The Great Age Experiment: Week 2 Update

Part of an ongoing series, in which your intrepid correspondent offers herself as a guinea pig in an admittedly not-very scientific online dating experiment to determine, once and for all, whether a younger age on her profile will result in greater response to said profile.

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Week 2 Update

(Click here to read parts one and two in this series.)

A brief debrief this week. Another 7 days on Match.com and AFF, and as expected, the "fresh blood" effect has cooled a bit. No new emails or winks on Match, and your correspondent has been un-hotlisted by one admirer, thereby bringing the hotlist number down by one.

Fresh blood is less of an issue on AFF, where the views and emails continue unabated. (1,826 views and 45 flirts [or technically: hugs/kisses/smiles/spanks/waves/winks] in the past week alone.) The charms of the unclothed feminine form seem never to grow tiresome. Though of course the "quality" of the responses is less than marginal (unless your correspondent were simply looking for "1on1" or someone who is "more than GOOD size DOWN THERE").

The slow-down is only to be expected. After many go-rounds online in the past decade, your correspondent has learned from experience that the shelf life of a new profile is, in fact, just about one week. A new pic and new copy might draw in some new searchers, but this is science, people, and we mustn't mess with the experiment.

(Plus your correspondent is busy with other things and doesn't actually care at the moment if she goes on any dates or not. Which is just as well, it appears.)

The results

At just shy of the half-way point, our 30-day experiment is so far showing a statistically negligible* difference in overall responses to the different aged profiles. Don't crack open the champagne yet, but for you 40-somethings, it's looking like your complaints that your advanced age is the reason why you're not getting any dates is just not cutting it.

Hmnh.

And again, if you're looking for quantity (if not quality), you may want to check out some other venues.

Another 16 days to go. Watch for another report in about a week.

Results (Age posted on profile) Time period of data collection	match.com (43) 30 days	match.com (36) 2 weeks	aff.com (43) 2 weeks
emails received	8-10(?)	5 (plus 1 more from a winker you was then sent a "thanks for the wink" email)	63 (24 in the past week)
emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting	2 (One of which was from a guy who'd gone out with your correspondent a few years ago)	2	1** **(Your correspondent did receive 2 additional emails that warranted replies for the sole purpose of lively, intellectual conversation. Seriously.)
winks/flirts received	8-10(?)	8	91 (45 in the past week)
favorited/hotlisted	unknown	5 (down 1 from last week; un-hotlisted!)	78 (25 in the past week)
views	418	162 (only 40 more views since last week)	3,301 (1,826 in the past week) (16,363 total views since 7/29/2008, though the profile has only been active less than 6 months during that time)

*Your correspondent doesn't actually know if it's statistically negligible or not, she just likes saying "statistically negligible."

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