Types (Niche)

A recent article in Time Magazine focuses on the so-called “hook-up culture,” which has become a subject of much concern and debate. Particularly from older Americans who graduated from college a while ago. Now, the students and twenty-something are speaking out.

The writer of the Time article complained about the media coverage of a college professor in Boston named Kerry Cronin, who requires her students to go on a “real date” as part of their class credit. “No thanks,” the writer says in her article, “I’m here to inform that professor that we 20-somethings don’t need help, thank you very much.”

She goes on to reference statistics to disprove that hook-up culture is an epidemic, citing less than 15% of college students have more than two hook-ups per year. Also, “hooking up” means anything from sharing a kiss to having sex, so the lines are a little blurry as to how much people are engaging in risky behavior.

She also argues that it’s much more natural to socialize with people and get to know them in groups and at parties where it feels more organic, rather than over coffee and forced conversation. While she makes good points, she also admits that it is easier for her generation to hide behind a screen, especially when it comes to being rejected. Text is the preferred method of interacting, rather than asking someone out face-to-face as Professor Cronin argues they should.

Her points are valid, but there is definitely room for improvement. While college students (at least in the past couple of generations) have engaged in a higher level of casual sex and hook-ups than at other times in their lives, there does seem to be a shift in college students’ thinking today. Because they are attached to their smartphones, pulling them out at parties or in dorm rooms instead of engaging with the people sitting next to them, they aren’t really learning how to be alone together, to engage in conversation without distraction. This doesn’t help them learn to communicate better in relationships.

Also, there is the drinking that goes on at college. Much of the hooking up takes place after indulging at parties, which means people aren’t making the best decisions when it comes to their bodies.

But does all this mean they aren’t prepared for dating?

I think that college provides a good backdrop for learning how to interact and flirt. There are plenty of single, available people who you have something in common with – which likely you wouldn’t encounter again. So why not experiment with dating in a group setting, among your friends?

All of the formal asking out will happen once they graduate. And even then, hook-up culture exists in even more removed ways – through dating apps like Tinder. Dating is still part of growing up, no matter how you try to avoid the particulars.

The dating service Coffee Meets Bagel was built on three simple principles:

1. Your friends are the best conduits for your dates.
2. Meeting quality people doesn't have to be complicated or awkward.
3. Unless you choose to share it, your dating life should be private.

Instead of offering the overwhelming number of potential matches that most dating services do, Coffee Meets Bagel sets itself apart by highlighting only one person each day. You can either "like" or "ignore" the profile, and if both parties indicate interest in each other, they're directed to a private phone line (courtesy of Twilio) where they can text message for a seven-day period. If all goes well and they choose to meet up in person, CMB offers a discount at a local restaurant or café.

The idea is a solid one, but Coffee Meets Bagel has not yet managed to achieve the mass appeal of its biggest competitor in the mobile dating sphere: Tinder. Still, CMB has received $2.8 million in funding and recently launched its largest app update yet.

The big news in CMB-land is a new IM system within the Coffee Meets Bagel app. Like before, the IM feature has a seven-day expiration date, but now users can chat immediately without having to switch back and forth between apps.

Instant messaging is hardly a revelation in the world of online dating – in fact, it's downright standard – but CMB has found a somewhat unique approach to implementing it. With in-app messaging, Coffee Meets Bagel now has far more control over its users’ experiences, and many more opportunities to learn about their users by studying behavior data.

CMB is a “quality over quantity” dating experience. The focus is on making meaningful connections between users, not on connecting as many users as possible. On top of that, users are never introduced to random strangers, but rather to Facebook friends of friends. The company has found that members who exchange text messages within the first 24 hours are more likely to exchange their real phone numbers later on. They also, on average, chat at 2.6x the volume of those who didn't swap texts within the first day.

That unique approach to mobile dating, plus the new IM system, may be what Coffee Meets Bagel needs to take things to the next level. But founder Dawoon Kang says that stigma is still the greatest challenge faced by dating services:

“What we observe is that a lot of people hesitate because they don’t want to feel like they are ‘actively’ trying to meet someone. Making people understand that a dating app is just another channel of meeting someone has been a challenge.”

If you’ve tried out Tinder (or any dating service, for that matter) you’ve probably run across your fair share of bizarre conversations. It's a strange world out there. Sometimes the weirdness borders on amusing, but all too often it's annoying or downright creepy.

Thankfully, the Internet makes it easy to disengage from the creeps. It takes no effort whatsoever to ignore a message and hardly anything extra to block or report a user. But where's the fun in that? Why take the high road when you could take the low road, where all the fun is?

Anna Gensler, a 23-year-old artist, has a much more interesting way of dealing with the deadbeats of online dating. She began drawing nude portraits of the creeps who contacted her via Tinder, and posting the results to Instagram (NSFW, of course) alongside their offensive messages. And then, for the cherry on top, she sends the finished product back to the culprit for a final review.

Slate spoke with Gensler about her unique approach to turning harassment into art. “I feel like this gets me in trouble a lot,” she said of her inspiration for the project, “but when someone does something I think is rude, I always want to give them a taste of their own medicine. I’m an artist, and I try to use art as my weapon, even though that sounds so lame. So I thought, ‘What is something I can do to make me feel the way that they’re making me feel?’”

She settled on drawing them “sad-naked,” the most immature thing she could think of, because “their pickup lines are the most juvenile, basic things, but also still oddly offensive.” Each of her portraits is based on the guys' profile pictures, but modified to be as unflattering as possible. The subjects are all made chubbier, scrawnier, or just not particularly well-endowed.

Not satisfied with taking on the creeps of Tinder, Gensler joined OkCupid in hopes of finding new subjects worthy of her artistic intentions. She even put a blatant warning on her profile – “I’m going to draw you naked if you send me rude messages” – and a link back to the Instagram. Whether or not it deterred potential creeps is unknown, but it did intrigue a surprising number of nice guys who found the project funny and requested a portrait of their own.

And what about the guys who receive Gensler’s works of art? “There are a few approaches,” she explained. “Some of them get really angry and say a bunch of mean stuff. Some of them get a little bit offended ‘and say, “Why am I so fat? My facial hair doesn’t really look like that. My nipples are smaller than that!’ They think I didn’t do them justice. Some people just block me. But a couple of guys have actually said smart things after I sent it to them.”

MillionaireMatch.com has just surpassed the 2 million member mark and is celebrating with a new digital billboard in Times Square.

“Join the 1%: Don’t get left behind,” the ad reads. It's a slightly odd choice, given the bad rap of the 1% and the fact that the term was coined due to protests in New York City in the first place, but it also begs the question: how many MillionaireMatch.com users are actually millionaires?

Darren Shuster, North American CEO for the dating service, recently spoke with MarketWatch about the milestone and their membership. Here are a few highlights from their conversation:

On what it means to be a “certified millionaire”…

“You can become a “Diamond Member,” which shows you have $1 million in assets or a large income, a minimum of $200,000 a year. Then you can search for other Diamond Members who’ve had their income verified.”

On online dating’s notorious reputation for being full of fakes…

“MillionaireMatch has as many fakes as most dating sites. Some people are great, some people are phony, some people get a lot out of it and some people quit in a week. You have to know who is exaggerating and who’s not. Some people say they own the car and the house, but they’re leasing the car and they’re renting the house.”

On sexism…

“People say all sorts of things when it comes to love or money. Women are attracted to wealth whether the website exists or not. We’re not exactly reinventing the wheel here. I’m sure there are people who will call it sexist and call it weird, and will say things like, ‘How could you go after them for money?’ If you met someone and they both have a sense of humor and good physical condition, who would you go for? I’d go after the woman with the big bank account. Wouldn’t you?”

On the clientele who make up the MillionaireMatch userbase…

“Some of these people are making $100,000 a year. On paper, they’re a millionaires. But they’re not necessarily bringing in $40,000 a month. Women are smart and intuitive. It’s almost like crowdsourcing to weed out the phonies. They’re probably our best security.”

And finally, the big question: How many members are actually millionaires?

“That I would rather not disclose, if I can help it. Most of the men have a million dollars or more at least in assets, including their house, and have money in savings. We have a fair share of those.”

To find out more about this dating service you can read our review of Millionaire Match.

No dating service gets more attention than Tinder these days. We hear from a lot of uptight journalists who worry that the app encourages hook-ups, and from finance experts wondering how the app will eventually monetize, and from discouraged daters telling their Tinder horror stories.

But today let’s take a look at the lighter side of Tinder. There’s a lot going on in the mobile app’s world, and plenty of it is downright hysterical.

First, a man posed as a cupcake on Tinder and wrote about his experience for Thrillist. “If there's one thing I've learned about heterosexual women,” he writes, “it's that they like men. They enjoy their company. They even marry them, sometimes. But they love cupcakes. And if there's another thing I know, it's that single women are on Tinder. So armed with those two pieces of knowledge, I set out to create a Tinder persona that no woman could resist: a man's face drawn on a cupcake.” The results of his experiment are hilarious.

Perhaps inspired by the cupcake, another man decided to join Tinder as a golden retriever named Hero. Hero, like the cupcake before him, proved to be a very popular match. The faux canine received 206 matches – 154 from men and 52 from women – after just four fun-filled days on the app.

If hilarious and heart-warming stories of baked goods and puppies aren’t your thing, try Humanitarians of Tinder. The sarcastic Tumblr ruthlessly rolls its eyes at the single do-gooders annoyingly capitalizing on their charity work (and maybe just regular travels) around the world. Warning: with all the facepalming you’re about to do, forehead bruising is a serious possibility.

Then there’s Tinderfessions, a Twitter account that's exactly what it sounds like. This is a prime destination for awkward, funny, and sorta depressing tales of Tinder gone wrong, mixed in with happy stories of Tinder love gone oh-so-right. “Only met one guy in person. haven’t left his place since our first date. this was over a month ago. #thankstinder #keeper.” writes a user named Kels. “All my pics are with my really good-looking friend and in my bio I say I’m him. #catfish,” admits Trent. Expect to feel a lot of ups and downs as you read this feed.

If you want to skip the ups and cut straight to the downs (the comical kind, that is) head on over to Tinderlines.com, where you’ll be treated to a collection of “the best, the worst, and the funniest Tinder pick-up lines.” Prepare yourself for bad jokes, snappy comebacks, sexual innuendo, mathematical equations, song lyrics, one-sided conversations, and a whole lotta laughter.

To find out more about this dating app you can read our review of Tinder.

Olympic athlete and heartthrob Ryan Lochte has been quoted saying he’s never had a one-night stand (even while people were hot and heavy on Tinder in Olympic Village). And he’s not alone. Most Americans – 53% - claim they’ve never had a one-night stand.

A new study by Dating Advice found that while most Americans haven’t participated in this type of casual sexual encounter, men were more likely to have participated than women. Sixty-four percent of women said they’ve never had a one-nighter compared to only 41% of men in Lochte’s camp, which means that traditional gender roles when it comes to sexuality are still at play in American society.

Age was a factor in the study. Americans aged 18 to 24 had a 25 percent higher likelihood of saying they’d never had a one-night stand than those aged 25 to 34. The age difference makes sense, as there might be more life experience or opportunities for casual encounters as you get older and break away from your college relationship, opting instead for clubs and bars with other singles.

Not surprisingly, those who are married are also least likely to have had a one-night stand, with 56% saying they had never. On the other hand, only 41% of divorcees have not had one-night stands, compared to 50% of singles who have never been married.

There seems to be a distinction between straight and gay Americans, with only 32% of gay people saying they’d never had a one-night stand compared to 54% of straight people. As for race, 45% of African Americans and 47% of Latinos have admitted to never having a one-night stand compared to 74% of Asians.

It seems there isn’t much difference among income earners, with about the same percentage of people earning less than $25,000 a year saying they’ve never had a one-night stand compared to those earning $125,000 or more at 56% and 55% respectively. However, those earning in the median range from $75,000-$99,000 were the most likely to have had a one-night stand, with only 49% saying they hadn’t.

As expected, the South and Midwest are more conservative, with 54% of their residents saying they’d never had a one-night stand compared to the Northeast at 50% and the West at 51%.

The study surveyed 1,080 respondents over the course of three weeks, balancing responses by age, gender, income, race, sexuality and other factors in order to accurately represent the U.S. population.