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What's Best - Matchamker versus Online Dating Apps?
In today's world we see a lot of new trends and some steadfast trends for dating which have stood the test of time.
Studies have been done and we are going to break-down the results of these and how they affect you, the single, love-searching soul.
What are people looking for these days in a companion and is it short-term or long-term?
Instead of being personally involved in the process of connecting great singles... many use tech to find a match - making apps do the work for them. There is a hugh give-and-take in giving up personal/bespoke pairing for a more artificial and unequal result. For a professional matchmaker - dating apps are too impersonal and come with a feeling of making a "quick and dirty" matchup. When it comes to online dating, matchmaking experts will tell you that whether you use online dating or online matchmaking apps or you go with the more-personalized professional matcher, that it is how you act which is far greater than the app used. Below are some amazing and scientifically-backed tips on how to optimize your online dating and matching experience.
The following gives some great insight:
1. Kill 'em with Kindness
Worldwide, women of all sexual orientations said that kindness, supportiveness, intelligence, education, and confidence were very important traits in a long-term partner.
A hot body, great face, lots of ambition, confident assertiveness, and financial security were seen as only moderately important qualities for a long-term partner.
“Kindness is rather like gravity, essential but little noticed until it’s gone. Given today’s emphasis on looks and wealth, it may surprise you that kindness is a top desirable trait across the world. But kindness is key to the human capacity for forming the long-term social bonds so essential to our evolution. Without those bonds, and kindness to help us get through the inevitable rough patches, we wouldn’t have survived and flourished.”
—Dr Virginia J. Vitzthum, Kinsey Institute Senior Scientist, Clue Director of Scientific Research, and Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University (Source)
2. To Birth or not to Birth, tis the question!
When considering a long-term love and mate, 46.1% of women of all sexual orientations said that a potential partner’s desire to parent is very important. Of course the key is that the end decision aligns with their specific desire to have or not to have kids. It's a worthy topic to bring up without pointing a spotlight on it. General, toe-dipping, questions and conversations can give a lot of insight.
3. Birds of a feather don't always flock together
Few women said that ethnic similarity or religious similarity were important traits for a long-term
partner (For ethnic similarity, 9.8% chose very important while 54.1% chose not important. For religious similarity, 25.4% chose very important, while 35.0% chose not important).
4. Skip the gential-pics - send a smile.
When it comes to physical features, an attractive smile is more important than everything else (including genitals)
For both heterosexual and homosexual women, an attractive smile and attractive eyes were the most important physical features sought in a long-term partner.
“Attractiveness” did not top the list. That might explain why the “average” body type (looking at you, dad bods!) was vastly preferred over “very muscular” types, with 44.8% versus a marginal 2.5%, respectively.
Of course appearance does matter: More than 90% of women want a partner who is taller than them. Heterosexual and homosexual women agreed that an attractive smile, then attractive eyes, were the two most important physical features — but responses diverged from there. Lesbian women completed their Top 5 with average breasts, an average butt and an attractive back, whereas heterosexual women put average penis as No. 3, followed by large hands and, interestingly, a short head of hair — Fabio is so 1995.
Did you know: Women have just as many sex dreams as men do: A new report published in the journal Psychology & Sexuality reveals that women aged 16 to 30 are having three times as many erotic dreams as they did 50 years ago, according to sleep researchers at the University of Freiburg, Germany.
The research puts their sexy reverie quota on par with men’s.
5. Financial Security
American women state that the financial security of a long-term partner was very important. A thing not surpising to cultural anthropologists and historians it is still as important today as it has ever been. Even though more women are in the work place and many are the main earner, it is still important for long-term relations and especially when the subject of starting a family comes into the conversation.
6. Looking for someone educated
American women were less likely to find education important in a long-term partner than other elements that are more personal. Also formal education can be confused with street-smarts or work-based education. Knowledge of how to handle daily things such as keeping the bills paid, the chores done and the ability to handle the daily challenges with aplumb can be far more attractive than that framed master's degree on the wall.
7. Politics at the dinner table
Women were the most likely to say that political similarity was important in a long-term partner. The tough part is finding out and discussing your individual points of view without it going from a date to a debate or all-out war. Tread softly and don't be afraid to stick to your views but don't push them. If you find that you're on the opposite sides of the political aisle then you may want to consider the other things that make the two of you get along and enjoy what you can from the time. Flexibility is good but giving in or rolling-them over with your political punditry can give you that triumphant feeling as you sleep alone that night.
However when looking at the differences between what women and men want in a mate we look at some important studies produced.
According to "Sex Differences in Mate Preferences Revisited: Do People Know What They Initially Desire in a Romantic Partner?" researchers Paul W. Eastwick and Eli J. Finkel of Northwestern University found that there is more to the story. (Source)
A greater male (compared to female) desire for romantic partners who are physically attractive and a greater female (compared to male) desire for romantic partners who have good earning potential.
"These findings are frequently (but not always, see Eagly & Wood, 1999) discussed as part of an evolutionary psychological perspective on mate selection, which suggests that men and women possess different evolved, domain-specific psychological adaptations that guide their mate preferences and their romantic partner choices accordingly (Buss, 1989, 1994; Buss & Kenrick,; Buss & Schmitt, 1993)1. The present study replicated these ubiquitous sex differences in romantic partner preferences and attempted to follow them to their anticipated conclusion: sex differentiated romantic interest in real-life potential romantic partners depending on the partner’s physical attractiveness and earning prospects. In fact, the data never pointed toward such a conclusion; instead, they led us on a detour that raised fascinating new questions about the meaning of romantic partner preferences and shed new light on the processes underlying romantic relationship initiation".
The study goes on to conclude that it really depends on whether we're talking about a short-term or long-term mate.
"For example, women should be more likely to prefer men who exhibit cues to their genetic fitness (e.g., physical attractiveness) for short-term compared to long-term relationships (Gangestad & Simpson, 2000). Some research has in fact demonstrated that men and women converge in the strength of their preference for physically attractive individuals in shortterm contexts (Kenrick, Groth, Trost, & Sadalla, 1993, Li & Kenrick, 2006; but see Buunk, Dijkstra, Fetchenhauer, & Kenrick, 2002, Regan, Levin, Sprecher, Christopher, & Cate, 2000 https://asu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/partner-preferences-what-characteristics-do-men-and-w omen-desire--2). Similarly, women tend to prioritize earning prospects when seeking a long-term compared to a short-term partner (Li & Kenrick, 2006. In general, the extant data support those evolutionary perspectives that predict that sex differences in mate preferences will be especially robust when individuals consider a long-term compared to short-term relationship".
A recent study (by Morning Consult, 2020 https://morningconsult.com/2020/04/27/online-dating-poll-coronavirus/) of Online Dating profiles produced some interesting information for who uses such sites and how well they work.
Around 9% of males in the US and 3% of females were using a dating app or website as of April 2020. )
The percentage of US adults belonging to an age range who used online dating sites and apps
18-29: 8%
30-44: 10%
45-54: 4%
55-64: 4%
65 and up: 2%
When it comes to education, postgraduate daters (10%) are the biggest segment. Only 8% with bachelor’s degrees were using online dating services. Finally, only 5% of those with no college degrees
are on online dating platforms.
Hispanics are the largest ethnic group on online dating sites, accounting for 11% of all users. This is followed by African Americans at 9% and Whites at 5%. Other ethnicities make up 8%.
Only 6% of people with income under $50,000 have used a dating app in 2020. For those who fall in the income brackets of $50,000-$100,000 and 100k+, 5% and 8% of them, respectively, were online daters.
This shows that for those in the 55 and above range we see very little action on dating apps.
Personal professional matchmakers are the best way for 55+ singles to find the best matches while feeling engaged, active, and adventurous all while feeling safer in their meetings and dates.
The biggest detractor for using online dating apps and sites is safety. Even though most feel that you can get to know someone better by spending more time speaking and exchanging it is not the same as in-person ice-breaking during the pandemic, it is clear that with the lightening of pandemic restrictions, singles are eager to get out and about and have those in-person, face-to-face dates which come with all of the excitement that on-screen dating simply cannot compete with.
53% of Americans agree that meeting people via dating apps is somewhat safe or very safe. These include people who never tried online dating before. Another 46% think that these platforms are not at all or not too safe. (Anderson et al., 2020)
However, most women (53%) think that these dating sites are somewhat unsafe or totally unsafe for meeting people. Only 39% of men think the same. (Anderson et al., 2020)
51% of people aged 50-64 think that dating sites are somewhat unsafe or totally unsafe ways for meeting other people. The figure rises to 59% for people aged 65 and up. (Anderson et al., 2020)
In fact with only 6% of online dating app users being 55 and older it is ever more difficult to find the right match via apps.
Online Dating Changes the Way We Think
From the scientific study Online Dating: "A Critical Analysis From the Perspective of Psychological Science"
"Does it change our thought processes and approaches to potential relationships? Online dating may encourage the adoption of an assessment mindset, in which people rapidly evaluate another person’s potential as a romantic partner. This tendency is most pervasive on sites emphasizing access, although it is also evident on sites emphasizing matching, which also offer multiple potential partners. Assessment mindsets are most relevant to the evaluation of profiles, but they can also compromise live interactions.
Assessment mindsets may promote the tendency to commoditize other people. Jaron Lanier, a founder
of the field of virtual reality, made a similar point about social networking sites, describing them as dehumanizing and fostering shallow interactions and a “fakey-fakey social life” (Kahn, 2011, p. 46). Relationships are most satisfying when partners adopt a communal orientation, responding mutually to each other’s needs and preferences (Clark et al., 2010), rather than an exchange orientation, in which benefits and costs are assessed on an ongoing basis. To the extent that online dating induces a marketplace mentality, it is likely to interfere with a communal orientation and the formation of communal bonds"
Research shows that using online dating apps and services has become more accepted however it still leaves a lot to be desired. This includes security and the overall approach to dating and relationship building.
With the cold, digital, window-shopping mindset that online dating apps and services inherently promote, we lose the warm, in-person, getting-to-know of in the more personal and classical sense.
As professional Matchmakers we bridge the gap between the cold digitial and the warm, hands-on connectivity by not only selecting potential matches based on more than just data analysis while working with our singles and potential matches to connect and get to know eachother in the real-world. We also work with our singles to prepare them for the entire process and support them throughout. This removes so many of the questions and doubts inherent in digital-dating.
Matchmakers know both sides of the dating coin so we help to make sure your online profiles are up to speed and presenting you in the best light while keeping the honesty that will eventually be appreciated when you meet, greet and date. The ongoing support helps to make sure you have the information, guidance and confidence to think less critically and to relax and enjoy your dates without the stress associated with dating.
When you have been matched by the best in digital data matching while having also been matched by the experienced human element which we as Matchmakers provide, your chances of finding a real love is not left to chance or statistical analysis alone. You're not dating an avatar or a digital fantasy but a real live individual and Matchmaking helps to filter those faux fairytale profiles.
Reach out to us now to talk about getting your Love-life back on track!
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