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Lazare | 2 years ago
World 1: Men evaluate women on highly idiosyncratic scales. They "like" women in the top 53% of their personal scale, but it's a different scale for each man. All women are "liked" by 53% of men (but it's a different 53% for each woman). Women also evaluate men on highly idiosyncratic scales. They "like" men in the top 5% of their personal scale, but it's a different scale for each woman. All men are "liked" by 5% of women (but it's a different 5% for each woman). Due to their lower standards, men end up "liking" a lot of women who do not "like" them back, but nonetheless, every man will find a mutual match once in every 100 profiles they look at. Women are more selective, and better at focusing their attention on the type of men who might "like" them back, but overall success rates are broadly similar, and every woman will find a mutual match 1.8 times in every 100 profiles they look at.
World 2: Men rank women on a shared objective measure of attractiveness, and "like" any woman in the top 53% of the scale, so 53% of women are "liked" by all men, and 47% are "liked" by no men. Women also rank men on a shared objective measure of attractiveness, and "like" any man in the top 5% of the scale, so 5% of men are "liked" by all women, and 95% of men are "liked" by no women.
Note that in this model on average, 5% of all "likes" from men to women will be mutual, but 95% of men will "like" women and it will never be mutual while 5% of men will "like" women but it will always be mutual. Similarly, on average, 47% of "likes" from women to men will be mutual, but 47% of women will "like" men and it will never be mutual while 53% of women will "like" men and it will always be mutual. (Further note that since most relationships are monogamous, while a bare majority of women can find a mutual match, an overwhelming majority will not have it progress into a relationship since all women are chasing the same 5% of men.)
World 1 matches the graph perfectly, but describes a situation where merely looking at 100 profiles on Tinder guarantees every man a mutual match no matter how ugly or undesirable you may be. World 2 also matches the graph pretty closely, but dooms the vast majority of men and women to be unable to find a relationship at all.
Neither world seems very similar to our own to me (although I do recognise a specific subgroup of men intuit that world 2 is fairly close!), but the fact of the matter is we can't distinguish between world 1, world 2, or reality based on the graph you linked.
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