Statistics, destiny, and attractiveness. eHarmony adventures continue…

[This is the second post in the the eHarmony Adventures series by an anonymous guest blogger. More commentary after the jump. - Mat]

Update Two

For the past week and a half, I have been receiving 6-8 emails each morning telling me that I have a new match at eHarmony. At the beginning of this period, the prospect of an interesting guy (aka potential date) sitting in my inbox was pretty exciting. I thought that eHarmony – with its “scientifically matched” branding campaigns would do a good job of creating complements – but as it turned out [so far], I’ve only found 3 out of the 50-some-odd candidates to be potentially date-able matches.

After saying, “What!?” to that ratio, you’ll probably ask, “Could it be your own, limited profile?” Well the answer there has to be “no” because I was as genuine, albeit cheesy, as I could have been on the questionnaire. I have a good handful of pictures up, and I have selected multiple location preferences with distance as a “not soimportant” factor, opening me up to a fairly large sea of fish. So this has got me wondering if I am more superficial than I should be. Several of my close friends who know that I’m subscribed to the online dating market have told me that I should start becoming “more open-minded” about my potential matches. Heeding their advice, I’ve been trying to read profiles before looking at pictures, and if guys don’t have pictures up, then I don’t dismiss their potential right away. In fact, I keep their profile open so that in the event they decide to “Start Communication” on Level 1 (of 4, after which is finally the “Open Communication” stage to set up a date) with me, I can respond. But you know what ended up happening? After I closed out some of the non-matches I was given, some of my own potential matches ended up rejecting me. So I’m not the only one here who is browsing profiles for a certain type of person. I think it’s difficult not to assess overall attractiveness on an online profile when you have access to a person’s pictures. But at the same time, I’m not someone who likes going on blind dates. So there – I said it – I am superficial.

There have been some…if not many “I’m sorry but absolutely not,” types mixed in to my match list. [No offense to the guys I shut down out there. I’m just not that into you.] I was disappointed because I never thought I’d see these types in my eHarmony box of science, and because I didn’t think that I would start feeling this superficial. But I guess this is a game of trial and error. I had just hoped that the errors would be a little more…attractive.

I know that I may not be the most attractive person in the world myself to a lot of guys (hey, beauty is in the eye of the beholder); in fact, I believe that it’s difficult for young women like me to define the lines between modesty, beauty and confidence, especially coming from a traditional Asian background. I’ve been told that I should act like a demure lady, yet never settle for less than the best. It’s been a funny journey so far, trying to become a “Woman o Character” – the phrase that defined my Catholic High School’s theme song and ironically, the westernized end of my Catholic High School’s teachings.

But I am standing strong on the fact that I would like to date someone who I’m at least mildly physically attracted to. After all, if I’m going to look at possibly waking up in bed next to this person for an extended period of time, I would like to think that his face will
warrant a morning smile. Is that really so wrong?

I have 2 matches right now who I’m waiting to hear back from on this whole step-by-step “Guided Communication” track. As the online exchange of questions becomes more in-depth, I’ll let you know how things go. Until then, lets hope that my profile magnetizes someone more interesting.

[After she sent me this, we had a discussion about causal relationships and I'm not fully convinced we truly understand what is going on here. The researcher in me has to wonder what is really happening. After all, if she is consistently getting some 6% (3 / 50 guys) return for average-or-better looking guys, that would imply (in a perfectly representative sample) that eHarmony has 94% ugly people and only 6% nonugly people. That just isn't intuitively correct. The "average" people (just by definition) should be far greater than 6% even if they are dating online. So we've got to start asking--maybe ugly people consistently choose the same answer she happens to choose? Is she scientifically destined to only find true happiness with an ugly person? Are all hot people just not as sympathetic and passionate? I sense an experiment in the near future. - Mat]