The truth behind dating in 2024
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Dating in 2024

• Desirability Hierarchy: Online dating reveals a quantifiable hierarchy of desirability, with users demonstrably pursuing partners deemed more desirable.

• Aspirational Mate Pursuit: Both men and women tend to contact potential partners who rank higher in desirability than themselves, though success rates decline with increasing desirability gap.

• Motivations for Online Dating: Beyond romantic goals, users engage with dating apps for social connection, entertainment, boosting self-esteem, and even coping with negative emotions.

• Safety and Satisfaction: Concerns about safety, scams, and unwanted behaviour, particularly for women, persist. User satisfaction hinges on motivations, dating goals, and selectivity.

• The Evolving Nature of Love: Modern life's pressures, workaholism, and technology impact both romantic and non-romantic relationships, demanding strategies to nurture lasting love.

Key Findings and Facts:

Desirability and Mate Pursuit:

• Bruch and Newman (Science Advances) quantify desirability using PageRank, finding a consistent pattern across cities where users pursue partners roughly 25% more desirable than themselves.

• "The most common (modal) behavior for both men and women is to contact members of the opposite sex who on average have roughly the same ranking as themselves, suggesting that people are relatively good judges of their own place in the desirability hierarchy." (Bruch & Newman)

• "Messaging potential partners who are more desirable than oneself is not just an occasional act of wishful thinking; it is the norm." (Bruch & Newman)

Motivations and Satisfaction:

• The Stanford study highlights that many Tinder users are not seeking offline dates; half expressed no interest in meeting, and nearly two-thirds were already in relationships.

• "We call them dating apps, but they're clearly serving other functions besides dating." (Aboujaoude, Stanford)

• Tinder satisfaction was positively correlated with seeking romantic partners or social connections and negatively correlated with using the app to cope with negative emotions.

Demographics and Experiences:

• Pew Research Center finds online dating most prevalent among younger adults and LGB individuals.

• One in ten partnered adults met their significant other through a dating site or app.

• Women under 50 using dating platforms reported higher rates of unwanted behaviours, including sexually explicit messages, persistent unwanted contact, and offensive language.

The Impact of Modern Life on Relationships:

• Schwartz and Olds (Harvard) emphasize the strain on relationships caused by children, workaholism, and technology, highlighting the need for shared goals, individual experiences, and continued curiosity about one's partner.

• “You’re not going to get to 40 years by gazing into each other’s eyes ... I think the fact that we’ve worked on things together has woven us together more, in good ways.” (Schwartz)

Quotes of Note:

• "It appears that people are pursuing a hybrid strategy with elements of both [matching and competition]—they are aware of their own position in the hierarchy and adjust their behaviour accordingly while, at the same time, competing modestly for more desirable mates." (Bruch & Newman)

• "There is too much pressure ... on what a romantic partner should be. They should be your best friend, they should be your lover, they should be your closest relative ... There’s just so much pressure on the role of spouse that of course everybody isn’t able to quite live up to it.” (Olds)