that they think guys will not notice that when they meet them. It’s just stupid and waists everybody’s time. People just be honest! There is someone out there for all of us just as we are.

  5. Ophelia says:

    I’m a woman, I identify as bisexual, and I generally only exchange messages with women. Why? Because, to be frank, I’ve got more than enough men in my life and women are harder to meet. Just on the basis of statistics, there’s always a much higher chance of me meeting men who are attracted to me than meeting women who are, and that’s where OkCupid comes in.

    In general, if you’re bi it’s always going to be easier to meet partners of the opposite sex, so internet dating is likely to come in more handy for same-sex dating. It might also be that people don’t want to date same-sex partners who are connected with their wider social network, where it might get back to friends or family who would be less than accepting. In my experience, a lot of women on OkCupid who list themselves as bi are already be in a relationship with a man and are looking for a third party, so they are only messaging women. And broadly speaking, you can’t assume that bi people will have exactly the same desires for relationships or other encounters with people of each sex. They might really enjoy sex with men but only want to settle down with women, or vice versa, for example.

    This seems like a good time to mention that I really wish OkCupid would start letting its members specify which sex(es) they are looking to date, rather than or in addition to their sexual orientation. I’m very bisexual, but I’m only interested in exchanging messages with other women, and apparently this is dreadfully offensive to quite a lot of men. I have been informed by many of your male members that if I don’t want to date men then it’s dishonest or misleading of me to list myself as bisexual. On the other hand, I feel it would be dishonest of me to list myself as a lesbian when I’m not.

  6. AT says:

    I’ve been saying that about bisexuals for years. Bisexuality isn’t a sexual orientiation on OKC. It’s a trendy hipster thing.

  7. Thane says:

    So does this mean I should go back to my profile and start lying about my height and income?

    I mean, if everybody does it, then those of us telling the truth are actually the ones fictionalising – we appear relatively shorter and poorer than we actually are.

    Re: the straight/gay/bi and male/female, maybe the problem is that OKCupid is stuck in an old paradigm of only two genders and three sexualities. Personally, I just identify as ‘sexual’ but OKCupid forces mem to choose between three options (and two genders) which don’t really apply to me.

  8. onestepbehind says:

    Thank you for proving me right about dudes who lie about their height.

    I strongly agree with @A Psychologist on the mutability of orientation. I’d also point out that you’re assuming that messaging patterns are indicative of offsite behavior and attraction, which is a very flawed premise. I tend to meet ladies through social groups, and dudes off of OkCupid.

  9. Chris says:

    You mean people actually lie? Wow, I’m totally shocked. Let’s break down a few things here:

    Obviously 6 feet or taller men are going to get more messages, the same applies to men that are height/weight proportionate. The problem is, you can’t fix stupid, and most of those guys turn out to be people that treat women like dirt. It’s all a game.

    As for the income, it’s one thing to say “I make 100k or more a year” but it’s another to say “My bill collectors make 100k or more, and I eat Ramen Noodles”.

  10. Maggie says:

    As a bi female I can think of many explanations for the trend you observed. Two possibilities are what you’ve already suggested- gay people hedging their sexuality and straight people exaggerating their sexuality, for whatever reason. But there are certainly others:

    1. Because many straight people want to seem more sexually open, the lesbian community is somewhat biased against bi women, whom they often assume to be just “experimenting” or otherwise not *really* into women. This can be such a handicap that many bi women pose as lesbians while looking for female partners. So you might have some bisexuals hidden in the “gay” category. (Note: I have no idea whether this dynamic also exists in the gay male community).

    2. Anyone looking to “settle down” is looking for ONE person, not one of each gender. Some bisexuals may prefer one gender over the other for long-term vs. casual relationships. Any way you could filter your data by users seeking only casual relationships or only serious relationships?

    3. A lot of people are also or only looking for normal, platonic friendship and conversation. So really, messages between strict friends shouldn’t count.

    4. Many if not most bisexuals go through phases of liking men more than women, and vice versa. In my experience this is actually more common than looking for a gender-blind relationship, which is what you seem to expect in your study.

    5. There’s a reason sexuality is called a “spectrum.” OKCupid gives us 3 options: gay, straight, and bi. Basically you’re rounding your data points to the nearest 0.5 (on a gayness scale from 0 to 1, say) and so you shouldn’t be surprised that there are inconsistencies. The same goes for gender- for some people, it’s not as clear cut as “male” or “female.” Maybe OKCupid could let users pinpoint their gender and sexuality on a sliding 100 point scale or something.

  11. Christa says:

    I didn’t bother reading through the other comments. So I’m sure I will repeat things.

    The structure of OKCupid really has no way to really figure out data for non-straight folks for a lot of reasons.

    1) You are pretty transphobic and are especially not accessible to intersex, genderqueer and two-spirit folks. You only give two options for gender. Clearly there are a lot of people that don’t fit within the gender binary.

    an example: I have a friend who identifies as transgender but not as a man or woman. He uses he/him pronouns. His orientation is queer. If he identifies on okcupid as male there is no good orientation to choose that encompasses who he actually wants to date and excludes the people he doesn’t (like straight women). So in the end he ended up putting “female” on his profile.

    2)Limited orientation options. I have wavered back and forth on my profile between gay and bi. I identify as queer. I have a problem with identifying as bisexual because it leaves out so many people I am attracted to…but so does gay. I will never message a cis man (cis being the opposite of transgender) on okcupid. I would maybe date or sleep with one in real life though. So for this reason I currently identify as gay…although I am worried that I might miss out on some cute transgender men.

    Most of my friends that are queer women or transgender/genderqueer pick a gender and/or orientation they don’t actually identify with (usually gay women) and then correct the situation in their profile.

    My suggestion? OkCupid needs to have a fill in the blank section for sexual orientation or at least expand your options from 3 options to like 10 (ex. straight, gay, bisexual, queer, asexual, pansexual, omnisexual, questioning, other ). Until that happens you will never get good data. You also need more options for gender (male, female, transgender, genderqueer, two spirit, femme, butch, drag queen/king, other) and realize that some people identify with more than one so y’all would need some sort of algorithm that accommodates that.

  12. Jillian says:

    I am listed as bi on okcupid and am bi in real life. I do message both men and women, but, I can see why some women (or men) who are bi wouldn’t. On okcupid, I tend to reply more to women, and to send them more messages, despite the fact that in real life, I tend to gravitate more towards men. My reasoning is that straight men who I like and who like me are easy to find offline, whereas bisexual women are difficult to find. I have considered not answering any messages from men at all on line because of this. In addition, some women who are “bi” (probably many) are really interested mainly in men as hubbies/serious boyfriends, but are signaling their willingness to participate in sex with women. They may be up for sex with women, but they want a man to come home to.

    For men, I’d guess there are similar reasons at play. Having known a few bisexual guys, I’ve found that they often don’t look for male partners until they’re in a committed relationship with a woman, so online, they are likely to look only for hookups with men. If they’re un-attached, they’re more likely to look for women.

    All of this makes a lot more sense when you realize how much easier it is to live straight. Without that bias, bi’s might act more sensibly.

  13. Robin Powell says:

    I am a male who identifies as bisexual. I have never messaged a man on okcupid, and am very unlikely to, for the following reasons:

    1. I really do prefer boobies (I don’t know that I would say that I prefer women-as-people at all; I’m talking about raw sexual attraction). I identify as bisexual at least partly as a political statement: people tend to treat bisexual men (and gay men, to an extent) like lepers, and it’s important to me to do my bit to discourage that: people seem to think I’m a nice guy, which gives me a chance to mess with their stereotypes about men who have sex with other men.

    2. I relate romantically to men *very* differently: I become close friends and then feel sexual; with women it’s usually the other way ’round. This makes online dating with men seem like me leading them on, since I’m not going to want to be sexual right away, or possibly ever. Seems simpler to avoid it.

    3. It’s a warning to potential female partners. “I’m bi and poly” means “if you make a surprise visit to my place and find me with someone’s penis in my mouth, well, I warned you didn’t I?”. I *do* enjoy sexual interaction with men, even if it doesn’t happen very often, and I won’t date anyone who isn’t OK with it.

    -Robin

  14. Jasper says:

    I thought about setting my interest to Bisexual (which I haven’t) since I’m also interested in meeting guys, but will probably never message a guy myself. Maybe for me an extra option called “Bi-curious” would be more helpful and truthful. Basically I don’t really associate myself entirely with the “Straight”, “Gay” or “Bi” options, since I’ve had strong feelings for men and women. Basically, I’m open-minded.

  15. interactivekind (okcupid name) says:

    Two comments:

    1. First, as others have noted, one cannot infer from the messaging patterns of self-identified bisexuals that they are either “straight” or “gay”, solely because they only message one gender or the other. Many self-identified bisexuals are only *specifically on okcupid* to look for one gender or the other. Perhaps a bi guy is in a relationship with a woman and looking for a guy on the side or a guy for a threesome, for example. Sure, plenty of people claim bisexuality to look adventurous, but that can’t be inferred from messaging patterns.

    2. Second, it’s a bit of a stretch to claim that okcupid users exaggerate things like height and income, based solely on comparison to the general population. As a good social scientist, you must first make sure that okcupid users are *representative* of the general population. There’s no reason to believe they are. In fact, my guess is that okcupid users are, on average, younger than the general population. And that younger adults are, on average, taller than their elders.

  16. Peter says:

    Let me correct for you Ophelia :

    ‘if you’re bi it’s always going to be easier to meet partners of the opposite sex’ *if you’re female*.

    Being bi and male is a death sentence in terms of heterosexual dating. True, there are other dating requirements and life decisions I’ve made that I’m also rejected upon, but those are my own choice; being repeatedly rejected to your face because of your sexuality especially after several wasted days of talking is fucking irritating. Only mildly less irritating are people that want to fetishize my bisexuality or expect threesomes – I know women get that attitude much more frequently though.

    I almost exclusively message women. This is partly because I’m predominantly into women, and also for various reasons that are frankly none of OKCupid’s business. I’m still attracted to both men and women, and that’s what’s important to me.

    As mentioned elsewhere, if you want a hookup as a queer man with other queer men, it’s way more effective to go to your local gay bar or use sites like gaydar. It really isn’t my scene, but I know people who have logged into gaydar and been out fucking within half an hour.

  17. Elizabeth says:

    Count me in the category of Bisexual, but primarily messaging men. Mostly because I’m terrified of women. I’m 26, and I’ve had plenty of random hookups with women that lasted as long as the beer did, but not any relationships – so I have NO idea how to start one or even talk to them. I’ve always had male friends, too, so I don’t even know how to start FRIENDSHIPS with women, let alone flirt with them. I’m too intimidated to even know where to begin. The women that message me tend to be either in a relationship looking for a threesome partner at the behest of their other halves, or are people I just don’t have anything in common with – so I don’t respond…. or I think they’re absolutely perfect, and don’t have the balls to respond.

    Does that help?

  18. Anonymous says:

    That income/messaging graph is precisely why I don’t have my income listed on my profile. Sure, I have a “prestige” job and make decent money, but I have zero desire to show up in the results of someone who filters their search results by income.

  19. elocin says:

    i am a bi girl. i like both sexes sexually but primarily look for relationships with men because i am more emotionally connected to them on average.

  20. Joe Probably says:

    First off, I love this blog. Please keep it up guys, It’s almost becoming the main reason I check the site!

    Online I usually put that I’m “around 6 foot” Mainly for brevity as the more precise 5′ 11.45″ is almost ridiculous because I’m always wearing shoes!

    In Person I actually round down a few inches, because as one person stated above, people like to call you out on your height for some reason. So instead of “You’re not 6 foot! Bullshit” I say I’m about 5′ 8″ and then get “Nah, you’ve got to be taller than that!” Then I say, “why thank you!”

    I find that most all the “bi” girls have in their profile that they are only looking for messages from “straight men”….the other less often seen bi girl is usually in a relationship with a man and only looking for women.

    Again, thanks for posting.

  21. Candlelight_Guy says:

    As Christopher has pointed out, I don’t report my income because I don’t want it to be a factor in having someone message me. I’m not interested in being a “sugar daddy”. However, your data would indicate that picking a reasonable figure might increase the number of women contacting me, even if the number is much lower than my actual income.

    And let me add my vote for being more polyamorous friendly.

  22. Deb says:

    I am a girl trying to give some insight to guys:

    If your income is really high, I’m suspicious that you base your self-confidence on the amount of money you make which is why you are forward about sharing it. I also wonder if you think that making that amount of money should somehow make you a more suitable partner and how you’ll react to my income if I make more than or equal income to you.

    Therefore, in general, I prefer not to know that kind of information right away. I want to know if you like your job more than I care how much you make. I’d much rather someone who is happy and in the lower range of incomes than someone unhappy and in the upper realm.

    I choose not to put my income because just because someone makes a certain amount of money, doesn’t mean they enjoying acting like they make that much money. I do well but I also drive a beater and live in a small house because it’s my personal choice. I don’t want people thinking I live a certain lifestyle just based off my income.

    There are a significant number of guys in my matches who do not like their job. This is not attractive. If I know you are unhappy, it makes me think that you will be reliant on me for that validation. You need to be happy with who you are and where you are going to be attractive to me.

    I see no value in exaggerating my height as I am quite tall anyway (5’11”). If and when I wear heels, I do not get hit on anyway. There is something about tall girls that must freak guys out. I am tempted to round DOWN rather than up.

    BTW, many of my gay-ish friends identify as “queer” which can mean anything from gay/bi/trans/etc. Perhaps you do need to allow people to somehow elaborate on their sexuality.

    Next time you do a study, I’d be curious for you to explore the number of photos someone shares and how often they get messaged. I know I am less inclined to msg someone with one picture. I want to see a spectrum of how someone might look and what photos they chose to represent themselves with.

  23. Sam says:

    As phoebe (from the sitcom Friends) sang:
    “… and then there are bi-sexuals, but some say they are just kidding themselves …” :)

    The income – message analysis was interesting. Can you also provide a break-up country wise? I’d like to know how money is perceived in relationships by middle-easterners and south asians. One thing to keep in mind though – take note of citizenship and the current place where they are put up. If an Indian is not in India or a Chinese not in China, ignore them – this should give us a more accurate cultural context to the whole money – relationship factor.

  24. Lysana says:

    Thanks ever so. Now we get AT and Manny thinking they’re justified in accusing people like me of being trendy hipsters so they can feel good about themselves. Thanks for the biphobia and bad excuse-making.

  25. Sirithre says:

    I’m female. I identify as bisexual. However, as a female I typically leave first contact to the other party. I receive FAR more male messages. And thus respond to mostly male messages.
    Actually, I can only think of three or so girls that have ever messaged me during my time here. (I’ve had a profile since ’06) And if I recall correctly, they were fake (blank profile) or looking for a 3rd for a threesome.

    Furthermore, I’m a nerd/geek and would only date a gamer since they need to understand the gaming obsession that takes up most of my waking hours. Yet gamer girls are soooo much harder to find. And they’re all usually taken, or straight. Even my last awesomely nerdy hot gamer chick turned out to be straight. (Shock to me!)
    Point is, they’re much harder to find than your average gamer guy. And thus far fewer messages would be sent out/received.

    This could be the case with some of the gender bias. People often look for significant others with similar interests. If those interests are typically dominated by a particular gender, it will cause them to be messaged more often. The message sender could easily prefer the other gender, or be interested in both equally, yet only find potential candidates of one gender.

    Did any of that make sense? I’ve just woken up and I think my wordiness is just making me rambly.

  26. Bob says:

    On the bisexuality side of things, I’d say you may have people who identify as bisexual, in that they are attracted to both sexes, but who aren’t actively searching for partners in one, or aren’t doing so online. Myself, I’d consider using OKCupid or similar to try and find a woman to date, but would want to know a man in real life before approaching romance with him.

  27. Steve says:

    I don’t know anything about the sociological factors playing into this, but there’s a simple statistical factor that could be biasing the bi graphs, depending on how they’re calculated. If “messages only one gender” is counting people who have only sent one message, then it’s being drawn from a larger pool than “messages both genders” because they must have sent at least two messages. I don’t know what fraction of users (who have sent at least one message) have sent only one message, but more generally since it’s impossible to transition directly into the “genuinely bi” state, there’s necessarily a bias against it.

  28. John says:

    I am a quarter inch shy of 6’1″ but people insist, vigorously, that I am 6’3″ or taller. I have long hypothesized that pretty much everyone pads their height by a couple of inches such that the mental image of a 6′ man is really of a 5’10” man. There have been several occasions where shorter men claiming to be my height have been outed.

  29. Ella says:

    I’m a queer woman listed as bisexual because… well, ‘queer’ or ‘pansexual’ aren’t options on OKC. I mostly message men on this site, and I’m really only ever messaged by men, possibly because I pass for straight in day to day life, even when I try not to.

    The reason I message more men than women is because for me, I like my women to be highly political queer chicks, and I meet these types of women when I’m out doing queer things. I use OKC to fulfill my need for the heteronormative types.

    That said, since I do message both men and women, I’m in the purple anyway.

  30. science_pirate says:

    Wonderful work! I find OkTrends to be fascinating, so please keep them coming!

    Like many other users have commented above, we’re quite obviously missing the “not reported” area of the income graph. I personally consider it distasteful to reveal my income, but I’m *incredibly* curious as to how it maps against the rest of the data. For comparison, I’d also love to see how many messages women get based upon income. (Do guys *really* get intimidated by high-earning women?)

    “Sex Partners By Height” is crying out for more information. I’m assuming those are mean values, but it would be fascinating to see how they vary on age, and the spreads for each value.

    Also, a quick note of support for @Thane’s comment above that two genders and three sexualities is terribly restrictive, with the addition that only three relationship states (single/seeing someone/married) is also very restrictive. It would be very interesting to see what the bi graphs would look like if we had sexuality sliders (a la Black Box Republic).

    Thanks again for the interesting information, and keep up the great work!

  31. Anon says:

    It would be equally (possibly more) interesting to see the data on *incoming* messages for bi men/women. Or possibly overlaying incoming over outgoing in a graph to see how much *attention* a user gets from both sexes, not just how much they talk to others. As people have pointed out, some users don’t message users of one sex because they get enough incoming attention.

    Of course it would also be interesting to know if the “bi” label generates a male more or less attention from females (maybe neither). Same for females, but I can guess the results on that one.

  32. Brenton Clark says:

    The comparisons to the expected population statistics for things such as height and income are only valid if the users of OkCupid are representative of the population as a whole. There are reasons to believe this may not be the case. For one thing, only people with ready access to the internet are represented on OkCupid.

  33. Shani says:

    Interesting post.

    Responding to the request for feedback from bi-identified people: I think a big problem (although not the full explanation) is that the way OKCupid is set up conflates sexual orientation identity with what you’re actually looking for from this dating site right this minute.

    So I’m bi (well, queer, interested in people of all genders), but at the moment I’m only looking for women on OKC. I’m really, really not interested in hearing from men here. Partly this is because if I say I am I get overwhelmed with messages from men, and also never see any women in my matches (there are just so few comparatively), and partly it’s because men who are into women are pretty easy to find IRL. In any case OKCupid is not a venue I’m interested in using to find men, it just causes annoyance.

    I’ve dealt with this by setting my status to ‘gay’, and then saying I actually identify as bi in my profile. But I know plenty of people who feel that is a Horrible Lie, and they’ll set themselves as bi but then say in their profile they’re only interested in hearing from X, presumably set their searches to only show X, etc. If you read the profiles of queer types on OKCupid you’ll find a lot of frustration with the way the settings are currently constructed.

    For example, a configuration I see a lot is a bi woman who already has a boyfriend and is looking for a girlfriend. If that doesn’t get your bisexual card stamped I don’t know what would. But they probably won’t be messaging guys on OKC.

    Basically I think people use dating sites with a much narrower scope in mind than their sexual identity as a whole.

    Also, depending on how long the time period you used to see whether people messaged men, women or both was, you might just be capturing phases of greater interest in one gender than another. Over my time on OKCupid I’ve deifnitely had some periods where I’ve been more interested in men and some when I’ve been more interested in women. I actually think ‘equally interested in all genders at all times’ is a pretty rare way to experience bisexuality (or other non-monosexual identities).

  34. Me says:

    There is every incentive for a male to lie. Since factors like height and money are not the root of what makes a male attractive. If you stand tall, carry yourself well, and spend wisely.. you can psychologically train a woman to like you, some of them at least.

    If being honest means getting no responses or next to nothing, at least on dates you have a chance to “appear” lovable.

    Further, lying about height and income is easy to hide for a long time by standing up as straight as possible, wearing the right shoes and only spending lots of money on DATES.

  35. Uhhhh says:

    People who use OkCupid are bound to have higher salaries than average, no matter what zip code they’re in. I don’t think that’s statistically valid.

    Poor people with no Internet, who are illiterate, or don’t speak English at all live in every zip code.

  36. Also says:

    Also I think I’m going to increase my height setting from the truthful 6′ to 6′ 1″. I had no idea this was so important to women.

  37. Adam says:

    See also “The truth about lying in online profiles,” done by some researchers at Cornell: http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1240624.1240697 …they confirm your “height” and “income” and “age” hypotheses, and add a few others.

    Also, for the bisexuals: Remember that bisexual and gay (say, women) are probably only likely to contact women who list themselves as bisexual or gay but men who are bisexual or straight. This imbalance means a different base rate of contact likelihood across your data…you probably should control for that in these graphs and in your next post.

  38. harpy61 says:

    Have you accounted for outliers in the income section? I occasionally see people who have clearly put a ridiculous amount for their income, which I assume is equivalent to those that put ’97’ in the age section. That’s a bit different from trying to mislead people, but if not ruled out a few of those could skew results.

  39. DataGuitarDrums says:

    Regarding the Sex Partners by Height chart, What are we looking at here? Average number of sexual partners by height?

    If so, then I think you ought to show the dispersion of values around that line.

    I seem to remember reading that the number of sexual partners can have a highly skewed distribution ( I’ve heard that it has a power law like distribution). So if you were using the average number of sexual partners at a given height, then you may have been using a figure that has been artificially dragged upwards.

    This draws into question your claim about the sexual behavior of taller women (“The data also raises the interesting possibility that these tall women are much more likely to sleep with a man who does approach them.”)

    Finally, how do you deal with potential inflation in the number of sexual partners?

    I look forward to a further post on the number of (self reported) sexual partners by height, age, income, etcetera and please see if OkCupid’s data has the same power law properties that the literature suggests.

  40. Height says:

    I just measured my height three times. 6′, then 5′ 11″, then 5′ 11.5″. It depends on how you stand, and when I tried to make myself taller, it actually made me shorter. Weird. Humans aren’t boxes.

    Also, you should really have a “weight” field.

  41. John says:

    I don’t understand the inconsistency of bisexuals’ actual bisexuality, either. 7 out of 10 women I see on OkCupid who list themselves as bisexual have a disclaimer in the first few sentences about how they are bisexual but only looking to connect with women. 2 of the 10 are ‘bicurious’ at best, and predominantly connect with men while passively attempting to be sexually adventurous and open to the possibility of other women. 1 out of 10 is self-described as being actually pansexual, not bi, and… surprise, she’s looking for more additions to her already satisfied yet still open polyamorous lifestyle. I have literally never seen a single, monogamous, bisexual woman looking for either a man or a woman in the four years I’ve browsed OkCupid.

  42. Hannah says:

    For a while I listed myself as bi even though I tend to be looking for guys. I did this because I identify as genderqueer, and this website does not allow me to list any gender other than male or female. I felt that, by listing I was bi, I was putting my queer identity out there in some way. I’ve come across many gender variant and transgender users on OkCupid. Perhaps you should add more gender options to allow them to acurately describe themselves.

  43. Feral_Dandelion says:

    I’m bisexual, but though I prefer girls, I’m terrible at starting conversation with them offline never mind online, so I rarely pursue any of them, friend or otherwise. Guys are easier to befriend in general for me. Also, while I’m listed on here as “single” and “bisexual”, I’m also listed as looking only for friends and penpals. Were the numbers figured excluding those who not looking for more than friends?

  44. Wayne Bryant says:

    Regarding your assertion that 80% of bisexuals are liars …

    Did it ever occur to you that 80% of bisexuals are getting their needs for one of the sexes somewhere other than OK Cupid? Duh!

  45. Danielle says:

    Like Thane said, OKCupid’s problem with sexuality is that you only have 3 options (straight, gay and bi) whereas people go all the way across the spectrum. Look up the Kinsey scale for starters, and that one is still terribly one-dimensional. OKCupid would do good to expand their gender/sexuality horizons a little – maybe look at how your kinky counterpart FetLife is doing that?

    FetLife lists the following options for gender: male, female, crossdresser/transvestite, trans (mtf), trans (ftm), transgender, genderfluid, genderqueer, intersex, butch and femme.
    Furthermore it lists the following options for sexual orientation: straight, bisexual, heteroflexible, homoflexible, gay, lesbian, queer, pansexual, fluctuating/evolving and even asexual.

    Now that’s dating in the 21st century. Honestly, I can’t imagine any fluid gender person wanting to sign on a profile with OKCupid considering how binary-gender the options are.

  46. DarthKelly says:

    As a female bisexual, I will tell you right now, it’s hard to date women. It’s even harder when you are in a polyamorous relationship, and are looking for other partners. Many people in general are possessive when it comes to their partners, so this starts off my search for romance in a difficult light. Then, there are other factors which come into play. Let’s say you find another bisexual girl who is okay with being in a poly relationship. Great! You start talking to her, and realize that this girl is only “bisexual” in order to get men interested in her. Bummer. So, you figure that you could look into the lesbian community. Well, my experience has led me to believe that it’s a rare lesbian indeed who is open to the thought of having a polyamorous relationship. If you manage to find one of these rare specimens, you then have to over come the bias that lesbians have against bisexual women (many lesbians believe that bisexuals will leave them for a man, eventually). Since this isn’t complex enough, let’s throw something else into the mix! The low self-esteem issues which many women have due to their indoctrination into the Patriarchy. Okay, so some of you may think I’m exaggerating. It sometimes seems that everyone has a rosy view of the disparity between men and women. Don’t buy that there is one? Take a look at the earning differences between men and women. Sorry, I’ve digressed. Many women are taught, in subtle ways that if they don’t look ideal, or if they don’t “have a man” that they’re somehow less of a person. So, in addition to all of the other complications with same sex dating for bisexuals, there’s the added one that your date doesn’t believe that you might actually be interested in her, and acts timid or shy because of it. And since you’ve also received the same indoctrination, being a woman yourself, you’re also timid and shy. (NOTE: This is not everyone. But a good portion of women are this way.) So, OKCupid notices that bisexual women still prefer to message men. Well, quite frankly it’s easier to try to date men than it is women. (Despite this, I seem to keep messaging women and men both. Perhaps I’m a glutton for punishment.)

  47. OuterSpaceGuy says:

    The part of this analysis that most interested me was income. What I list on my profile is true (if you doubt me and I decide to ask you on a date and you accept, please bring your paycheck stub, I’ll bring mine: we can compare…).

    I’ve actually considered lying about my displayed income… by lowering it substantially (divide by 2 or so). I have not done that, though, since I’ve found (surprisingly) that most women here (that I am also into, at least) aren’t very gold-diggery; those that are tend to be really obvious to spot/filter-out.

    My two cents.

  48. Aaron says:

    on the subject of bisexuality. I consider myself bi, however I don’t have any interests in actually having a meaningful relationship with another man. I’ve had sexual relations with other men and love it just as much as I do with women. I just connect better emotionally with women

  49. joob says:

    As usual great post guys.
    Really fun to see how we work.
    This time it was almost as fun to read all the posts, quite a few miffed bisexuals out there who feel they need to defend themselves.

    Wondering about pictures. So I understand that if you see a picture taken by a modern camera you can count it as a newly taken picture for your statistics.
    When your counting the old pictures I hope youre just looking at the length of time they were posted, or some meta-data time stamp. An old looking picture just tells you that someone took the picture with an old camera (and hasnt bought a new one), it wouldnt necessarily give any indication how long ago it was taken.

  50. Helen says:

    Re the bisexual thing: I identify as bisexual (f), but in general I will only actively pursue men, be it in real life or on a dating site – possibly it’s because I have more experience with men, but I never know quite where to start with pursuing a woman, and tend to wait for her to make the first move.

    I’ve had relationships with both men and women. All of the lesbian relationships have been initiated by the other partner, whereas the heterosexual relationships have been 50-50.