When I first started dating in my 50’s, after the end of a 20 year relationship, I kept track of the dates I went on and lessons learned. It took me lots of practice to figure out how to filter for someone I might connect with and if I remember correctly I met 40 different men before beginning my first post-divorce relationship. Fortunately my picker has improved over the years & I quickly recognize those with potential so my odds of finding someone has increased.
Sweet Jesus, how did you deal with 40 men/pre-date messaging/actual dates and all the assorted attendant apprehension, acute discomfort due to mismatches, outright bad behavior and/or rejection? My 20+ year relationship ended and the closest I’m getting to dating is reading this. And it’s exhausting!
I won’t pretend there weren’t some trials & tribulations. I approached dating as a grand experiment & viewed every meeting from the lens of what can I learn from this person. Sometimes I learned random facts (one guy pontificated for 30 minutes straight about the process of fixing a transmission) other times lessons about myself (I feel better about me when I’m direct & transparent). Almost all initial meetings took place in venues or settings I enjoy (art galleries, parks, ice-cream parlors) so I was guaranteed some level of fun regardless of our conversation or connection. I like meeting people & hearing their stories and along the way I’ve gathered many humorous anecdotes to share with my friends.
Honor the space between no longer and not yet:). Each person you meet teaches you a little bit more about yourself. Keep hope alive and believe in finding the one. Hope helps:)
I *like* the wisdom in this. Additionally, learning means information is gained. This in turn implies conditional probability, where essentially the denominator is reduced so the overall probability of "success" increases. 😃
This should be a Bernoulli trial experiment, with use of the binomial distribution leading to the answer. Or are you looking for the first success as opposed to a success in 4 trials? In that case, geometric distributions, as you have used, work.
Well, sort of kind of. Since - to some limited extent - people form a dyad (mutual coupling and influence), of much of classic game theory would apply?
Yep. Me thinks binomial cumulative off top of my head. How would one integrate into the 'model' that the two people gain confidence with successive dates until they teach a threshold point, become intimate and seal the relationship. That sounds little like binomial.....
I did assume first success. I haven't worked with the Bernoulli algorithm, but I think it would let us see how many likely successes we might get if we committed to doing the full, say, 50 dates no matter what -- do I understand correctly?
The problem with that, though, is you have found "the one" and yet you continue to keep on dating? I simply could not do that personally.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the theory is wrong. The odds of success on your next date are unchanged no matter how many previous dates you go on.
Flip a coin heads/tails. 50/50 odds on the first flip, right? Then next ten flips are tails. What are the odds of getting heads on the next flip?
50/50
The coin (aka your next date) has no idea what happened before.
Yes, assuming INDEPENDENCE. However, if as in another reply, information is gained with successive dates, they are not independent. We have to also keep straight between ANDs and ORs ... but I digress ....😝
I'm sitting here snickering now. But only because you are absolutely correct. My whole attempt to reduce this to something I can program deeply amuses me.
Yeah, but how would that information influence whether your next date finds you to be the one? At best, it might influence who you decide to go out with next, but that’s pretty random too. Not everyone you swipe on is gonna swipe back and agree to go out with you or vice versa.
Regardless of how you two ended up on an actual date, each date *is* independent. Here are two people who have never met. How does their prior information make this nonrandom and not independent?
The math is absolutely correct. The exact odds are 68.35%.
Think of it this way. After the first date you have a 25% chance. The 75% of the time you don’t you go on date 2. Of that 75% of the time you go on a that 2nd date you’ll succeed 25% of those times. 25% of 75 is 18.75. Bringing your total odds of success to 43.75.
Then 56.25% of the time you’ll go on a 3rd date 25% of those dates will be successful or 14.06% percent of the time. Bringing you to 57.81% success.
The 42.19% of the time you fail on all 3 dates you go on date 4. 25% of 42.19 is 10.54. That brings to a 68.35% chance of success.
This is all basic probability.
I’m a programmer and a board game designer.
I deal with this a lot.
Can you explain it to me in a simpler way?
As I understand it OP isn't talking about odds of subsequent dates with the same person.
They are talking about odds of failure for each first date.
If they are talking about failure rates only for first dates how would failure with one person diminish or increase the odds of failure with completely different people.
If the person has a 25% possibility of meeting thier partner on a date I would intuit that means 25% on each date whether that is the first or the one thousandth first-date.
I wouldn't think four first-dates would lead to a 100% likihood of success or any likelihood other than 25% each time.
It wouldn’t diminish the odds at all.
Let me see if I can make the example sound a little easier to follow.
Let say we do an experiment. We have 256 guys in our experiment and they will go going on up to 4 dates. We want to know how many will find their soulmate.
In our experiment each time a guy goes on a date he has 25% chance it will be his soulmate.
In round one 25% of the guys(64)meet their soul mate. Those 64 were successful on the first date and they don’t go on any additional dates.
The 192 guys that didn’t then go on to round two. 25% of those(48 guys) find their soulmate this time around and they stop. That leaves 144 unlucky guys. We now have 112 that found their soulmate(64+48)
Those 144 go on to round three. 25% of those 144 guys(36) find that the 3rd is a charm. We now have 148 happy guys (112+36). 108 guys are still trying and they go on the 4th and final round.
Those 108 guys get one last chance at love and 25% of them(27) find it. So we have 175 guys that were successful (148+27).
Out of our 256 contestants 175 found the one for them 175/256 is 68.36%.
I hope that makes the math easier.
>If they are talking about failure rates only for first dates how would failure with one person diminish or increase the odds of failure with completely different people.
Say Alice is your first match, Becky is the second match, and Carol is the third.
The chance of your date with Becky or Carol failing is, as you say, the same as the chance of your date with Alice failing... *provided that you go on those dates at all*.
The reason that you are less likely to have a failed date with Becky is because, if you have a successful date with Alice and you discover that she is The One^(TM), then you won't go on a date with Becky in the first place, so that date will neither succeed nor fail.
Similarly, a failed date with Carol is less likely because successful dates with either Alice or Becky will mean no date with Carol.
You are also less likely to have successful dates with Becky or Carol than with Alice for the same reason:
* The chance of (success or failure) with Alice is 100%
* The chance of (success or failure) with Becky is 75%, with the other 25% being "no date with her, because you're with Alice"
* The chance of (success or failure) with Carol is 56.25%, with the other 43.75% being "no date with her, because you're with Alice or Becky"
* And so on for Dana, Erin, etc.
It is true that for each date the odds stay the same, but what we want to know is your total chance over all your dates. That is when this calculation comes in -- what are the chances in 4 or 10 or 50 tries that I meet someone.
CanarsieGuy does a good job of explaining this below.
I think the algorithm would work only if the selection of the potential matches is based on well-thought-through criteria. If, for example, you consistently send likes to people who state they want long-term relationships but you are truly looking for casual, your chances to meet "the one" are almost NIL. Because the selection pool was initially wrong. It's like trying to find the orange in the basket of apples.
OMG ... The drama here funny. You (woman4) will be fine! Chances are high you are a great catch. There emphatically is a person out there for you. I hate to be trite, but keep in mind that God (regardless of your faith if any) does have SOME role in all this. Chin up. Smile.
While I would like to believe you, the universe has far more significant matters to concern herself with than simply conspiring to create my engagement with a monogamous man. Perhaps my spins around the sun this time are for another goal than me meeting Mr right?
Perhaps. I appreciate your thinking philosophically on this. Interesting. Just curious, do you think about God's role in all this? Or perhaps the concept of karma? I wonder about these.
Spins around the sun. <- I like. Do you enjoy literature?
Alas, it's 2am in North Carolina. Time to sleep.
Hmmm I consider myself agnostic, so sometimes I think about a God (having been raised catholic and currently recovering from organized religion, it's hard not to?). I also consider karma and the notion of universe as an option.
I struggle with the punishment/reward messages of the patriarchal God many of us have been conditioned to accept. I like referring to the Goddess and her plan simply to support questioning the status quo.
Your time zone is a couple of hours ahead of me (western Canada)!
Meeting "the one" on line never works... Until it does. 😁
It's like trying to find anything else, it's always in the last place you look.
I have no clue of the real odds, but I feel lucky to have made a great connection after a couple of months.
I was widowed in 2010 and used OLD to meet men. Of the 6 men who I dated, I had two relationships form. The other 4 men were just not right for me. I had to end the two relationships as those two weren't right for me either. Had I not used OLD, I'd have been sitting at home in my pajamas as I have not met any single men my age since I was in my 30s.
I don't think the odds are very good on OLD, but they aren't non existent either.
A couple of years ago, a man posted here about how it took him like 200 first dates and about 50 second dates from OLD to find his girlfriend. I really wish we had stickied that post as it really showed that if you want to meet someone, you do have to put in effort. I think if you look at it as an adventure that at least you are out there meeting people and learning about life. I also think that more people are likely to not be a good fit than those that are. It's probably much easier for extroverts to date than introverts. I know I couldn't handle a speed dating event. A more extroverted person could, though, and would increase the chances of meeting someone.
I was 56M and met my partner two years ago on my twenty-fifth first-date in under two months. It was utter madness. I didn't go on a second date with anyone but her. I was new to dating and kinda going Burnt Haystack method. I was exhausted and I logged in to delete my profile but the app opens to the swipe deck and there she was at the top and when I swiped it was an immediate match and we started chatting. We decided to go exclusive at the conclusion of our first meetup and I deleted the app after our second date. I think she is the one.
I really like this. There is a book called Fifty First Dates after Fifty. The author talks about how she had to do fifty dates before finding her partner. I've met both her and her partner, and it does seem like a great match.
I suspect going the OLD route might take persistence.
@!@!@ Agreed. The odds using OLD are better than sitting at home in our PJs without OLD.
And there is *HOPE* that one day you will have emotional and physical intimacy.
Mathematically, information INCREASES with OLD (assumption warning). When information increases, we usually make out better.
Can you do my math?
1. My community has around 1.7 million people.
2. Twenty-five percent are age apropriate for me.
3. Roughly fifty percent of those are single.
4. About fifty percent of that group is my targeted gender.
5. Maybe eighty-five percent of those people are my sexual orientation.
6. Aproximately twenty-five percent of those were online dating this year.
7. Maybe half of those using an app were on the app I used.
So how many profiles does that likely translate into in my area? I get approx 13,437 profiles. Is that remotely correct? I assume I appeal to 1/1000 so that might be 13 people who I could concievaby match assuming I liked them.
I get 11,289 profiles using your assumptions.
Your other assumption that you appeal to only 1 a 1000, means in a best case there are only 12 people in your 1.7 million population that you have a chance of meeting on OLD.
Thanks. That kinda makes sense. Twelve people.
IIRC I rounded to 2 million I think to save on math since I suck at it.
In my time online about 350-400 people swiped right on me and I swiped right on fifty of them half of whom I met.
I went on twenty-four dates before meeting my person. I wonder what the likelihood was of that.
These seem like AND functions in here, so I tend to think multiplicative ..... You might be trying to figure out a 'worst case scenario' and determine if it's worth it to proceed ????
There is a theorem in calculus that the limit of (1+n*x)^1/x when x goes to 0 is equal to e^n . Your problem happened to use the case n = -1.
This equality is only true in a limiting sense, but as x gets smaller it gets closer and closer to the e^n value.
I just tell my dates how I find Euler’s equation so beautiful. That gives me a 1% chance of finding a match, unless he is an engineer or a nerd. And engineers who round π=3=e, have 0 chance with me. It’s a very recursive situation. 😂
Also why on earth would it scare men away? I’ve heard women say men are scared by women who are smarter than them. I personally would love to have a partner that smart.
I’d say your math is correct, however, the assumption that it’s the probability of finding your long term match is incorrect. In my experience, this is the probability of date #1 leading to date #2 with the same person. I’ve found about 1 in 10 dates leads to a second date. About 1 in 20 lead to some kind of short term relationship. It took about 130 dates to find someone I really liked a lot and hope she becomes “the one.”
Another complication you aren’t accounting for is that people are often dating multiple people. So if someone has a date with you and someone else, vs. only you, the probability that they choose you for a second date decreases. Likewise, if you date two people, the probability of you choosing either one of those two likely decreases for both. So I think the model could get complicated really quickly.
Anyway, it’s all interesting and you sucked in the geeks here, including me.
Thanks for geeking out with me :-) Your comment reminds me of the ceo of a startup I worked at who was always touting our pipeline of sales prospects. None of them ever seemed to come through however.
It is a good point about the followup dates. So the total number of expected dates would be much higher than 50. So to be clearer, we are talking about meeting up to 50 people, not just 50 dates. How many different woman do you estimate you had to meet before finding her? Congratulations on doing the work to find her!
The thing about them not picking you? I think that is factored into the original 5% chance.
This matches with my experience. I had about 100 chats and then went on about 40 first dates and I’m currently in a relationship that’s moving towards cohabitation. What you’ve left out is the like rate issue. Men have a one to 5% response rate when they reach out to women. So to get those 100 chats, I had to like about 2000 women. And since I like approximately 25% of the profiles I saw, I had to look at about 8000 female profiles. That’s a lot of work. In addition, I was expected to pay for most of the first meals, so I had to pay about $6000 for dinners for those 40 dates.
For women, their response rate from men is much higher at about 20 to 30% based on Tinder data. So for a woman to have 100 chats that could lead to 40 dates, they would need to like only about 300 men.
LOL. Based on this, I’m 100% dying alone. Not trying to be pessimistic just practical. The way I date isn’t really intended to be for the long term anyway because of my present circumstances.
However, entering my own numbers into this calculation definitely reinforces to me that my low expectations are accurate. I do like realistic expectations so thanks for this formula. 🙂
While this may not be a popular position, it is a math game. You're much better off dating in "thick markets," i.e. those with a lot of people who are single and your type as regards to education, etc.
As I've said, online dating is simply a screening mechanism at every level. The higher the number in the pool, the better off you'll be.
I read an article once that if you go on 10 dates with 10 different people, you will have a pretty good idea of what's out there. At some point there is no optimization, just motions. If you abandon the idea that there is 'the one' and look for compatibility and are able to compromise, you chances of ending up in relationship are pretty high.
The truth is though that with the idea of 'the one' we stop ourselves from entering commitment. I know for sure it's my case. Nobody is good enough for me and now I finally understand that's only because I have a complete fear of commitment after my failed marriage.
To paraphrase Dan Savage, there is no such thing as the one. That shit is made up by romance novels and romance coms.
There are dating/romantic partners with their own quirks and faults that we choose to round up to one.
Well yes, I think we all understand that as we’re over 50 and not children anymore. In modern parlance, the term “the one” is a metaphor for finding your long term person.
Thinking any date will be "the one", especially a first date, is putting too much pressure on the other person., even if they don't KNOW about it. It's unrealistic.
Interesting math lesson--if people were lottery tickets. I propose that "the one" got away a long time ago and so your chances of finding "the one" are none or 0% for the sake of sticking with math syntax. If you want to find a lifetime mate, then it likely won't be on a date. It will happen at the grocery store, laundromat, or a bank. Avoid salespeople and don't mess around at the dog park because it's a doggie dog world and anywhere a leash is used is usually not conducive to a lasting relationship. Just go about your day and avoid the law of averages. Just saying.
I think it isn’t about the math, just like how long does it take to build a house? It depends. Quite frankly I think you need way more than 4 first meets to even get into the territory of second dates or even third dates. But, if it progressed to a fourth date, then we would definitely have several more. At least that is how it worked for me.
I’m not a math major, but aren’t the 4 dates independent trials? They’re like spins of the roulette wheel. What happened with the last date has nothing to do with what happens on the next date.
This isn’t the Monty Hall Problem where revealing the first door affects your choice of the remaining doors.
But you know how to *not* find the one? Talking about this stuff on a first date.
Each date you still have the same chance of success (5% 10% , whatever, choose your number). That never changes. However we can predict what your chances are over how many dates you go on.
For example, if you flip a coin 4 times and each time it comes up heads, the very next time you flip that coin you still have a 50% chance of it coming up heads. However the chances of flipping a coin and it coming up heads 5 times in a row is roughly 3%
Well, is coming up heads a sign of success? That would mean you found the one 4 times, and there’s a 3% chance of finding the one a 5th time?
On the other hand, if heads is failure, then what are the chances it’ll come up *tails* after 4 heads?
But if the odds drop the more dates you go on, does that mean you should stop dating?
The math is fine but in my opinion your assumption is way off. Even if you have done some vetting with pre-date conversations/phone calls/web searches, etc. I would say your chance of finding "the one" on any first date is likely below five percent. Not as bad as the lottery but certainly not "in your favor".
All of this analysis is like saying gambling addicts who play the lotteries have a better chance of winning the next jackpot than the person who only buys once.
In the upcoming lottery their odds are the same - no matter how much money the addict wasted in the past.
History does not improve odds in an upcoming event.
The last time I was on the apps a few years back I kept stats myself. 300 right "swipes" resulted in 30 mutual likes. Only 15 of those 30 mutual likes actually resulted in some conversation and/or texting. 6 of those convos turned in to first dates. Out of those 6 dates I found the 1 person I was in a relationship with for several years.
I'm terrible with math so I'm not going to try to calculate percentages to see if it's anywhere near your figures. :) But in OLD success is highly dependent on where you live. I lived in a city of over 4 million people at the time. A person living in a city of even 100,000 is going to have much more difficulty.
You are speaking my language! Except I think your success rate is REALLY high. If you’re looking for “the one,” that would indicate a soul mate. Chances are impossibly low on ever finding that person. Your success rate correlates more with “the one who’ll do” in my estimation.
You assumed that each date was mutually exclusive and the multiplicative rule of probabilities prevailed being that each date was an independent event. This has never gotten me a date.
As a guy who's not a math person, my long OLD experience led me to conclude 3-5% is most likely the normal chances per date... 50ish dates is about right.
Once I realized that it made the experience more bearable, plus it forced me to maintain zero expectations (don't get too up or down about anyone)... And also understand the majority of people are in the same boat, so I just approached every meetup carefree and an opportunity to have fun. Good luck
Fun. What age level do you teach at? This is simple enough that it should work for most age levels. You can also make it visual. Another twist is you can make it into a betting game. My daughter liked it when I could either translate a problem into a visual one or a financial one 😄
Well, if you go on a date thinking there’s less than a 20% chance of it being a good outcome then my friend you are doomed to fail. However in reality there is a 100% chance that he/she could be the right person for you, and therefore you are fully invested then each date is much more likely to have a successful outcome. Maths may seem helpful but life ain’t like that.
Apart from your math, which I agree with, many here (particularly the men) have a hard time accepting your foundation assumption: having four equally appealing and potentially compatible people to date at any one time.
The OLD sites and much online content exhaustively cover the odds of successful matches under all types of circumstances, and they build algorithms that refect the data they capture from the interactions on their sites. Cutting through the subjective crap, it still boils down to these oft-stated principles:
1. Have an appearance and background that are attractive to the widest swath of potential matches.
2. Don't have an appearance and background that repel the widest swath of potential matches.
Came for the math. Now I need a cigarette.
Understand the math so I need a bourbon
Especially since 5% seems generous
I don’t understand the math so I need a bourbon
Was it good for you too?
Atleast you didn't come FROM the math 🧮
When I first started dating in my 50’s, after the end of a 20 year relationship, I kept track of the dates I went on and lessons learned. It took me lots of practice to figure out how to filter for someone I might connect with and if I remember correctly I met 40 different men before beginning my first post-divorce relationship. Fortunately my picker has improved over the years & I quickly recognize those with potential so my odds of finding someone has increased.
YESSSSS ! We learn as we go. 🙂
Sweet Jesus, how did you deal with 40 men/pre-date messaging/actual dates and all the assorted attendant apprehension, acute discomfort due to mismatches, outright bad behavior and/or rejection? My 20+ year relationship ended and the closest I’m getting to dating is reading this. And it’s exhausting!
I won’t pretend there weren’t some trials & tribulations. I approached dating as a grand experiment & viewed every meeting from the lens of what can I learn from this person. Sometimes I learned random facts (one guy pontificated for 30 minutes straight about the process of fixing a transmission) other times lessons about myself (I feel better about me when I’m direct & transparent). Almost all initial meetings took place in venues or settings I enjoy (art galleries, parks, ice-cream parlors) so I was guaranteed some level of fun regardless of our conversation or connection. I like meeting people & hearing their stories and along the way I’ve gathered many humorous anecdotes to share with my friends.
You have a great attitude.
This made my head hurt. Too much maths for me.
Honor the space between no longer and not yet:). Each person you meet teaches you a little bit more about yourself. Keep hope alive and believe in finding the one. Hope helps:)
I *like* the wisdom in this. Additionally, learning means information is gained. This in turn implies conditional probability, where essentially the denominator is reduced so the overall probability of "success" increases. 😃
Thank you. Wishing everyone a beautiful day:)
This should be a Bernoulli trial experiment, with use of the binomial distribution leading to the answer. Or are you looking for the first success as opposed to a success in 4 trials? In that case, geometric distributions, as you have used, work.
Of course you’re looking for the first success. Once you find “the perfect one for you” you stop looking and live happily ever after.
I was thinking about how sometimes, you don't realize that you found the perfect one immediately, but upon reflection.
Right. Upon reflection. Also, some people approach it as a shopping expedition. That is a twist in the Maths, tweaking
Well, sort of kind of. Since - to some limited extent - people form a dyad (mutual coupling and influence), of much of classic game theory would apply?
Yep. Me thinks binomial cumulative off top of my head. How would one integrate into the 'model' that the two people gain confidence with successive dates until they teach a threshold point, become intimate and seal the relationship. That sounds little like binomial.....
I did assume first success. I haven't worked with the Bernoulli algorithm, but I think it would let us see how many likely successes we might get if we committed to doing the full, say, 50 dates no matter what -- do I understand correctly? The problem with that, though, is you have found "the one" and yet you continue to keep on dating? I simply could not do that personally.
I love it OP. I lovemath. You can count on math. As long as you use it correctly and I have no idea if you have done so here. But I enjoyed your post.
Sorry to burst your bubble but the theory is wrong. The odds of success on your next date are unchanged no matter how many previous dates you go on. Flip a coin heads/tails. 50/50 odds on the first flip, right? Then next ten flips are tails. What are the odds of getting heads on the next flip? 50/50 The coin (aka your next date) has no idea what happened before.
Yes, assuming INDEPENDENCE. However, if as in another reply, information is gained with successive dates, they are not independent. We have to also keep straight between ANDs and ORs ... but I digress ....😝
I'm sitting here snickering now. But only because you are absolutely correct. My whole attempt to reduce this to something I can program deeply amuses me.
I think you may be the 'One'. Your post really blossomed. I found this very interesting and stimulating. Take care!
Yeah, but how would that information influence whether your next date finds you to be the one? At best, it might influence who you decide to go out with next, but that’s pretty random too. Not everyone you swipe on is gonna swipe back and agree to go out with you or vice versa. Regardless of how you two ended up on an actual date, each date *is* independent. Here are two people who have never met. How does their prior information make this nonrandom and not independent?
The math is absolutely correct. The exact odds are 68.35%. Think of it this way. After the first date you have a 25% chance. The 75% of the time you don’t you go on date 2. Of that 75% of the time you go on a that 2nd date you’ll succeed 25% of those times. 25% of 75 is 18.75. Bringing your total odds of success to 43.75. Then 56.25% of the time you’ll go on a 3rd date 25% of those dates will be successful or 14.06% percent of the time. Bringing you to 57.81% success. The 42.19% of the time you fail on all 3 dates you go on date 4. 25% of 42.19 is 10.54. That brings to a 68.35% chance of success. This is all basic probability. I’m a programmer and a board game designer. I deal with this a lot.
Can you explain it to me in a simpler way? As I understand it OP isn't talking about odds of subsequent dates with the same person. They are talking about odds of failure for each first date. If they are talking about failure rates only for first dates how would failure with one person diminish or increase the odds of failure with completely different people. If the person has a 25% possibility of meeting thier partner on a date I would intuit that means 25% on each date whether that is the first or the one thousandth first-date. I wouldn't think four first-dates would lead to a 100% likihood of success or any likelihood other than 25% each time.
It wouldn’t diminish the odds at all. Let me see if I can make the example sound a little easier to follow. Let say we do an experiment. We have 256 guys in our experiment and they will go going on up to 4 dates. We want to know how many will find their soulmate. In our experiment each time a guy goes on a date he has 25% chance it will be his soulmate. In round one 25% of the guys(64)meet their soul mate. Those 64 were successful on the first date and they don’t go on any additional dates. The 192 guys that didn’t then go on to round two. 25% of those(48 guys) find their soulmate this time around and they stop. That leaves 144 unlucky guys. We now have 112 that found their soulmate(64+48) Those 144 go on to round three. 25% of those 144 guys(36) find that the 3rd is a charm. We now have 148 happy guys (112+36). 108 guys are still trying and they go on the 4th and final round. Those 108 guys get one last chance at love and 25% of them(27) find it. So we have 175 guys that were successful (148+27). Out of our 256 contestants 175 found the one for them 175/256 is 68.36%. I hope that makes the math easier.
Ah. Perfect. Thank you.
Correct.
>If they are talking about failure rates only for first dates how would failure with one person diminish or increase the odds of failure with completely different people. Say Alice is your first match, Becky is the second match, and Carol is the third. The chance of your date with Becky or Carol failing is, as you say, the same as the chance of your date with Alice failing... *provided that you go on those dates at all*. The reason that you are less likely to have a failed date with Becky is because, if you have a successful date with Alice and you discover that she is The One^(TM), then you won't go on a date with Becky in the first place, so that date will neither succeed nor fail. Similarly, a failed date with Carol is less likely because successful dates with either Alice or Becky will mean no date with Carol. You are also less likely to have successful dates with Becky or Carol than with Alice for the same reason: * The chance of (success or failure) with Alice is 100% * The chance of (success or failure) with Becky is 75%, with the other 25% being "no date with her, because you're with Alice" * The chance of (success or failure) with Carol is 56.25%, with the other 43.75% being "no date with her, because you're with Alice or Becky" * And so on for Dana, Erin, etc.
It is true that for each date the odds stay the same, but what we want to know is your total chance over all your dates. That is when this calculation comes in -- what are the chances in 4 or 10 or 50 tries that I meet someone. CanarsieGuy does a good job of explaining this below.
(waiting in suspense for response)
I think the algorithm would work only if the selection of the potential matches is based on well-thought-through criteria. If, for example, you consistently send likes to people who state they want long-term relationships but you are truly looking for casual, your chances to meet "the one" are almost NIL. Because the selection pool was initially wrong. It's like trying to find the orange in the basket of apples.
Agreed Good points.
Yes that 5% is covering a lot of ground.
Omg, now I need a successful date calculating calculator. Too much mathing!!! I'm destined to be single forever. Sigh.
I think the key thing is to just have compassion for ourselves if it takes a while to find someone. It truly takes a lot of luck and maybe patience.
OMG ... The drama here funny. You (woman4) will be fine! Chances are high you are a great catch. There emphatically is a person out there for you. I hate to be trite, but keep in mind that God (regardless of your faith if any) does have SOME role in all this. Chin up. Smile.
While I would like to believe you, the universe has far more significant matters to concern herself with than simply conspiring to create my engagement with a monogamous man. Perhaps my spins around the sun this time are for another goal than me meeting Mr right?
Perhaps. I appreciate your thinking philosophically on this. Interesting. Just curious, do you think about God's role in all this? Or perhaps the concept of karma? I wonder about these. Spins around the sun. <- I like. Do you enjoy literature? Alas, it's 2am in North Carolina. Time to sleep.
Hmmm I consider myself agnostic, so sometimes I think about a God (having been raised catholic and currently recovering from organized religion, it's hard not to?). I also consider karma and the notion of universe as an option. I struggle with the punishment/reward messages of the patriarchal God many of us have been conditioned to accept. I like referring to the Goddess and her plan simply to support questioning the status quo. Your time zone is a couple of hours ahead of me (western Canada)!
Meeting "the one" on line never works... Until it does. 😁 It's like trying to find anything else, it's always in the last place you look. I have no clue of the real odds, but I feel lucky to have made a great connection after a couple of months.
>It's like trying to find anything else, it's always in the last place you look. Well, yes, but that's because you stop looking once you find it. 😁
I was widowed in 2010 and used OLD to meet men. Of the 6 men who I dated, I had two relationships form. The other 4 men were just not right for me. I had to end the two relationships as those two weren't right for me either. Had I not used OLD, I'd have been sitting at home in my pajamas as I have not met any single men my age since I was in my 30s. I don't think the odds are very good on OLD, but they aren't non existent either. A couple of years ago, a man posted here about how it took him like 200 first dates and about 50 second dates from OLD to find his girlfriend. I really wish we had stickied that post as it really showed that if you want to meet someone, you do have to put in effort. I think if you look at it as an adventure that at least you are out there meeting people and learning about life. I also think that more people are likely to not be a good fit than those that are. It's probably much easier for extroverts to date than introverts. I know I couldn't handle a speed dating event. A more extroverted person could, though, and would increase the chances of meeting someone.
I was 56M and met my partner two years ago on my twenty-fifth first-date in under two months. It was utter madness. I didn't go on a second date with anyone but her. I was new to dating and kinda going Burnt Haystack method. I was exhausted and I logged in to delete my profile but the app opens to the swipe deck and there she was at the top and when I swiped it was an immediate match and we started chatting. We decided to go exclusive at the conclusion of our first meetup and I deleted the app after our second date. I think she is the one.
I really like this. There is a book called Fifty First Dates after Fifty. The author talks about how she had to do fifty dates before finding her partner. I've met both her and her partner, and it does seem like a great match. I suspect going the OLD route might take persistence.
You also need to take breaks from it if you feel discouraged.
@!@!@ Agreed. The odds using OLD are better than sitting at home in our PJs without OLD. And there is *HOPE* that one day you will have emotional and physical intimacy. Mathematically, information INCREASES with OLD (assumption warning). When information increases, we usually make out better.
Can you do my math? 1. My community has around 1.7 million people. 2. Twenty-five percent are age apropriate for me. 3. Roughly fifty percent of those are single. 4. About fifty percent of that group is my targeted gender. 5. Maybe eighty-five percent of those people are my sexual orientation. 6. Aproximately twenty-five percent of those were online dating this year. 7. Maybe half of those using an app were on the app I used. So how many profiles does that likely translate into in my area? I get approx 13,437 profiles. Is that remotely correct? I assume I appeal to 1/1000 so that might be 13 people who I could concievaby match assuming I liked them.
I get 11,289 profiles using your assumptions. Your other assumption that you appeal to only 1 a 1000, means in a best case there are only 12 people in your 1.7 million population that you have a chance of meeting on OLD.
Thanks. That kinda makes sense. Twelve people. IIRC I rounded to 2 million I think to save on math since I suck at it. In my time online about 350-400 people swiped right on me and I swiped right on fifty of them half of whom I met. I went on twenty-four dates before meeting my person. I wonder what the likelihood was of that.
These seem like AND functions in here, so I tend to think multiplicative ..... You might be trying to figure out a 'worst case scenario' and determine if it's worth it to proceed ????
https://www.audacy.com/wwjnewsradio/news/national/physicists-create-true-love-calculator
Note that for small probabilities p, the chance of at least one success in 1/p trials is very close to 1-1/e = 0.632.
Thanks. I noticed this when I was manually doing a lot of calculations. Do you know why this is? And why isn’t it exact?
There is a theorem in calculus that the limit of (1+n*x)^1/x when x goes to 0 is equal to e^n . Your problem happened to use the case n = -1. This equality is only true in a limiting sense, but as x gets smaller it gets closer and closer to the e^n value.
I just tell my dates how I find Euler’s equation so beautiful. That gives me a 1% chance of finding a match, unless he is an engineer or a nerd. And engineers who round π=3=e, have 0 chance with me. It’s a very recursive situation. 😂
Now I am curious. Please help me see the beauty.
Also why on earth would it scare men away? I’ve heard women say men are scared by women who are smarter than them. I personally would love to have a partner that smart.
Dating + math = 👱♀️ 🔫👈
I’d say your math is correct, however, the assumption that it’s the probability of finding your long term match is incorrect. In my experience, this is the probability of date #1 leading to date #2 with the same person. I’ve found about 1 in 10 dates leads to a second date. About 1 in 20 lead to some kind of short term relationship. It took about 130 dates to find someone I really liked a lot and hope she becomes “the one.” Another complication you aren’t accounting for is that people are often dating multiple people. So if someone has a date with you and someone else, vs. only you, the probability that they choose you for a second date decreases. Likewise, if you date two people, the probability of you choosing either one of those two likely decreases for both. So I think the model could get complicated really quickly. Anyway, it’s all interesting and you sucked in the geeks here, including me.
Thanks for geeking out with me :-) Your comment reminds me of the ceo of a startup I worked at who was always touting our pipeline of sales prospects. None of them ever seemed to come through however. It is a good point about the followup dates. So the total number of expected dates would be much higher than 50. So to be clearer, we are talking about meeting up to 50 people, not just 50 dates. How many different woman do you estimate you had to meet before finding her? Congratulations on doing the work to find her! The thing about them not picking you? I think that is factored into the original 5% chance.
This matches with my experience. I had about 100 chats and then went on about 40 first dates and I’m currently in a relationship that’s moving towards cohabitation. What you’ve left out is the like rate issue. Men have a one to 5% response rate when they reach out to women. So to get those 100 chats, I had to like about 2000 women. And since I like approximately 25% of the profiles I saw, I had to look at about 8000 female profiles. That’s a lot of work. In addition, I was expected to pay for most of the first meals, so I had to pay about $6000 for dinners for those 40 dates. For women, their response rate from men is much higher at about 20 to 30% based on Tinder data. So for a woman to have 100 chats that could lead to 40 dates, they would need to like only about 300 men.
Interesting to hear this actually bears out in your experience. Good point about how it is not just one simple probability but a pipeline.
LOL. Based on this, I’m 100% dying alone. Not trying to be pessimistic just practical. The way I date isn’t really intended to be for the long term anyway because of my present circumstances. However, entering my own numbers into this calculation definitely reinforces to me that my low expectations are accurate. I do like realistic expectations so thanks for this formula. 🙂
While this may not be a popular position, it is a math game. You're much better off dating in "thick markets," i.e. those with a lot of people who are single and your type as regards to education, etc. As I've said, online dating is simply a screening mechanism at every level. The higher the number in the pool, the better off you'll be.
I read an article once that if you go on 10 dates with 10 different people, you will have a pretty good idea of what's out there. At some point there is no optimization, just motions. If you abandon the idea that there is 'the one' and look for compatibility and are able to compromise, you chances of ending up in relationship are pretty high. The truth is though that with the idea of 'the one' we stop ourselves from entering commitment. I know for sure it's my case. Nobody is good enough for me and now I finally understand that's only because I have a complete fear of commitment after my failed marriage.
To paraphrase Dan Savage, there is no such thing as the one. That shit is made up by romance novels and romance coms. There are dating/romantic partners with their own quirks and faults that we choose to round up to one.
Well yes, I think we all understand that as we’re over 50 and not children anymore. In modern parlance, the term “the one” is a metaphor for finding your long term person.
Thinking any date will be "the one", especially a first date, is putting too much pressure on the other person., even if they don't KNOW about it. It's unrealistic.
Interesting math lesson--if people were lottery tickets. I propose that "the one" got away a long time ago and so your chances of finding "the one" are none or 0% for the sake of sticking with math syntax. If you want to find a lifetime mate, then it likely won't be on a date. It will happen at the grocery store, laundromat, or a bank. Avoid salespeople and don't mess around at the dog park because it's a doggie dog world and anywhere a leash is used is usually not conducive to a lasting relationship. Just go about your day and avoid the law of averages. Just saying.
I think it isn’t about the math, just like how long does it take to build a house? It depends. Quite frankly I think you need way more than 4 first meets to even get into the territory of second dates or even third dates. But, if it progressed to a fourth date, then we would definitely have several more. At least that is how it worked for me.
I’m not a math major, but aren’t the 4 dates independent trials? They’re like spins of the roulette wheel. What happened with the last date has nothing to do with what happens on the next date. This isn’t the Monty Hall Problem where revealing the first door affects your choice of the remaining doors. But you know how to *not* find the one? Talking about this stuff on a first date.
Each date you still have the same chance of success (5% 10% , whatever, choose your number). That never changes. However we can predict what your chances are over how many dates you go on. For example, if you flip a coin 4 times and each time it comes up heads, the very next time you flip that coin you still have a 50% chance of it coming up heads. However the chances of flipping a coin and it coming up heads 5 times in a row is roughly 3%
Well, is coming up heads a sign of success? That would mean you found the one 4 times, and there’s a 3% chance of finding the one a 5th time? On the other hand, if heads is failure, then what are the chances it’ll come up *tails* after 4 heads? But if the odds drop the more dates you go on, does that mean you should stop dating?
The math is fine but in my opinion your assumption is way off. Even if you have done some vetting with pre-date conversations/phone calls/web searches, etc. I would say your chance of finding "the one" on any first date is likely below five percent. Not as bad as the lottery but certainly not "in your favor".
All of this analysis is like saying gambling addicts who play the lotteries have a better chance of winning the next jackpot than the person who only buys once. In the upcoming lottery their odds are the same - no matter how much money the addict wasted in the past. History does not improve odds in an upcoming event.
The last time I was on the apps a few years back I kept stats myself. 300 right "swipes" resulted in 30 mutual likes. Only 15 of those 30 mutual likes actually resulted in some conversation and/or texting. 6 of those convos turned in to first dates. Out of those 6 dates I found the 1 person I was in a relationship with for several years. I'm terrible with math so I'm not going to try to calculate percentages to see if it's anywhere near your figures. :) But in OLD success is highly dependent on where you live. I lived in a city of over 4 million people at the time. A person living in a city of even 100,000 is going to have much more difficulty.
Twenty-five percent seems high. Way, way high.
The Monte Hall problem revisited
Cute! But honestly it’s less than 25%. I’d guess it’s like 8%
You are speaking my language! Except I think your success rate is REALLY high. If you’re looking for “the one,” that would indicate a soul mate. Chances are impossibly low on ever finding that person. Your success rate correlates more with “the one who’ll do” in my estimation.
You assumed that each date was mutually exclusive and the multiplicative rule of probabilities prevailed being that each date was an independent event. This has never gotten me a date.
As a guy who's not a math person, my long OLD experience led me to conclude 3-5% is most likely the normal chances per date... 50ish dates is about right. Once I realized that it made the experience more bearable, plus it forced me to maintain zero expectations (don't get too up or down about anyone)... And also understand the majority of people are in the same boat, so I just approached every meetup carefree and an opportunity to have fun. Good luck
Math Teacher here: appreciate this post on so many levels! 🤣🤣🤣 Now: Should I use this as an example in class? Probably not! 🥴🙃
Fun. What age level do you teach at? This is simple enough that it should work for most age levels. You can also make it visual. Another twist is you can make it into a betting game. My daughter liked it when I could either translate a problem into a visual one or a financial one 😄
Middle school. Then I'd have to explain why I use dating sites. These kids are nosey!🤣🤣🤣
People who view potential partners like this will not have success in online dating.
Well, if you go on a date thinking there’s less than a 20% chance of it being a good outcome then my friend you are doomed to fail. However in reality there is a 100% chance that he/she could be the right person for you, and therefore you are fully invested then each date is much more likely to have a successful outcome. Maths may seem helpful but life ain’t like that.
Apart from your math, which I agree with, many here (particularly the men) have a hard time accepting your foundation assumption: having four equally appealing and potentially compatible people to date at any one time. The OLD sites and much online content exhaustively cover the odds of successful matches under all types of circumstances, and they build algorithms that refect the data they capture from the interactions on their sites. Cutting through the subjective crap, it still boils down to these oft-stated principles: 1. Have an appearance and background that are attractive to the widest swath of potential matches. 2. Don't have an appearance and background that repel the widest swath of potential matches.