Is this a test or does Smart Guy just not care anymore? He still makes an effort to see me. However, he doesn't seem to be trying to do much more than that. He was wearing paint splattered clothes from head to toe. He didn't open the car door, something he usually does. He's on his phone.
He still wants to see me again and talks about future dates. What?!?!
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
What?
I was on a date a couple of weeks ago. The guy told me he was having dinner with a person he met at a party the next weekend. Did he tell me he is going to be on a date next weekend? If so, what an idiot! If not, he wants me to think that, what an idiot!
If this is a competition in sketch, I won!
If this is a competition in sketch, I won!
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Doubts and Divorce
Saw this article about doubts and marriage and think it's a great read! Basically, if you are a lady and having doubts about getting married to a specific guy, your chances of getting divorced four years after the wedding are 19% versus the 8% that were divorced and did not have doubts before the wedding.
If I were to date The Brain, I would have doubts. If I were to date Smart Guy, I would be apathetic. What's worse here?
If I were to date The Brain, I would have doubts. If I were to date Smart Guy, I would be apathetic. What's worse here?
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Oddest Weekend
Had the oddest weekend ever. After not seeing The Brain for years, spent the weekend in his apartment, sick in his bed with him happily taking care of me, and making sure I ate. He did not stay in the bed with me. I think we are friends and I am sticking to it! No, I don't believe friendship was his motive, of course not! I am sick, not sick in the head.
People keep telling me The Brain has changed and asking me what I think of him. He seems a lot more relaxed these days. He could give me the Cessna, multiple vacation houses, 10 cars life that is somewhat appealing. Yes, there is a trade off too. This is a "problem" I'll think about if it should really rear its head.
People keep telling me The Brain has changed and asking me what I think of him. He seems a lot more relaxed these days. He could give me the Cessna, multiple vacation houses, 10 cars life that is somewhat appealing. Yes, there is a trade off too. This is a "problem" I'll think about if it should really rear its head.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Wasting Time
I am not trying to waste my time or Smart Guy's time. Really don't know what I think of him! Was talking to some guy and girl friends. The guys were saying, "If you say you aren't sure or don't know about a specific guy, it means you aren't interested." They were also saying that at our age, we should be able to determine if someone is a good long term potential partner in fewer than six months. Is this true??
If I didn't think Smart Guy was cute, I probably would have disappeared a while ago. Maybe this says something?
If I didn't think Smart Guy was cute, I probably would have disappeared a while ago. Maybe this says something?
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Bi
I don't respond to Bi guys who contact me. There is nothing wrong with being gay! Just don't want a guy who isn't really sure what he is into.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Counter Intuitive
This is a bit counter intuitive, but every time I meet a guy that seems pretty great, I try to meet more guys to see if Guy A is really that great while others want to hold on as tight as they can. My friend Sabrina (actually Penny on Sabrina's blog) talked about a mathematical model for when guys choose to settle down on her blog which led me to Michael Trick's Operations Research Blog.
Michael Trick is correct in the whole accept/reject decision process that takes place in a dater's mind. This just proves that we should all be doing what I am trying to do, meet as many people as possible before having to make a decision. I am not the girl who asks "Where do we stand" after three dates. I don't want to know where we stand after three dates! Three dates is not enough to determine whether I want to make someone my boyfriend or not.
Also, think about opportunity costs. Let's say on date #3 I decide to make a guy my boyfriend and we date for six months. Let's say this guy does not turn out to be someone I would like to continue dating. That means I was off the market for six months for no good reason and could have missed out on the right guy for me!
Then there's this whole "sampling phase" thing Trick talks about. I actually think it's just not having to make a decision before you are comfortable with what you have already seen which is why everyone should take their time. We all want to end up with the right person, why rush? If that person disappears because it took too much time, then he/she isn't right for you anyway. As hard as it is to really advocate, I want guys I am dating to be dating a lot of other women. That way if we select each other it's because we believe we are right for each other, not because I am his only option.
Michael Trick is correct in the whole accept/reject decision process that takes place in a dater's mind. This just proves that we should all be doing what I am trying to do, meet as many people as possible before having to make a decision. I am not the girl who asks "Where do we stand" after three dates. I don't want to know where we stand after three dates! Three dates is not enough to determine whether I want to make someone my boyfriend or not.
Also, think about opportunity costs. Let's say on date #3 I decide to make a guy my boyfriend and we date for six months. Let's say this guy does not turn out to be someone I would like to continue dating. That means I was off the market for six months for no good reason and could have missed out on the right guy for me!
Then there's this whole "sampling phase" thing Trick talks about. I actually think it's just not having to make a decision before you are comfortable with what you have already seen which is why everyone should take their time. We all want to end up with the right person, why rush? If that person disappears because it took too much time, then he/she isn't right for you anyway. As hard as it is to really advocate, I want guys I am dating to be dating a lot of other women. That way if we select each other it's because we believe we are right for each other, not because I am his only option.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
An Ex
Saw an ex on OkCupid. We are around an 80% match. It shouldn't be that high! Our enemy % is quite high...maybe the algorithm does make sense?
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Smart Guy
Smart Guy is trying to make a comeback? He's been looking for me.
No one is perfect and I know this. Not sure if Smart Guy is all that interesting. This is really important.
There are a couple of other things that are questionable about Smart Guy, but they are not deal breakers. He's great on paper and I think he is cute. Have some energy. Look like you are having a good time. He must have had a good time if he is looking for me and asking me out. We have been talking for months and I still don't know (hey, that's better than no).
No one is perfect and I know this. Not sure if Smart Guy is all that interesting. This is really important.
There are a couple of other things that are questionable about Smart Guy, but they are not deal breakers. He's great on paper and I think he is cute. Have some energy. Look like you are having a good time. He must have had a good time if he is looking for me and asking me out. We have been talking for months and I still don't know (hey, that's better than no).
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Worthless
OkCupid's match percentages might be worthless. Why?
- Most people don't know what they want
- Most people lie (who is going to admit to cheating, abusing animals, going to jail, doing heroin, blah blah)
- Most of the questions are probably irrelevant if you meet the right guy/gal (would you really care if they are open to matches double their age if they are the PERFECT guy/gal for you? They are not asking to be in an open relationship with you, are they)
Saturday, September 8, 2012
OkCupid Match %s
How does OkCupid come up with it's match percentages? I COPIED and PASTED this from OkCupid's FAQ.
What exactly those numbers mean.
This is a brief, but technical, explanation of how your match percentages are calculated. It’s a little complicated, but our method is quite interesting—even unique. Also, there’s a patent pending, so no funny business.
We start wanting to calculate a match percentage for you and someone else. And we want to avoid mistakes at all costs! We collect three values for all users. When you answer a question on our Improve Matches page, we learn:
Your match percentage with a given person on OkCupid, let’s call him B, is based on the values of (1), (2), and (3) for questions you’ve both answered. We’ll call that set S later in this explanation:
Questions You Answered Questions You Both Answered (S) Questions B Answered
Now let’s look at two example questions and see how we use all this information to make a match.
First of all, since we use computers to do this, we need to assign numerical values to ideas such as “somewhat important” and “very important.” We chose the following scale:
When we look at how each of your answers satisfied the other’s preferences, we’ll use these values to give our calculations the correct weight. Your match percentage with B is figured by answering the following two questions:
How much did B’s answer make you happy? You indicated that B’s answer to the first question was very important to you. And that his answer to the second question was not. So we placed 50 importance points on the first question and 1 point on the second question. Of those 51 possible points, B earned 50 by answering the first question how you wanted. So B’s answers were 50/51 = 98% satisfactory.
How much did your answers make B happy? Well, B placed 1 importance point on your answer to the first question and 10 on your answer to the second. Of those 11, you earned 10 points. So your answers were 10/11 = 91% satisfactory.
To get a match percentage for you and B, we just multiply your satisfactions, and then take the square root: sqrt(91% * 98%) = 94%.
This is a mathematical expression of how happy you’d be with each other… if these two questions were the only things that mattered in a relationship!
Because we like to think of each match percentage as the probability you’d get along. That’s the product of them, assuming they’re independent. Intuitively, this makes more sense anyway; two people matching each other 95% are a better match than two others who match 90% and 100%.
Even though two users have satisfied each other on a few common questions, they may not actually be a good match. That is, while the set of questions you’ve both answered, S, is small, we can’t have much confidence in the match percentage yielded by the above calculations.
With any poll, there’s a margin of error that needs accounting for, and here’s how we do it: True Match = Calculated Match +/- Reasonable Margin of Error
We’ve toyed with multiple formulas for confidence, as there are subtle forces at play. For example, if we’re too aggressive, people with few questions answered will never show up in match results. If we’re too lenient, you might see too many matches who just got lucky on a few questions. Currently, we’re defining the reasonable margin of error as 1/(size of S).
In OkCupid, when the size of S = 50, meaning you and someone else have answered 50 of the same questions, and we’ve calculated your match to be, say, 84% based on your answers, that means your “True Match” is between 82% and 86%.
To give you the most confidence in the match process, we always publish the lowest possible percentage your match can be. In this example, that would be 82%.
So when we were comparing you and B above, your calculated match was 94.5%, but you’d only answered 2 questions. The margin of error for a S of that size is 50%! So the published match percentage of you and B would only be 44.5%, which is 94.5% – 50%, as per our “True Match” formula.
Examine the following:
You have to answer 100 questions for a 99% match to be possible. A consequence of this is that we’re highly confident in our published match scores... we’ve chosen the lowest statistically valid value. Our users have to tell us a lot about themselves before we can pretend like we know them.
We have a system for sorting questions by how well they divide the population. Users are exposed typically to the best questions they haven’t answered yet.
We record your answer, but the question’s importance is cast as “Irrelevant” when matching people to you. Your answer may obviously still affect the match, of course.
Using the “Mandatory” and “Very important” votes selectively will heavily focus matches on users who meet your most important criteria. However, purely filtering matches by the “Mandatory” vote would upset many users who use the term more liberally. As a rule of thumb, save that vote for the case where you couldn’t POSSIBLY IMAGINE dating someone who answered incorrectly. Still, keep an open mind.
It’s likely you would get confused and screw up your matches.
The best way to think about those numbers is to see what they imply about the relative values of questions. For example, 10 “a little important” questions are equal to 1 “somewhat important” question. And 5 “very important” questions are worth 1 “mandatory“ question. If we let you edit them, you might put in something ridiculous like (0, 1, 2, 3, 4) and that would be bad for your matching. Nonetheless, we might add this as a feature soon... It would be very easy to program, it’s just a question of whether or not we trust you.
That’s it!
Calculating Match Percentages
What exactly those numbers mean.
This is a brief, but technical, explanation of how your match percentages are calculated. It’s a little complicated, but our method is quite interesting—even unique. Also, there’s a patent pending, so no funny business.
Lets get started
We start wanting to calculate a match percentage for you and someone else. And we want to avoid mistakes at all costs! We collect three values for all users. When you answer a question on our Improve Matches page, we learn:
- your answer,
- how you’d like someone else to answer, and
- how important the question is to you.
Your match percentage with a given person on OkCupid, let’s call him B, is based on the values of (1), (2), and (3) for questions you’ve both answered. We’ll call that set S later in this explanation:
Questions You Answered Questions You Both Answered (S) Questions B Answered Now let’s look at two example questions and see how we use all this information to make a match.
Example Questions
How messy are you?
- very messy
- average
- very organized
- Your answer
- 3
- How you want someone else to answer
- 2 or 3
- The question’s importance to you
- Very Important
- B’s answer
- 2
- How B wants someone else to answer
- 2
- The question’s importance to B
- A Little Important
Have you ever cheated in a relationship?
- yes
- no
- Your answer
- 2
- How you want someone else to answer
- 2
- the question’s importance to you
- A Little Important
- B’s answer
- 1
- How B wants someone else to answer
- 2
- The question’s importance to B
- Somewhat Important
Calculating The Match
First of all, since we use computers to do this, we need to assign numerical values to ideas such as “somewhat important” and “very important.” We chose the following scale:
- Level of Importance
- Point Value
- Irrelevant
- 0
- A little important
- 1
- Somewhat important
- 10
- Very important
- 50
- Mandatory
- 250
When we look at how each of your answers satisfied the other’s preferences, we’ll use these values to give our calculations the correct weight. Your match percentage with B is figured by answering the following two questions:
How much did B’s answer make you happy? You indicated that B’s answer to the first question was very important to you. And that his answer to the second question was not. So we placed 50 importance points on the first question and 1 point on the second question. Of those 51 possible points, B earned 50 by answering the first question how you wanted. So B’s answers were 50/51 = 98% satisfactory.
How much did your answers make B happy? Well, B placed 1 importance point on your answer to the first question and 10 on your answer to the second. Of those 11, you earned 10 points. So your answers were 10/11 = 91% satisfactory.
To get a match percentage for you and B, we just multiply your satisfactions, and then take the square root: sqrt(91% * 98%) = 94%.
This is a mathematical expression of how happy you’d be with each other… if these two questions were the only things that mattered in a relationship!
Any questions?
Why do you multiply (as opposed to say, average) the two match scores together, to get a final score?
Because we like to think of each match percentage as the probability you’d get along. That’s the product of them, assuming they’re independent. Intuitively, this makes more sense anyway; two people matching each other 95% are a better match than two others who match 90% and 100%.
What if a user and I have only answered one question in common, and we happen to satisfy each other's requirements? Does that mean we're suddenly a 100% match?
Even though two users have satisfied each other on a few common questions, they may not actually be a good match. That is, while the set of questions you’ve both answered, S, is small, we can’t have much confidence in the match percentage yielded by the above calculations.
With any poll, there’s a margin of error that needs accounting for, and here’s how we do it: True Match = Calculated Match +/- Reasonable Margin of Error
We’ve toyed with multiple formulas for confidence, as there are subtle forces at play. For example, if we’re too aggressive, people with few questions answered will never show up in match results. If we’re too lenient, you might see too many matches who just got lucky on a few questions. Currently, we’re defining the reasonable margin of error as 1/(size of S).
In OkCupid, when the size of S = 50, meaning you and someone else have answered 50 of the same questions, and we’ve calculated your match to be, say, 84% based on your answers, that means your “True Match” is between 82% and 86%.
To give you the most confidence in the match process, we always publish the lowest possible percentage your match can be. In this example, that would be 82%.
So when we were comparing you and B above, your calculated match was 94.5%, but you’d only answered 2 questions. The margin of error for a S of that size is 50%! So the published match percentage of you and B would only be 44.5%, which is 94.5% – 50%, as per our “True Match” formula.
Examine the following:
| Size of S | Margin of Error | Highest Possible Match |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.00 | 0% |
| 2 | 0.50 | 50% |
| 3 | 0.33 | 67% |
| 4 | 0.25 | 75% |
| 5 | 0.20 | 80% |
| 10 | 0.10 | 90% |
| 20 | 0.05 | 95% |
| 50 | 0.02 | 98% |
| 100 | 0.01 | 99% |
| 500 | 0.002 | 99.8% |
| 1000 | 0.001 | 99.9% |
You have to answer 100 questions for a 99% match to be possible. A consequence of this is that we’re highly confident in our published match scores... we’ve chosen the lowest statistically valid value. Our users have to tell us a lot about themselves before we can pretend like we know them.
How are questions chosen?
We have a system for sorting questions by how well they divide the population. Users are exposed typically to the best questions they haven’t answered yet.
What if I check all the “acceptable answers” boxes, or none of them?
We record your answer, but the question’s importance is cast as “Irrelevant” when matching people to you. Your answer may obviously still affect the match, of course.
Shouldn’t “Mandatory” be some kind of filter?
Using the “Mandatory” and “Very important” votes selectively will heavily focus matches on users who meet your most important criteria. However, purely filtering matches by the “Mandatory” vote would upset many users who use the term more liberally. As a rule of thumb, save that vote for the case where you couldn’t POSSIBLY IMAGINE dating someone who answered incorrectly. Still, keep an open mind.
Why can’t I place different importance values on each acceptable answer?
It’s likely you would get confused and screw up your matches.
The importance values you mentioned above (0, 1, 10, 50, 250) seem wrong. I know what is important to me and I want to assign my own values. Ok?
The best way to think about those numbers is to see what they imply about the relative values of questions. For example, 10 “a little important” questions are equal to 1 “somewhat important” question. And 5 “very important” questions are worth 1 “mandatory“ question. If we let you edit them, you might put in something ridiculous like (0, 1, 2, 3, 4) and that would be bad for your matching. Nonetheless, we might add this as a feature soon... It would be very easy to program, it’s just a question of whether or not we trust you.
What besides user questions affects my match percentages?
That’s it!
Friday, September 7, 2012
Like I Said
Like I said weeks ago, The Brain is back for round two. He hasn't officially stepped up, but the contact has increased. Let's see what he's planning next.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Player, Inept, Or Both?
Been giving this some thought; is Smart Guy a player, inept, or both? He has some signs of player and some signs of social ineptitude. When I go on dates, I am paying attention; it doesn't look like I am, but trust me, I am. Come on, he is a smart guy, how does he not know this? How does he think I got through high school, college, graduate school, and hold a "real job?"
Why would I think Smart Guy is a player?
The main reasons I don't think he is a player:
Hold on, why I am I even giving this any thought? Not 100% into him, but haven't ruled him out either. He still has potential.
Why would I think Smart Guy is a player?
- He is insecure (many insecure guys are players because they need women to validate them and how cool they are)
- He is very active on facebook and probably has thousands of friends (no we are not facebook friends, but I know)
- He's not asking to be FB friends (something to hide)
- He was familiar very fast
- He drives a flashy car and has expensive clothes/accessories (cares about appearances, probably more so than the average guy)
- He is very suspicious about my whereabouts (guys that are very suspicious are often up to no good themselves)
- His OkCupid profile has five or six pictures (meaning attention seeker)
- Don't know much about him other than what his profile says and we've been on a few dates
- He doesn't know much about me and doesn't seem to be trying to learn more
- He got touchy feely pretty quickly (think middle school style)
- He lies about little things and has no idea I've picked up on this (good, by the way, I hate liars)
- I don't hear from him for days (think part of this is because he is trying to see if I will reach out to him to gauge my interest level)
- He gets lots of text messages (he is better with a nice electronic barrier)
- He scopes out other girls in a very obvious manner (yes, this could be him trying to get a reaction. I don't do jealousy, it just makes me lose respect for guys who attempt this).
The main reasons I don't think he is a player:
- He has NOT tried to sleep with me (at least not that I am aware of and this is huge since that's usually a player's main objective)
- He is very into PDA
- He drives up to take me out (there have got to be much easier girls fewer than 45 miles away from him)
- He is emotional (meaning he cares, players usually don't care if you are talking to other guys, they encourage it)
Hold on, why I am I even giving this any thought? Not 100% into him, but haven't ruled him out either. He still has potential.
Monday, September 3, 2012
And, Happy Labor Day
Not actually sure why we have Labor Day, but I don't have to work, so it's a good holiday.
Remember the guy that tried to get it on our "first date" (if you can even call it that). He texted me out of nowhere (he did look at my OkCupid profile a couple of weeks ago, think I blocked him. By the way, blocking is useless on OkC). It sorta makes sense since three months have not passed. There is a rule of three, can't truly believe a guy will leave me alone until three months (sometimes years with zero contact) have passed.
Remember the guy that tried to get it on our "first date" (if you can even call it that). He texted me out of nowhere (he did look at my OkCupid profile a couple of weeks ago, think I blocked him. By the way, blocking is useless on OkC). It sorta makes sense since three months have not passed. There is a rule of three, can't truly believe a guy will leave me alone until three months (sometimes years with zero contact) have passed.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
Girl Players
Came across this blurb, it seems like I could be a player? This wouldn't be the first time I am called a "player." I really do want to find a great guy though!!!
Blurb's main points:
Blurb's main points:
- She doesn't give a sh*t what anyone thinks (yes)
- She becomes a good friend first (that's the goal)
- She knows when to walk away and when to run (just because I know, doesn't mean I always do it)
- She remains private and mysterious (well, yes)
- She's not going to sleep with just anybody (of course not)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)