I just received the following email from OkCupid:
You are Hot!
Hey [username],
We just detected that you’re now among the most attractive people on OkCupid.
We learned this from clicks to your profile and reactions to you in Quickmatch and Quiver [features of the site]. Did you get a new haircut or something?
Well, it’s working!
To celebrate, we’ve adjusted your OkCupid experience:
You’ll see more attractive people in your match results.
This won’t affect your match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match’s answers. But we’ll recommend more attractive people to you. You’ll also appear more often to other attractive people.
Sign in to see your newly-shuffled matches. Have fun, and don’t let this go to your head.
A few things are running through my head…
(1) OkCupid is just trying to flatter me. They send this email out to everyone. But no, they don’t.
(2) OkCupid has created an elite class in the online dating world. And that’s unfair! Even though I “made the cut,” this still upsets me. OkCupid is secretly (because they don’t publicize this on their site) an uneven playing field. This policy is limiting just like eHarmony‘s exclusion criteria which I discussed in my first post.
(3) Stop assuming things about me, OkCupid! I may have been calculated to be conventionally attractive, but what if I don’t like other conventionally attractive people? What if I want someone uglier than me so I look pretty? What if love really is blind for me?
I understand the reasoning behind matching people based on answers to multiple choice questions, but creating matches based on collective opinions of attractiveness is like matching people based on strangers’ opinions of whether they look like a couple. It puts weight on other people’s opinions while ignoring the opinions of the potentially matched.
(4) Where’s my recognition for having an interesting and well-written profile? Way to objectify me, OkCupid.
I found a 2010 article from Bitch Media about OkCupid’s attractiveness policy that is worth reading. It expresses some of my same sentiments. Here’s an excerpt:
“…this policy is a bunch of discriminatory, attractiveness-norm-reinforcing, bullshit. Not to mention the fact that it just doesn’t make sense. Why limit the number of potential matches people can get? Because pretty people can’t have their pretty eyes scarred by regular people?”
Yes, believe it or not, I am this worked up about being called hot. I’ll continue using OkCupid, though. If this is what the world of online dating has to offer, onward I go as I continue my experiment in search of The One.
First Date #4
Time for an update: The Neurologist asked me out for drinks and I accepted his invitation. However, noticing (as indicated on my profile) that I don’t drink, he wrote back to me and asked if I’d like to join him at a museum instead. Huge points for that move. (And for the record, you can still go out for drinks even if you don’t drink. But I greatly appreciate his consideration.) First Date #4 will happen Thursday evening.
-M
on love online 