Introduction For studing reciprocation, some dating sites such as OkCupid see or AYI see offer us reply rates at the first message, that is, percent the users that respond to an initial message. Mate acceptance is not equal to rates of initial contact in which one sent a message to the other and got just a response. Say that you get an e-mail from someone, and you can tell immediately that you have no interest in communicating with that person. Just delete the message. By the other hand, some people may even extend the messaging exchange with an unattractive prospect, mainly users who usually receive few or no messages from their potentially preferred partners. Best of luck in your search. We therefore define a match as a situation where both mates exchange such contact information i. We use each of these as a separate event when we describe the sorting patterns below. Matches are very different events from first-contact decisions: Table 4 shows that of all first contact e-mails sent by men, 4. In other words, match or mutual acceptance is definied if two users are sharing personal information emails, phone numbers, social networking, Skype ID, etc with the purpose of set up an date. They also observed a statistical pattern for all exchanges that could be defined as a match. Thus, Hirsch et al. This makes it possible to obtain reliable measures of acceptance rates in online dating experiment. The last category captured the mean number of exchanges six required until the relationship resulted in an offline date by Hitsch et al. Obviously, the likelihood of any given message resulting in a reciprocated exchange and eventual date is extremely small.. It would be too laborious perform a message exchange for each pairwise to determine whether each initial recipient is willing to provide to each sender her phone number and set a date. I assume this estimate is quite interesting, and would give us a response rates data fairly close to real rates of mate acceptance. They were placed into the other geographical place, a big-sized city named B. MESSAGING STATISTIC: Messages received: Number of messages received per time active on site. These messaged users are not randomly chosen. I chose a sample of 100 female users for each dummy through advanced search. They were to meet the following parameters: Age range: 18-35 years old. Within the subset of browsed female profiles, I chose as target those profiles that contained pictures from women that could be included within the upper half of facial attractiveness spectrum. This is, since avarage or medium-attractiveness until highly-attractiveness 5 to 10 oints on a 1-10 scale. Contacts received: Number of people who contacted this person per time active on site. Reply proportion at first message: Proportion of initial contacts from this person to which others replied one. Reply proportion at second message: Proportion of initial contacts from this person to which others replied twice. Localitation: big-sized city B. Data-collection period: 7- days. Screenshot showing Contact History :Contacts Received. So 9 female users responded to the first contact but after the first screenshot. Screenshot showing Contact History: Contacts Inicitated. The number of Contacts Initiated was 100 I made a wrong screen capture. Screenshot showing Contact History: Contacts Received. Note that the screenshot after the 6 day period displays 1 users, because 2 of the inicital contacts have removed their accounts. This data is unreliable because 9 users who responded to the first message did too late and I could not record their behavior for a second message. O r in other words, best attractive guys are reciprocated by almost than 1 out of 2 women. While the moderately-attractive males are reciprocated by around 1 out of 40 women. In the third study I will complete the database, mainly experiencing with several profiles within the medium-attractiveness spectrum and one below-average attractiveness man. It is considered normal, or normative, for men to make a lot of effort to find a mate. He might be in a dating pool, in the eyes of one woman, of 6 men where he is on the edge of her threshhold. I think that would be hard to answer unless you got the funds to interview the women directly. I do think your conclusion that for many men the dating process is like a lottery is based on more and more of your evidence. While choosy women higher rate thresholds are selecting within a narrow specific subset of potential males, less-choosy females e. This is because the number of potential mates that are acceptable will increase as the acceptance threshold is decreased. Which in turn is reducing the options to get a real match with a permissive woman without also recording phenotypic variation among receptive and discriminating women in dating landscape , because of the high degree of competence in their socio-sexual niche. More than a lottery could be said that there is a high degree of determinism in mate choice. The mate preference functions for phenotypic traits are usually kept constant in a same socio-ecological environment. Firstly, I commend you for this extremely well researched, written and argued site, the overwhelming majority of which I agree with. I just wanted to bring a few points to your attention where I perhaps slightly disagree, or where I think you might have overlooked something. In the debunking of women going for older men, I think it is notable that women hardly ever go for anyone younger, and particularly much younger. Women are five times more likely to pair off with someone ten years older than ten years younger, and actually the majority of women pair off with someone older. In terms of the majority of marriages being between people of the same age, I agree that this is statistically significant, but I would suggest an alternative explanation for this. Many couples meet at school, college or university where we are grouped together based on age, so this distorts the figures. When dealing with online dating, it is notable that we get very little to go on other than a picture. I have higher standards than many men, and so am more selective. I have still managed to secure numerous dates though online dating, although I do have the advantage of being a professional writer! Additionally, male strategy with online dating send out as many messages as possible dictates that women are bombarded with messages. So they have to adopt some sort of strategy to sift through them, and as most of them are bollocks, they naturally pick the best looking guys. This would happen anyway, but the approach of men, the extent to which they will hit on anyone both online and in real life, and the general lowering of standards, all contribute to this. I also think you have underestimated the importance of socio-economic status. I can only provide anecdotal evidence for this, but…I happen to live in one of the wealthiest parts of the UK. I can tell you now, it is an absolute MILF goldmine here! Just for starters, many professional women will rule out dating non-professional men and there are both dating sites and introductory agencies catering for this. When women are younger, looks and popularity are absolutely key. As they get older, social status and money become more important. Probably never more important than looks, but if you walk around the streets where I live you might come to question that assumption. Nonetheless, I commend you on your site. Please keep up the good work. I mean women over or close 30-35, and this kind of trend is increasing more sharply in older age groups. Which is moreover ruling out short term relationships and occasional mates. Many couples meet at school, college or university where we are grouped together based on age, so this distorts the figures. For example you could try to look at divorced women in their 30s or 40s or those that are still single and then try to find out which are their age preferences in potential mates. I have higher standards than many men, and so am more selective. I have still managed to secure numerous dates though online dating, although I do have the advantage of being a professional writer! I rather think that is a fairly accurate reflection of actual mate preferences and sampling tactics decision rules adopted. True that perhaps other ecological landscapes lead to a higher assortative mating due to social constraints, greater self-awareness of competition over number of mates, choosiness investment in mate choice , etc. So they have to adopt some sort of strategy to sift through them, and as most of them are bollocks, they naturally pick the best looking guys. This would happen anyway, but the approach of men, the extent to which they will hit on anyone both online and in real life, and the general lowering of standards, all contribute to this. And matterns of mate choices can be altered by changing the costs of choosiness without altering the preference function. I can only provide anecdotal evidence for this, but…I happen to live in one of the wealthiest parts of the UK. I can tell you now, it is an absolute MILF goldmine here! Just for starters, many professional women will rule out dating non-professional men and there are both dating sites and introductory agencies catering for this. From my empirical experience, I honestly believe that the role of social status on mating access is marginal in overall terms. But there is clearly a small evolutionary niche where a certain amount of women i. When women are younger, looks and popularity are absolutely key. As they get older, social status and money become more important. Probably never more important than looks, but if you walk around the streets where I live you might come to question that assumption. Not so surprising, when one considers that a selection bias for resourceful males should exist in some proportion to the advantages they pose to the survival of her offspring. Thus, if the advantages are small given a prosperous welfare state, which marginalizes these advantages , then there will be minimal selection bias which explains a large population of women who are increasingly disinterested by the lone prospect of a resourceful mate. Travis, Recall that the profiles corresponding to those men rated as medium attractiveness are: A, B, D and E. Anyway as far as I can remember there was no attractive woman i. Travis, Although women feel a profound neurological bias towards the most conspicuous male phenotypes, sometimes they make assesment errors.