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Vaniver comments on Rational approach to finding life partners - Less Wrong Discussion
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The Correct Rational Approach to Finding Life Partners:
Start with two facts: First, the vast majority of women are not, in fact, suitable life partners for you. Second, you are not a suitable life partner for the vast majority of women.
These imply a course of action which starts with elimination. If building an online dating profile? Your goal is not to attract as many suitable people as possible. Your goal is to -reject- as many unsuitable people as possible; this is the entry point for people looking for you, and there are far, far more unsuitable people than suitable people. The same is true in real life, which can be as simple as avoiding locations which are primarily populated by unsuitable people. (Bars, as a rule, for pretty much anybody who would be reading this.)
Likewise, when searching for people, your goal is -rejection-. If you're looking for the hottest girl in the bar - you've already failed, because you're not looking to reject people. Also, you're in a bar. Reject the locations, first. "Is this somewhere I'm likely to meet somebody who fits my interests, who who would be interested in me?" Maximize the ratio of acceptable to unacceptable people.
This is Less Wrong - go to Lindy Hop or otherwise swing dance classes. It's the nerdiest dance community you'll find, and the gender proportions, depending on where you are, will probably favor you if you're male. Also, it will help with your proprioception, which, given that you're on Less Wrong, could probably use some help anyways.
Once you've eliminated the unsuitable, do -not- pick the "best". You're probably pretty good at identifying what won't work, but you're probably pretty terrible at identifying what will.
So be open to short-term flings. These can turn into long-term relationships - although you shouldn't expect them to.
Hell, be open to casual sex. These encounters can -also- turn into long-term relationships - although, again, you shouldn't expect them to.
Be open to friendships. Once again, expect nothing.
In general - once you've eliminated the unsuitable, be open. You're looking for pearls; once you've sorted them out, don't toss the oysters overboard before you've checked. They may surprise you.
Don't seduce people into long-term relationships in any terms, let long-term relationships happen on their own. If it takes a special effort to make somebody fall in love with you, it will take a special effort, constantly, forever, for them to stay in love with you.
So, I agree with the premises behind this prediction, but:
I know someone who scraped okCupid for information which he used to eliminate women he wouldn't want to date from the pool. I read an article about someone else who scraped okCupid for information which he used to appear as acceptable as possible to women, and then would go on dates to find out if they were acceptable to him. The second person was considerably more effective, both at figuring out what actually led to a good date and getting good dates.
Consider this like prices. If you are having too many dates, your prices are too low, and you should raise them (i.e. exclude more people / look less presentable and more authentic). If you are having too few dates, your prices are too high, and you should lower them (i.e. appear more presentable so you don't get excluded as much).
I think of it more as a Type 1 versus Type 2 error tradeoff; there's a point at which you are excluding too many people, true, but I'd treat it less a function of raw dates, and more a function of the number of obviously unacceptable dates you have. You can relax exclusion criteria if you're not getting enough dates, but if in relaxing it, the number of unacceptable people rises without a commensurate rise in acceptable people, you went too far.
(The criteria will differ wildly according to the population you're searching. The style of profile I had living in the Northeast was -much- more exclusionary than the style of profile I used in the Midwest or South, both because the pool of potential people was much larger, and the percentage of them I would consider dating was much smaller.)
I agree that this is a big issue. My point there is more that you need to look at that curve, figure out your tangent line, figure out your value tangent line, and then move so that the two are identical, and this requires both advice on what to do if you are going on too many dates and advice on what to do if you are going on too few dates.
The secondary issue is that presenting as exclusionary typically is discussed in terms of relative turn-offs; if it turns off 5% of the people you would want to date and 50% of the people you wouldn't want to date, your pool's average has increased. (Ideally, someone decreases the turn-off chance in people you'd like to date and increases it in people you wouldn't like to date, but I think people are overly sanguine about what strategies have that effect.)
<snort> ...dating advice on LW ... even mentions looking at curves ...</snort>
:-D
I realized earlier this morning that I had forgotten my main point, and so the sibling comment only hints at it instead of making it explicit: many people talk about plans with the assumption that all of them are on the possibilities frontier, and so the relevant thing is moving along the possibilities frontier until they're at the right tradeoff.
But being optimal is surprising--one should assume that there is lots of room for growth, and should try to get more of everything (i.e. move perpendicular to the perceived frontier) until it's clear that they are actually on the frontier. (In the stats case, getting more data means both less Type 1 and Type 2 error.)