Dating Services

Are you living a luxurious lifestyle? Do you only want to date other people with money – others in the top 1%? If so, there’s now an app for that.

New dating app Luxy is billing itself as “Tinder, minus the poor people” – or the other 99% of Americans apparently. If you think it’s some kind of joke, it’s not. The company sent out a press release, declaring the need for an income/trust-fund-based dating app with statements like: "With the rise of high-speed digital dating, it's about time somebody introduced a filter to weed out low-income prospects by neighborhood."

Dating apps have become immensely popular since the launch of Tinder, and so there are many developers trying to distinguish their technology not through functionality, but through marketing gimmicks. This seems like a PR stunt, but according to its spokesperson, it was definitely the company’s intention to create a dating space for the wealthy.

There are few sources I trust to dish out genuinely good dating data, but Christian Rudder is at the top of the list. As one of the founders of OkCupid and the genius behind the OkTrends blog, Rudder has been granted an inside look at dating habits that no one can beat.

Recently, he turned that insider access into an article for The Guardian that exposes a few of the online dating secrets he’s learned over the years.

Did someone just talk about exposing secrets? Yep, it was me. Get hyped.

In case you missed it, head back to Part I for the first round of reveals from Rudder. If you’re all caught up, read on for the last 4 secrets to be spilled:

1. The British are really into Haribo and kebabs. Ok, that’s not exactly what Rudder said, but it’s close. Rudder compared Britain’s OkCupid profiles to those from the rest of the English-speaking world, and pulled out the words that are (at least according to his algorithms) most British.
   • The 30 words people in the UK use most when talking about themselves are: Newcastle, Bristol, wot, wasters, Camden, Brighton, tw*t, Portsmouth, Biffy, Clyro, trousers, trainers, Glasgow, feeder, Plymouth, consultancy, bloke, moaning, Haribo, kebab, nan, Ibiza, Essex, lecturer, Stereophonics, bolognese, Yorkshire, housemate, bugger, and sh*te.
2. Beauty is an exponential quantity on OkCupid. As attractiveness goes up, so does the number of messages received each week. It seems like basic logic, but Rudder takes it further. The data forms an exponential function - “That is,” he writes, “it obeys the same maths seismologists use to measure the energy released by earthquakes: beauty operates on a Richter scale. In terms of its effect, there is little noticeable difference between, say, a 1.0 and 2.0 – these cause tremors that vary only in degree of imperceptibility. But at the high end, a small difference has cataclysmic impact. A 9.0 is intense, but a 10.0 can rupture the world.”
3. Even when looking for a job, women are treated like they’re looking for a date. Rudder examined interview requests on ShiftGig and plotted the data against the attractiveness of the applicants. The male curve is linear, but the female curve is once again exponential - meaning that a man’s looks has no effect on his prospects, but a woman’s looks most certainly do.
4. The best questions to ask on a first date are probably not what you’re expecting. Two of OkCupid’s match questions stand out as being remarkably predictive of compatibility: “Do you like scary movies?” and “Have you ever traveled alone to another country?” In approximately ¾ of long-term couples who met on the site, both people answered those questions the same way - a much higher rate than expected. “In fact,” Rudder concludes, “successful couples agree on scary movies – either they both like them or they both hate them – about as often as they agree on the existence of God.”

Sometimes it seems like there are more people claiming to be experts on dating than there are actual people dating.

(Do I fit into that category? Don’t answer that. Let me retain my illusions of usefulness.)

Most of them are probably hacks making things up or regurgitating tired advice they read in Cosmo, but a few - a special few - are genuine experts who deserve their guru status. And few fit that description better than Christian Rudder, the data whiz behind OkCupid’s legendary OkTrends blog and recent author of a piece in The Guardian.

“I have led OkCupid’s analytics team since 2009, and my job is to make sense of the data our users create,” Rudder writes. “As people bring technology deeper and deeper into their lives, it can show us profound and ridiculous things about who we are as human beings.”

Anyone else loving the sound of “profound and ridiculous” as much as I am? I have to know: what exactly does OkCupid know that we normal folks don’t? Rudder was kind enough to offer a few examples:

1. Women have a sensible approach to ageing. You wouldn’t know it from watching The Real Housewives, but apparently women are actually pretty down-to-earth about the ageing process. At least where choosing a partner is concerned. On the whole, at every stage of her life, a woman prefers a man who is roughly as old as she is. On the other hand…
2. Men get older, but they don’t really grow up. It sounds like a tired stereotype, but in this case it seems to be true. Whether men are in their 20s, 30s, 40s - or even at 50 - they strongly prefer women in their early 20s. 20 and 21 are the most favored ages, though a few men are willing to go as high as 23 or 24. Yikes.
3. White people are really obsessed with their hair. After looking at 3.2 billion words of profile text, Rudder found that the top five phrases for white men and women include multiple references to their hair (plus prog-rock and outdoor activities). For other large racial and ethnic groups on OkCupid, hair is rarely a topic of discussion. For example:

• Black men: dreads, Jill Scott, Haitian, soca, neo soul
• Latino men: Colombian, salsa merengue, cumbia, una, merengue bachata
• Asian men: tall for an Asian, Asians, Taiwanese, Taiwan, Cantonese

For more dating secrets from OkCupid's resident data expert, stay tuned for Part II and check out Dataclysm: Who We Are (When We Think No One’s Looking).

In further proof that the Internet is a fickle, fleeting place, it seems everyone has already forgotten about a piece of news no one could stop talking about just a few months ago.

Back in June, Facebook caused a major public outcry when it revealed it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million users as part of a psychological study to examine how emotions spread on social media. It was a messy situation, to put it lightly, and not long afterwards we found out Facebook wasn’t the only site to experiment on its users.

OkCupid came forward to say that it, too, had manipulated users’ experience - but that it wasn’t really sorry about it. The site’s blog post made the (valid) point that “if you use the Internet, you’re the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That’s how websites work.” Websites - especially dating websites - have to perform tests, otherwise they’d never be able to improve and make the user’s experience as good as it can possibly be.

So when it came down to the question of whether or not you should be upset by Facebook and OkCupid’s actions, opinion was divided.

A University of Maryland law professor is now claiming that Facebook and OkCupid violated a state law when they manipulated customer data as part of company research. Professor James Grimmelmann says the two websites are in violation of a 2002 Maryland law that requires all research on human subjects to have informed consent of the those involved, as well as approval by an ethical review panel.

In response, Facebook’s spokesman Israel Hernandez maintains that the company did not break federal or Maryland law, but says it is examining its internal processes. “We know some people were upset by this study and we are taking a hard look at our internal processes as a result,” Hernandez wrote in an email to the Washington Post. “The requirements specified by the federal Common Rule and Maryland law do not apply to research conducted under these circumstances.”

The allegations are now in the hands of Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, who told the Washington Post, “They’ve already discontinued doing this, so what we’d want to do is talk to them and figure out whether or not what they did was appropriate, whether there was enough notice given to users and whether or not they intend to do something like this again in the future without violating privacy concerns and without giving the ability to opt in or opt out of the testing.”

Tinderly’s tagline is: “Tired of swiping right all day?” Apparently, daters whose thumbs are getting tired of all that repeat motion are demanding an easier way to Tinder. Or at least, that’s what new unofficial Tinder apps like Tinderly are saying.

The new app aims to change the now-“cumbersome” Tinder app with something much more efficient: instead of swiping right one potential date at a time (who has the patience or time to look at each individual photo anyway?) – you can “like” an entire mass of singles near you in mere seconds.

That is, if you are into numbers games when it comes to dating. Men and women have both gravitated to Tinder because of its game-like interface, where they can swipe left if they aren’t interested in someone’s photo and swipe right if they are, and see who matches with them. But more recently, men have figured out a way to game the system, thanks to a few uber-successful Tinder users who have been giving away their secrets.

The more people you like, the more chances you have at getting a date, or getting laid, depending on your goals. So the faster you can “like,” the more competitive (and successful) you can be.

A slew of apps and even Google Chrome extensions have launched recently, all claiming to help in the high-speed Tinder chase, all claiming their technology helps you like users en masse, so you don’t waste all that time trying to get just one match from Tinder.

Tinderly is the latest, offering an interface to view photos of several matches at a time, and allowing you to like 50 matches per swipe.

So will an app like Tinderly take over for Tinder? With competition like Tinderoids, Botinder, and others, it’s hard to say. Other apps are cutting straight to the chase, too - allowing you to say “yes” to hundreds of matches in mere seconds. Marketing is going to be key for who remains competitive, but Tinder-compatible apps aren’t really differentiating themselves at the moment. They all seem to offer the same high-speed technology, which is geared more towards men, not women. Why not think about what female Tinder users want in an app – if only to capture a different market?

Reviews for Tinderly have been mixed, with some users claiming that the only thing you are able to do with Tinderly is swipe left or right for multiple users, but you’re unable to message or look at profiles. Others have been happy with its efficiency.

Tinderly is available only for iOS, not for Android phones.

Most daters gravitate towards what they know when they are meeting potential dates – like those with the same education, socio-economic or religious background. But others are looking to “date upwards,” at least according to websites like SeekingArrangements and SugarDaddie.com.

Money - when it comes to dating - has long been a touchy subject. Men sometimes resent the fact that they are expected to pay for dates, or that some women seem to be gold-diggers looking for someone to take care of them. On the other hand, many women get annoyed by this perception/ stereotype. Some women feel a lack of romance and courting in the current dating environment – wondering why don’t men put a little effort into planning and the pursuit.

Both of these arguments are valid by those who experience such frustration, but not true for everyone.

Brandon Wade, the founder of SeekingArrangments, makes his own argument via an article he penned on CNN.com - that a traditional relationship made by chance meeting and falling in love is not really a viable option. He claims that this doesn’t happen for most people. For men like him who are shy and uneasy around women, there aren’t many options, let alone serendipitous chance meetings. But that changes when you have money, he argues.

He’s not wrong. Plenty of women – and men – are more than willing to take a second look at a potential date if he or she is willing to pay for five-star restaurants or a weekend at a luxe hotel. There’s something very attractive about success and money, and Brandon Wade is quick to point this out: “love is a concept invented by poor people.”

Wade has a rather cynical view of dating, approaching people like he would a business deal where everything is about economic leverage and perceived value. He claims guys like him don’t really have a shot at love unless they can offer something of value that's tangible (like money or lifestyle) to their dates.

He dismisses the more progressive viewpoints of dating and relationships that value gender equality, saying: “Feminists argue that sugaring [men paying for women to date them] reverts women to a submissive, "codependent" lifestyle. But the reality is, we are leveling the playing field. There is no room for feminism in traditional relationships as defined by society. A new generation of independent, strong-willed women has cropped up while society is simultaneously raising boys who fail to ever reach their full potential.”

But how is it that these boys are actually "growing into men" when the only way they feel they can “level the playing field” is by paying for their right to play in the first place?

Some argue that sites like SeekingArrangements are really just an online form of prostitution. But sugar daddy sites obviously have a market and a demand, and people willing to pay and be paid, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.

But giving into Wade's pessimism about dating and relationships only sets us back further. Instead of paying for what you think you deserve, why not try a different approach?

Flirting and kindness never hurt anyone, and have gotten most people a date from time to time. Most people aren't looking for a paycheck - they are looking for love.

To find our complete list of comparable dating services you can check out our Sugar Daddy category.