The Great Age Experiment: Week 4
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 4 Update
(Click here to read parts one, two, three and four in this series.)
For four weeks now your correspondent has braved the match.com trenches with a false age on her profile and posted the results. She'll admit, it was kind of fun at first, but honestly, it's getting rather boring.
Here's the scoop: 7 years' age difference did not increase the number of responses (contrary to the prelimary hypothesis), and in fact, the number of profile views is at this point exactly half the number of views of the actual-age match.com profile during the same time span.
The number of match.com emails from guys who might possibly be worthy of a meeting was exactly the same: 2. So in fact, the ratio of quality men to responses did improve, though the actual number of responses dropped in half.
Granted, the "fresh meat" factor may have contributed to the higher response rate in the previous month, when your correspondent's profile first went up (with her actual age). (Online daters tend to flock to new profiles like flies to honey, whereas they avoid older ones as if they were milk cartons past their pull date.) A new experiment would be required to test if the "fresh meat" theory actually made a difference in this case, but your correspondent is frankly sick and tired of this particular experiment, and is looking forward to being her actual age again.
(In other words, if you want to test the theory yourself, run your own damn experiment.)
The not-so scientific summary of the data
Totally unscientific lessons learned from this experiment:
- If you're interested in quantity of profile views, winks, hotlists and emails, a tasteful black and white nude art photo on AFF will net dramatically better results than an attractive face pic on match.com
- If you're interested in the quality of responses, match.com will return a higher ratio than AFF (duh)
- If you're interested in pure (though admittedly raunchy) entertainment value, and you don't mind unsolicited pee-pee pics and tasteless, frequently illiterate replies, AFF is the way to go
- For all intents and purposes, it sure as hell looks like 7 years doesn't make a damn bit of positive difference in terms of response rate. (At age 43, at least.)
In other words, ladies, stop whining that it's your age, and get up on AFF if you want a flood of email in your box.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's time to take down this stale profile, make some edits, and put it back up in a few weeks to take advantage of the "fresh meat" factor once again.
Over and out.
| Results (Age posted on profile) Time period of data collection |
match.com (43) 30 days |
match.com (36) 4 weeks |
aff.com (43) 4 weeks |
| emails received | 8-10(?) | 6 (plus 1 more from a winker who was then sent a "thanks for the wink" email) |
84 |
| 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(?) | 7 | 126 |
| favorited/hotlisted | unknown | 5 (hotlisted by a new guy, unhotlisted by another, for a total change of 0 this past week) |
99 |
| views | 418 | 209 | 5,329 (1,826 in the past week) (18,599 total views since 7/29/2008, though the profile has only been active less than 7 months during that time) |
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
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.
--
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."
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
Tip for Saving 50% on Match.com
Here's a sweet little deal for getting 4 months of match.com for the price of two.
How? Sign up for one month on match.com. Then, before your subscription automatically renews, go into your account to cancel it.
You'll be taken to a page that looks like this:
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||||||||||||||||||||||
Check off "I can't afford a subscription right now."
Then click either answer to the next question that appears.
You'll now be given the option of continuing with your cancellation, or signing up for three more months at the one month price ($34.99 at the time of this writing).
Voilá! You just got yourself 4 months of match.com for the price of two – a 50% savings.
© 2010, The Dating Queen. All rights reserved. Please provide link back to original post.
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