Author: matchworthy

Romance is always in the air. All it needs is a situation that brings them… face-to-face. They went to the same school. He was three years her senior. She was a prefect and he a nobody. They never interacted. Years later, they rediscovered each other on Facebook. And connected. A couple of years later, they met at the school reunion. They made polite conversation and exchanged mobile numbers. They continued to chat. Then, met over coffee. Next, his parents arrived at her house with a proposal. They’ve been married for 8 years now. They were neighbors. Lived a block away from each other. It began as a mutual crush but soon turned into a serious relationship. It remained a secret from their respective parents though all and sundry in the neighborhood knew about their relationship. When their parents learned about it, it turned ugly. They were forbidden to meet each other. Undeterred, they married. Secretly. And turned up at his parent’s house in their wedding attire. After much theatrics, all was forgiven. They remarried in a grand ceremony a week later. He joined one of India’s most prestigious colleges in Delhi for his under-graduation. She finished her school at her state’s best-known institute. She applied to several colleges in Delhi for admission and got through to the one she wished to. But her father wasn’t satisfied. He asked her, “Is this the best college for this course?” “No,” she said. And told him the name of the best. Her father insisted she try that college. The college offered her admission. They ended up in the same undergraduate program. 6 years later they were husband and wife. They met at one of the world’s best-known companies in Gurgaon. They worked the same shift. She took up the job as she didn’t want to study further. He chose to work as he wanted to ‘wet his feet’ before applying for an MBA program. They happened to be in the same cab that dropped them home early morning. Sparks flew between them. Soon they were in love. They informed their parents. And within months, they were married. His uncle was a senior officer in a government organization. The organization’s director was from the same community as them. When his uncle learned that the director was looking for a suitable groom for his 23-year-old daughter, he proposed his nephew’s name as a prospective match. The parents met. Shortly he was invited by the girl’s family for high tea. He and the prospective bride stepped out for a tete-e-tete. Upon return, they announced their decision to marry. They were engaged. Over the following weeks, they dated, while their families made wedding arrangements. He lived in Bombay and she in Delhi. He responded to a matrimonial advertisement placed by her brother. Her brother met him and approved of him. Then they met a couple of times. They liked each other and decided to tie the knot. In modern times this would be called ‘dating’, and the matrimonial ad the dating platform. Romantic partners also meet each other accidentally. In flight, during a train journey, a chance meeting at a conference or a party, or as a business associate–client, vendor, or consultant. Though chances of such happy ‘accidents’ turning into lasting relationships are low, it happens all the time in movies. Both Hollywood and Bollywood have romanticized them sine fine. It makes for an exciting plot, offering creative freedom to the filmmakers. No wonder everyone’s secret fantasy is to meet their romantic partner accidentally! A few even do. And have a happy ending. *** Sometime around 2012-13, how romantic partners meet began to change. Driving the change was new social media called dating platforms. They opened a world of choices for everyone. Dating apps went a step further than social media, letting strangers connect with each other with an intent to date. On the other end of the spectrum, the online matrimony platforms replaced matrimonial ads. Matrimony platforms cater to those looking for someone to marry. Both dating and matrimony platforms have expanded the choices – for prospective partners and their families. According to a Stanford study in 2017, 4 out of 10 people met their romantic partners through an online dating platform (see the chart below). Meeting organically – incidents quoted earlier – have rapidly declined. The numbers are overwhelmingly in favor of online dating platforms now. Has it led to better discoveries? More important, to more long-lasting, happierrelationships? According to a survey of singles between the age group 21 and 40, published in The Times of India in 2022, 78% of users said they used dating apps regularly. 37% indicated they go on one new date or at least a few video calls or multiple chats with new people on dating apps. 28% said dating apps left them more frustrated with their love lives than hopeful. The constant need to appear more desirable and more captivating made them feel drained. 41% even confessed to lying to try and appear more appealing and likable. However, 29% of daters aged over 35 say that dating apps are perfect for introverts. While the jury is still not out on the success of dating apps in finding appropriate partners, it certainly has taken the eligible singles by storm. A sentence from the article sums up the survey results quite well: In today’s world, with no time to focus on anything but work at times, dating apps come as a savior.

I borrowed the headline from Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s brilliant self-help book based entirely on data science – Don’t Trust Your Gut. In fact, much of what follows, I owe to his book, and path-breaking study done by eminent relationship specialists, Samantha Joel and Paul Eastwick. This is how dating typically works: You start with looks. Then, look at height. Followed by other physical features – walk, smile, and build in the case of men, and figure in the case of women. If looks meet your eye, you turn to occupation – profession, his (her) organization, income, wealth, and education. You chat with each other. What do you chat about? You make small talk. About movies, music, interests, hobbies, books, and places you have visited. Chatting in some cases leads to meeting in person. Data suggests chances are low – barely 1 in 10. If the first date goes well, a second one follows. The probability of a second date is 1 in 3, dating apps data suggest. Assume all goes well, and more dates follow. You meet each other again. And again. Two outcomes are imminent: a break-up, a lasting relationship, or marriage. Break-ups could be painful, but they are good in the long run. However, the time invested in your date is down the drain. You have to start over. The increasing divorce rate indicates many couples regret they married each other. They discover the painful truth – they aren’t made for each other. A tad too late, unfortunately. But it can be avoided. By dating right. How? By starting with the character. Samantha Joel and Paul Eastwick’s study covering 11,196 couples and 43 different studies, proves that a couple’s character is the best predictor of how well, and far, their relationship would go. Looks, occupation personality, likes and dislikes, don’t matter. None at all. The good news is that you can figure out character compatibility within half an hour. By taking a few psychometric tests. The results are fairly accurate. They indicate how likely you are to have a happy, lasting relationship. Here they are: How satisfied are you with your life? If your satisfaction level with life is low, you are likely to be unsatisfied in your relationship as well. Mindset. We have beliefs and ideas. How open are we to embracing change, to accepting new ideas or beliefs? Openness indicates a growth mindset. Those with a growth mindset have fewer conflicts and accommodate each other’s views, feelings, and thoughts. Conscientiousness. The critical pillar of a relationship is commitment. Lack of commitment, even perceived, spells the death knell to the greatest of relationships. Conscientious persons are reliable, committed, and honest. They are considerate, invariably placing their partner’s interest over their own. Integrity is at the core of their character. Attachment style. Were you fortunate enough to have a secure upbringing? Without any upheaval or disruption? If your answer is affirmative, you most likely that you have a secure attachment style. You would find it easy to get along with people, make and keep relationships comfortably, and enjoy intimacy. A positive score on all these counts assures you of a happy and fulfilling relationship. All you need to do is find a partner who scores positively on these character traits. Otherwise, the relationship could feel like an endless compromise, full of mutual adjustments. If your romantic partner is unwilling or uncomfortable about taking these tests, consider that a red flag. It indicates a fixed mindset. Move on. No matter how attractive, wealthy, or successful your potential romantic partner might be. It’s unlikely you would experience lasting happiness with each other. In case you score negatively on these character traits, there is good news. You can work on yourself. Improve and strengthen your character shortcomings. A few months of investment in your character could set you on a lifelong journey of joy and happiness.

A survey asked 1157 students to rate the importance of 21 traits they seek in a potential romantic partner. Right on top was ‘dependable character’. Unanimous among both genders. ‘Good looks’ and ‘good financial prospects’ were rated least important. But… user behavior data gathered from dating sites contradicts this. A team of researchers recruited volunteers to rate thousands of users on dating platforms on their looks. Then analyzed the actual user behavior. They discovered that ‘looks’ accounted for up to 30% higher interest in potential romantic partners. The same also applied to height. Taller men – 6 feet and above received up to 65% more messages than those who were 5 feet 7 or 8 inches tall. In the case of women too height affected interest – taller ones received far fewer messages than the shorter ones. Women 5 feet 6 inches were the most preferred! Occupation also had a big impact on requests received. Though a woman’s occupation mattered little once you factored in her attractiveness, the job men were into made a big difference. Occupation matters Certain occupations are in very high demand. Here’s a list published by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz in his brilliant book Don’t Trust Your Gut.

Social scientists asked a new batch of college students to rate the opposite gender on attractiveness. Their scores were overwhelmingly similar. All the good looking boys and girls received high attractiveness rating. There was general unanimity. Imagine being asked to rate members of the opposite gender by just looking at their pictures? Millions respond to this question every day on Tinder, and hundreds of other dating apps. They register their answer by swiping the attractive ones ‘right’, and the less attractive ones ‘left’. …. A year later when the course ended, the question was repeated to the same batch of students. This time, however, the answers were all over the place. Many of the attractive ones fared lower, and a number of less attractive ones scored much higher on attractiveness. Now that most students had interacted with each other, seen them at closer quarters, other aspects of their character influenced their rating. Our views about attractiveness get colored by character and personality traits once we get to know the person. … Samantha Joel and Paul Eastwick’s path-breaking study of 11,196 couples covering 43 different studies, tried to answer what exactly makes a relationship rock? They discovered it has almost nothing to do with physical attractiveness. Nor personality. Or likes and dislikes. Or hobbies. Or extroversion and introversion. Or similarities between couple. It has to do with something else, something we pay little attention to: our character, and how we treat our partners. They grouped factors into two: Relationship Character Both influence the quality of a couple’s relationship. Relationship Four factors stand out. Together, they can predict up to 43% accurately how happy the couple’s relationship is likely to be. Think about it – 43%! Here are the four factors: Appreciation: Do you appreciate your partner often enough? Or, you prefer to hold your complements back? Or, perhaps you believe appreciating might make your partner complacent, raise her expectation? Their research proves appreciation brightens relationship. It brings the partners closer to each other. Intimacy: How intimate do you feel to your partner? If you are wondering what intimacy means, check this definition. The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines intimacy as an interpersonal state of extreme emotional closeness such that each party’s personal space can be entered by any of the other parties without causing discomfort to that person. Wow! This means, the barriers to entering each others’ personal space are down. There is openess. Trust. Love. Care. Conflict: Conflicts often arise between partners due to their mindsets about things that matter. Sometimes even subjects that don’t matter. It could be a particular dish both of them cook well. Or a debate over which brand of car is better? Or how much freedom is alright for teenagers? Or what kind of vacations are perfect? Conflict abounds in every relationship. What matters is how conflicts are resolved. It’s important that each partner protects the others’ ego. Which simply means, listen, and accommodate. Commitment: If one partner perceives the other to be less committed to the relationship, the relationship flounders. Commitment makes or breaks a relationship. Partners with a high degree of perceived commitment experience greater intimacy and lesser conflict. Note the word is ‘perceived’ – perception is far more important than reality. Character An individual having certain character is likely to make a great partner. When two such individual get together, relationship rocks! Here are the four that stand out: Attachment style – secure, anxious, confused, or avoidant. An attachment style is influenced by an individual’s upbringing. For instance, those with a secure attachment style tend to be warm, open, and easy-going. They trust others and are comfortable about seeking and giving emotional support. They respect, value, and feel good about themselves – regardless of whether they’re alone or in relationships. Read more about attachment styles here. Satisfaction with life. Our satisfaction with life creeps into our relationships. Dissatisfaction with life hurts relationships. According to renowned life satisfaction scholar, Ruut Veenhoven, “Life satisfaction is the degree to which a person positively evaluates the overall quality of his/her life as a whole. In other words, how much the person likes the life he/she leads.” It is our general feeling about our life and how pleased we are with how it’s going. Dissatisfaction with life leads to… The negative effect. Don’t we all hate those who are constantly negative? Negativity hammers a relationship down. Depression. No matter what the cause of depression, it hurts a relationship. Those who are depressed have great difficulty in having a meaningful relationship with anyone. Joel and Eastwick’s research concludes that relationship and individual character traits can predict a person’s likelihood of having a great romantic relationship. With up to 75% accuracy. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of bestselling, data-driven self-help book, Don’t Trust Your Gut, encapsulates these into an individual’s four character traits that could predict the quality of our romantic relationship. These are: Satisfaction with life Attachment style Conscientiousness Growth mindset If you read the list carefully, you’ll connect how our relationship behavior or orientation is influenced by the four character traits listed by Davidiwitz. In other words, if partners score positively on the above character traits, their relationship is most likely going to rock, irrespective of their personalities, likes, dislikes or preferences.

Popular dating app OkCupid asked its members to rate the opposite gender on attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 7, where 7 was the most attractive and 1 least. The results formed a bell curve (see the chart below). Men were far more generous in rating women than women’s rating of men. Men rated 40% of women above average in attractiveness, with 6% of them rated at ‘7/7’. Women were hard-nosed, rating only 7% as above average. None scored ‘7/7’. Overall, both genders together rated only 23% of the other gender as above average. In other words, 77% of people failed the attractiveness test, falling at average or below. 77%. Yes. Kiss frogs, or slay dragons Deep down each of us secretly craves for a handsome prince or beautiful princess to discover us, no matter how we rate our own attractiveness. No wonder, women kiss frogs to find a prince charming, while men slay dragons to find a beautiful princess. But neither can hope for such luck in a dating app. Dating apps suggest your matches within your proximity – up to 80 km radius. Every user ‘right-swipes’ the attractive ones. In an experiment conducted by psychologist Samantha Joel on college students, 84% of the girls and boys rejected the matches shown to them. Seems neither gender is interested in wasting time slaying dragons, or kissing frogs. Data collected from dating apps further proves that the most attractive matches receive the most connection requests. We can safely presume that the more attractive you are, the higher your chances of making it in the top 20%. Rankings rankle What happens when we contribute our right swipe to every attractive person on the app? The less attractive ones face rejection. If we were to assume that average behavior is closer to Pareto’s Principle – that 20% get 80% of the right swipes – then 80% of the matches shown to users would be left swiped – rejected. Dating apps keep a record of all the right and left swipes. Their algorithm uses the swipes to rank each user. The higher the rank, the more often that user is suggested as a match. The ranking is quite similar to Google search result ranking, where the most frequently clicked content and links show on page 1. Most of us rarely go beyond the first few pages. This means the higher ranked content stays high, and the content ranked lower gets pushed further down. Dating apps by their design match the more attractive, though in reality less attractive far outnumber them. Their algorithm fuels every user’s fantasy, furthering their illusion that there is a prince or princess out here made for them. The 77% who score lower on swipes rarely show among these results. The algorithms based on swipes reduce the chances of the majority finding a match. Pity. No wonder majority of the users say dating apps ‘suck’. Can a dating app find you a compatible romantic partner (42% of dating app users have marriage on top of their minds)? Says Nancy Jo Sales, award-winning journalist and author of the brilliant book Nothing Personal: My Secret Life in the Dating App Inferno, “Dating apps are killing relationships.” In fact, according to Sales’ research, while 3/4th of the women expect commitment, only a quarter of the men are willing to commit themselves to a relationship. It’s a conundrum that hundreds of dating apps leave millions of their users frustrated. Because 77% of them are average or below in physical attractiveness. Has any dating app tried to change that? Hinge uses a detailed questionnaire to profile each user and uses a Nobel Prize-winning Scientist’s algorithm to suggest the most compatible matches based on users’ answers. For instance, someone who loves cats and enjoys hiking and reading would receive suggestions from others who like cats, hiking, or reading. Other apps that use personality to suggest compatible matches include Synced, Birdy, and Happn. But the algorithm in these apps too remains unchanged – users are ranked by swipes. The visibility quotient remains the same, and the less attractive keep getting pushed down. It’s quite a challenge to find a compatible match you can have a serious relationship. Within or without a dating app. It gets far worse for the 77% who look average or below.

Once your profile is live on a dating app, you see potential matches. Their picture, their name or handle name, and the profile parameters – age, occupation, height, etc. Their profile note describing themselves. And their location – distance from yours. You begin swiping – right if you like, and left if you don’t. A few reply, making it a ‘match’. A few others express interest in you. You can make a match if you like, or ignore the requests. You scrutinize the matches carefully. Check their social media profile and go through their profiles with greater interest. You shortlist. One or more matches. And begin chatting. You chat. Sometimes speak. For days, Weeks. Even months. You date those you like. Meet virtually. Meet some in person as well. You compare the person you meet against the picture you had been chatting with. You stay connected. Meet again, perhaps. If you are lucky, you find the match you are looking for. And your match too feels the same. It’s bliss. You chat, speak, and date, like two people interested in having a romantic relationship. Your attraction grows. But there are also red flags you discover. A sarcastic comment or two. A lie. Or some info withheld from you. He doesn’t turn or call back and offers no excuse. She has mood swings. ‘Gosh! He seems so stuck up about certain things!’ On one side is growing attraction, and on the other is discomfort about things so inconsequential you can’t even speak to anyone about them. You are confused. Unsure, you return to the dating app. You want a choice. You begin swiping – right and left. You repeat the process. Suddenly you spot your romantic partner among the matches. Dating apps are designed to build attraction based on features Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Don’t Trust Your Gut, calls ‘shiny’. The eight most popular features users seek in potential matches are: Race/ethnicity Religious affiliation Height Occupation Physical attractiveness Previous marital status Sexual tastes Similarity to oneself We are attracted to shiny features. Or, to potential matches with these shiny features. Science proves the reasons that attract us to someone are not the same as those that would keep us together in a relationship. What makes a relationship rock are certain character traits that couples have. If you and your romantic partner have those character traits, you are likely to have a great relationship. The rest, or the shiny features – personal likes and dislikes, personality, height, occupation, looks – don’t matter. At least not if you are trying to build a serious relationship. Says Davidowitz, “If I had to sum up, in one sentence, the most important finding in the field of relationship science: In the dating market, people compete ferociously for mates with qualities that do not increase one’s chances of romantic happiness.” Dating apps only focus on the shiny features. You see, you like, you chat, you meet, and then… continue or move on. No wonder most people using apps find them exhausting. A common refrain: ‘They suck’. Dating apps open options – they connect you to some of the best-looking people within striking distance. But to discover true compatibility, you have to labor yourself. Keep trying – maybe you get lucky. That’s what the dating apps want to do: keep you in there, swipe right, or left.