Fun With #OkCupid: A Dude In The OKC Corral (sextistics - Studying Online Dating)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Kenny. We e-met through OKC and although we’ve never gone out on a date, he was inspired by my documentation of my online search for love, that he wanted to come on board and provide male insight into OKC. So here you go … and now we’re here … HIT IT KENNY!!</editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover’s @casetines

You are twice as likely to have sex on your first date with someone you met online than you are to eventually marry them. However, if the sample size in your experiment is just me, then you are just as likely to have sex with me on our first date than for us to marry. (I’m not married.)

This week on my blog I discussed my ever-growing doubts about the successfulness of Online Dating. As a guy that mainly writes about sports, I am very much in love with statistics. Perhaps your father was a sports fan that you would classify as a jock, but many of the sports fans of 2012 are uber nerds. Like… the nerdiest guys in America. We obsess over numbers, calculations, formulas, and finding out how much of sports is tangible in comparison to what we cannot explain.

That’s why when I asked myself the question “Does Online Dating really work?” I wanted to find out some of the numbers that research has found out about meeting your mate on the internet, while you’re browsing OkCupid between your Facebook and pornography YouTube sessions. What I found out was both interesting and concerning.

I wrote a couple of thousands of words about it earlier this week, but I’m going to just highlight some of the key stats that I came across in my research on TNTML because I like Jen Friel and I don’t want to take up a whole shitload of Jen Friel’s landscape on TNTML today. She’s a really nice lady. If you ever see her in the street, tell her that Kenny sent you. If enough people do that, she’ll think that her life might be like the Truman Show or something and that I’m running the show.

Anyways, here are some of the interesting stats I came across. The numbers that make me wonder if meeting a girl online is any better than meeting her behind a Wendy’s.

The People That Use The Internet To Date Have Either High Or Low Self-Esteem, But Different Views On Love

One interesting find was that the typical online dater either has a high self-esteem and believes in romantic relationships OR has a low self-esteem and does not. I can’t say that I was shocked to find that out, but it does help make sense of many of the dates I’ve gone on.

Basically, it’s saying that if someone is using the internet to date it’s because they either know that they’ve got “it” and they’re ready to flaunt “it” and want to find love OR they don’t put much value in themselves but aren’t afraid to find someone to have fun with on the internet because love was made up by the Hallmark Corporation. This find helps me look back at the different girls I’ve dated and see them in a slightly different light.

The ones that were interested in fooling around clearly had no intention of taking it further, even though I sort of did want to do that. I do believe in love (DAMN YOU HALLMARK FOR BRAINWASHING ME!) and I have a decent amount of self-respect. I do think that I am somebody worth dating. Unfortunately, my solo dates can only satisfy for so long. I need to find that other half. What I was failing at before was recognizing which girls were looking for something long-term and which ones just wanted to find some dudes to get it on, such as Donkey Kong.

I won’t be ignoring that anymore in the future, and I think it’s going to really help me better understand people in that first meeting and beyond. Additionally in that study, it was found that people who use Online Dating are more sociable, while introverts and people that are sad but believe in love are less likely to use a .com to find a rom.

This is why I love statistics and research so much. Use other people’s experiences, as well as your own, to better yourself. Experiences are basically public domain.

Meeting Your Spouse Online Isn’t That Much More Likely Than Meeting Them At Dave & Busters

Well, not D&B’s specifically, but let me break it down.

Remember those Match.com ads that were kind of shocking at the time: “1 in 5 Couples Have Met Online.”? It wasn’t that long ago that people were very shy about discussing their online dating experiences. It was embarrassing for most and people didn’t want to admit it, even to friends.

Well, we’ve come a long way since then and those Match.com ads actually sort of “broke the cycle” and people didn’t feel alone anymore. It’s always nice to know that you’ve got strength in numbers and I could have never imagined writing about my own Online Dating experiences on different blogs but here we are.

I took a closer look at the study that came up with that “1 in 5” number because I wanted to get a better grasp on how they defined it. Here’s what I found that the study actually said: “1 in 5 – Number of current singles that have dated someone they met on an online dating site.”

Uhh.. well that’s a bit different than how I remembered it. Still, 1 in 5, that’s not SO bad right? What I found was that the actual percentage for finding your spouse on the internet was 17%. Do you know what the % was for finding your spouse at a bar, club, or social event? 11%.

Pretty much everyone is in agreement that “you don’t mean your spouse at a bar,” right? I mean, EVERYONE says that. Yet, the ability to find your husband or wife at a bar or club isn’t that much lower than finding them on Match.com or OkCupid. Of course, this study is two years old and Online Dating has grown a lot since then (Online Dating sites in the US are now a billion dollar/year business) which means we need more updated studies, but what I really want to know is if people are just using this service to bone and not to meet a serious and significant other.

Because while 17% of married couples might have met online, 33% of people have admitted to sleeping with a person on their first online date. It makes me think that a vast majority of people on these sites are just there to get a p inside of a v.

That’s neat and all, but I’m done with my abc’s and I’m ready to find a gf, u c?

I’m glad that I found these studies because I think they’ll help me better understand what I am looking for and how to find it. OkCupid’s blog also has a lot of very interesting stats and information that will help you do the same. To see the rest of my findings, just go check it on my blog if you like. And remember to tell Friel that Kenny sent you.