Dating

Almost 100 million people around the world use dating websites and apps. With so many singles looking for love, how do you find “the one?” The task may seem daunting, but the BBC hopes to make it more manageable with tips based on scientific research.

A recent article written by Dr. Xand van Tulleken explores the world of online dating through the lens of a scientist. Professor Khalid Khan of Queen Mary University has reviewed dozens of scientific research papers on attraction and dating. His most interesting findings and top pieces of advice include:

• Dedicate 70% of your profile to writing about yourself and 30% to writing about what you’re looking for in a partner. “Studies have shown that profiles with this balance receive the most replies because people have more confidence to drop you a line,” writes van Tulleken.
• Women are more attracted to men who demonstrate bravery, courage, and the willingness to take risks than they are to men who show altruism and kindness.
• Humor is highly attractive, but only if you go about it the right way. Although it’s easier said than done, the best way to make people think you’re funny is to show them, not tell them.
• Choose a username that starts with a higher letter in the alphabet. “People seem to subconsciously match earlier initials with academic and professional success,” van Tulleken explains.

With your profile optimized, it’s time to decide who you’ll go on a date with. Mathematician Hannah Fry suggests employing the Optimal Stopping Theory, a method that helps you choose the best option when sifting through many possibilities one after another. According to an algorithm devised by mathematicians, your chances of selecting the best date are highest if you reject the first 37% of potential partners.

“The maths of this is spectacularly complicated, but we've probably evolved to apply a similar kind of principle ourselves,” writes van Tulleken. “Have fun and learn things with roughly the first third of the potential relationships you could ever embark on. Then, when you have a fairly good idea of what's out there and what you're after, settle down with the next best person to come along.”

After a few dates with someone special, science can determine whether it’s love or just like. During an MRI, the brain of a person who’s in love will be activated in a region called the ventral tegmental area - a key part of the brain’s pleasure and reward circuit. At the same time, the scan will reveal a deactivation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which controls logical reasoning. No wonder we call people “fools in love.”

Of course, feeling the emotion doesn’t guarantee a successful relationship, as Dr. Helen Fisher is quick to note. Science can give you a headstart in finding love but the rest is up to you.

If you’re single and own a smartphone, chances are you’ve downloaded a dating app.

Many people try at least one or two apps, swipe and message for a few weeks, and then quit in frustration because they don’t get many matches, their messages go unanswered, or they never actually get a real date out of it.

Instead of going into app dating full force with no results, it’s better to keep a steady momentum and a few things in mind for successful swiping. Following are some tips to get your dating app game in shape:

Be respectful all the time.

It’s important to remember that even though you might be a great catch, people on dating apps are strangers who don’t know you. They don’t know your sense of humor, your background, or your close friends, so they have to take what you say at face value. So don’t start out being presumptuous – save the overt flirting, gross jokes, or sexual references for a more appropriate time – like when you are dating and are aware of your attraction for one another!

A picture is worth a million words.

Dating apps have really helped those who don’t want to spend the time writing a funny, clever profile. Instead, people can look at one or two photos and swipe based on that. (Most people don’t even read the descriptions or tags on your profile unless they like your pic.) So, you have to tell a visual story. Show a photo doing something you love that will spark a conversation. Include a headshot and a body shot, with no sunglasses or hats covering your face. Remember to smile!

Don’t message endlessly.

It’s fun to get a little flirtatious banter on, but at the end of the day, what do you have to show for it if you haven’t met in person? Instead of endlessly messaging, be bold and ask your matches out sooner rather than later – it doesn’t matter if you’re the guy or the girl. Ask, meet, and then see if there’s a spark.

Don’t swipe right on everyone.

Guys have a tendency to play the dating app game – swipe right on everyone and see who matches back with you. This is a bad strategy for many reasons, but most of all, because you’ll look like a robot to the app, and greatly reduce your swiping options. Instead, be a little more discriminate.

Check in during peak hours.

The best time to log in to your dating app is 6:00 in the evening, according to Bumble founder Whitney Wolfe. Checking in daily is a good idea, especially around happy hour time. But also make sure to log in on Sunday, which studies have shown to be the busiest day for online dating in general. People are ready to make plans, so get on it!

The search for love sometimes feels like a roller coaster – exciting highs when you meet someone you click with, or lows when it doesn’t work out.

With online dating, the highs and lows can be much more intense because you are meeting more people than you would in normal, every day interactions. Online dating gives us a heightened sense of possibility, so we are constantly searching, interacting, assessing and then moving on. We get impatient and frustrated when we think it’s taking too long, or when we aren't meeting anyone who sparks chemistry in us. As I state in my book Date Expectations, we are moving on constantly, dating in quick succession and then throwing our hands up in frustration - a vicious cycle.

Instead of repeating this same non-productive cycle, it’s time to develop some online dating coping strategies. Following are some suggestions:

Don’t be reactive. It’s tempting (and easy) to go on a few bad or boring dates and complain to your friends, or delete those dating apps in frustration. Instead of reacting to circumstances, it’s important to take a step back, regroup, and try again with a fresh perspective. If you are really feeling down, take a break from dating and come back to it when you’re ready to connect again. Otherwise you’ll be spinning your wheels.

Resist making generalizations. You might have had several bad dates in a row, but that doesn’t mean all men or women are terrible. It’s important to look at the big picture. You have men or women in your own life who you love, admire and respect. They are out there – the key is to move past your bad experiences and still keep an open mind. Remember: you attract people with the same energy/ outlook that you have.

Be gentle with yourself and others. Sometimes we get lost in judgment – of ourselves, or our dates. Instead of looking for things that are wrong, or punishing ourselves for the mistakes we’ve made, it’s time to take a new approach. Mistakes show you that you can do things differently – they are a blessing. Take an evening off of judging your next date, or yourself, and see how you feel by the end of the night.

Spend time doing something you love. Everyone needs a recharge when they are dating. Spending free time doing something you love is a great coping mechanism, because it gives you a new outlook. It’s hard to cultivate joy and excitement for a date unless you do things that bring you joy and excitement.

Practice patience. Easier said than done, I know. But this is essential for dating. Without patience, you will find yourself settling for someone who’s not right for you, or giving up on relationships before you get to experience someone great. Take your time, trust in the process, and just breathe. When you slow down, step back, and take the pressure off of yourself and others, you’ll see there’s more room for fun, for connection. And possibly for love.

“If music be the food of love, play on,” Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night. There’s no denying the power of a good tune when it comes to seduction, but a study by Match.com has found that the words of the Bard are alluring in their own right.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, the online dating service scoured its database for mentions of the wordsmith. “For four centuries,” writes the Match blog, “Shakespeare has been regarded as the greatest writer and poet in the English language; his sonnets and plays have captured the hearts of millions.”

It turns out, they’ve also captured plenty of hearts on Match.com. Mentioning Shakespeare in your profile increases your chances of success on the site, especially if you’re male. Men who name-dropped the Elizabethan playwright were 27% more likely to receive a response from women. Maybe it’s because 30% of women on the service describe themselves as "literary."

Match also found that singles in certain cities were more likely to mention Shakespeare than others. America’s biggest fans of Billy Shakes aren’t in New York, San Francisco, or the country’s other cultural hubs. They’re not even in locations known for their Shakespeare festivals, like Ashland, Oregon. Believe it or not, the Hamlet scribe was mentioned most by Match users in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Boise, Idaho and Montgomery, Alabama followed.

For bibliophiles who aren’t obsessed with the Bard, Match compiled a list of states rated by how many of its users selected reading as an interest and listed the last book they read in their profile. The top 10 cities with literary users include Boston, Austin, Minneapolis, Seattle, and Ann Arbor, Michigan. Denver and Madison came in at numbers 3 and 2, respectively. And finally, the literary crown was secured by… drum roll please... none other than Fort Collins, Colorado.

Match.com even recommended a few choice Shakespeare quotes for those who are looking to up their dating game. Their favorites are:

• “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is wing’d cupid painted blind.”
• “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate.”
• “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet.”

If your profile is in need of a spring cleaning, consider adding a bit of the Bard’s magic to spruce it up. But if you plan to take a cue from his famous romances, be sure it’s one of the comedies. We all know how Romeo and Juliet turned out.

Online dating is more popular than ever thanks to dating apps like Tinder. Forget those long profiles written on your laptop, scrolling through matches in the privacy of your home. Now, online dating is a social event – you can swipe while you have drinks at the bar with your friend!

Online dating has become the go-to method for most singles looking for love, but that doesn’t mean people are getting the hang of it. In fact, dating apps have inspired more people to try online dating – but they might not be so successful in getting dates.

Here’s where hacks can be helpful in making your whole experience more successful:

Be active. Don’t just swipe once a week, or message only occasionally. In order to get more matches, you have to show that you are involved. Check in at least once a day, and start swiping and messaging. You will notice that your match list increases, too – when you are more active, you are presented with other more active members. The reverse is true for those who aren’t actively swiping.

Be discerning, but not too much. There is a trend among men of swiping right on every profile, because they hope to increase their opportunities. This isn’t so effective, because there are plenty of apps that do the mass swiping for you – which are recognized as bots. When you act like a bot, you get fewer matches. The reverse is true too – if you are too picky and swipe left way more often than right, you lessen your choices. (Remember, other users are swiping left, too.) Keep an open mind, with some boundaries.

Choose photos wisely. Don’t choose a bunch of group photos, or pictures of you in hats or sunglasses. Include some body shots and headshots without props, so your matches know what you look like. Also, think of photos as conversation starters – post a couple of you playing guitar or hiking in the woods so your dates get an idea of what you like without having to read the profile (which they might not even do unless they like the photos). And it’s a good idea to smile.

No endless messaging. Many dating app users make a mistake of messaging back and forth and creating an emotional connection online before meeting in person. What happens if there is no spark when you are sitting across from each other? Instead of investing in the online communication, try to get to the date sooner, so you can see if you click in real life. Remember, the dating app is only a tool to meet people – the rest is up to you.

"There are a lot of theories out there about how online dating is bad for us," Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford who has been conducting a long-running study of online dating, told The Washington Post. "And mostly they're pretty unfounded."

From its earliest days, online dating has faced harsh criticism. Some doubted its efficacy. Others accused it of being a last-ditch effort of the desperate. These days we’ve moved on from those denunciations, but online dating is still not without its detractors. In 2016 critics are more likely to say it encourages promiscuity or has contributed to the spread of STDs.

But what if they’ve been wrong all along?

Rosenfeld, who has followed the dating lives of more than 3,000 people during his career, has gleaned many insights about our new, tech-savvy approach to pairing off. Roberto A. Ferdman spoke with Rosenfeld about his research for The Washington Post. Below are a few highlights from the interview:

• On how online dating has changed the way we date: “The rise of phone apps and online dating websites gives people access to more potential partners than they could meet at work or in the neighborhood. It makes it easier for someone who is looking for something very specific in a partner to find what they are looking for.”
• On skepticism: “The worry about online dating comes from theories about how too much choice might be bad for you. The idea is that if you’re faced with too many options you will find it harder to pick one, that too much choice is demotivating.”
• On the skepticism’s validity: “I actually don’t see in my data any negative repercussions for people who meet partners online…. There’s no obvious pattern by which people who meet online are worse off. And, conversely, online dating has real benefits.”
• On marriage: “One of the things I have found out as part of my research is that people who meet online actually progress to marriage faster than people who meet offline…. I think that’s because online you do this big, calculated search for your soul mate, and find someone else who agrees and then transition to marriage much more quickly.”

Not only has Rosenfeld’s research led him to believe that criticisms of online dating are largely unfounded, he also believes that online dating has had beneficial effects.

“The need for love, romance, relationships and sex — these are pretty basic human needs,” he says. “And the ability to match people who would have otherwise not found each other is a powerful outcome of the new technology.” In other words, online dating has opened up new pathways to love and happiness for millions of people around the world - and it's hard to find fault with that.

Read the full interview at The Washington Post.