My Philosophical Online Dating Checklist

This list represents my criteria to decide whom I should send a message on dating sites like OKcupid.

Desirable Profile Photos

Indicating a happy childhood and ability to communicate effectively:· Genuine, happy face expressions.This is my unprofessional, scientifically unverified theory of genuine photo smiles:

A photo of a genuine smile indicates a happy childhood.

Let’s imagine someone who grew up in an environment that preyed on his/her expression of any emotion. She/he would develop a defense strategy to hide his/her emotions. This person would experience that her/his expression of his/her friendly happiness is strongly associated with parents getting angry when seeing joy and bullies pulling her/him down to their emotional level of unhappiness.

Thus this person would have a deeply ingrained tendency to hide emotions and thus has difficulty to genuinely show happiness. Furthermore this person would feel uncomfortable uploading photos which openly display his/her positive emotions.

I therefore conclude that a genuine smile/ laugh indicates a person who is comfortable to express emotions. It’s also likely that the genuine smile is related with a higher probability for this person to having already achieved the ability to actively and openly communicate all thoughts and emotions with a trusted friend (read the free book Real-Time Relationships by Stefan for more information on communication).

Persons with a profile photo without emotional expression who become aware of their ingrained and unconscious “automatic anti-smile protection” and work extensively on their self-knowledge will then probably also more often display a genuine smile.

Indicating Healthy Habits

Photos shot outdoors

Indicating A Social Life

Photos taken by a second person

Undesirable Profile Photos Indicating Low Self-Esteem

· Photos showing several piercings and tattoos, too much make-up· Photos pushing too hard to display physical attractiveness by showing a lot of skin, cleavage, muscles· Photos that do not clearly show the face of the person (I interpret this as defense mechanism towards being judged)

Indicating low empathy

· Photos that do not clearly show the face of the person or the main/first profile photo showing several persons at once (I interpret that as inability to embrace and understand the needs of profile visitors)

Desirable occupations

Introduced to the scientific method:· Chemical Engineer, Physician, Biologist etc.

Relatively far removed from state influence (legislation etc.) and thus more experienced with free markets:· Veterinarian, photographer, private detective etc.Encouraged and taught to gain more self-knowledge:· Psychologist, psychotherapistSome understanding of childhood development and psychology:· Teacher, kindergarten workerRelatively great exposure to undesirable effects of statist systems (thus likely understanding critique of the statist system) and encouraged to think on their own:· Entrepreneur

Undesirable occupations

Relatively heavily state influenced branches· Public state media, justice system, public state education, bureaucracy administration enforcers, politics, military

Desirable Hobbies

Indicating developed social skills· Volleyball, soccer etc., meeting friends etc.Indicating developed self-esteem· Dancing, singing etc.Indicating interest in self-knowledgePsychology, philosophyDesirable Favorite Books Indicating critical thinking skillsAnimal Farm, 1984, books by your favorite philosopher(s)

Desirable Age

An age that is equivalent to your own emotional age will help to relate with your future partner: If you had a difficult childhood your emotional growth has very likely been slowed during your childhood and adolescence. Your biological age might be 28, but your emotional age might be for example 24.So possible partners with a biological age around 24 years are probably the best fit for you.As far as I know listening to FDR and therapy do not help to close the gap between emotional age and biological age. The gap seems to stay with you.(It is assumed that on average a person with a biological age of 24 has the emotional age of 24.)

Specific Advice For OKcupid

You can use the advanced search feature to look for keywords in profiles of your favourite authors or philosophers for example:

Stefan Molyneux
Stephan Molyneux
Steven Molyneux
Freedomain Radio

Tuning The Algorithm To Your Philosophical Frequency

If you answer a sufficient amount (700 or more) of “match questions” and then sort your matches by “match %” you will be able to filter for persons with a similar perspective on life, similar amounts of self-knowledge and critical thinking ability.I recommend to only answer OKcupid “match questions” that carry philosophical implications and/or are important to you, otherwise your results might get skewed.]I for example skipped the following questions which I find unphilosophical and personally unimportant:“How many live plants do you have in your home?”“Before people find out your real age, what do they usually assume?”“How many pillows do you sleep with at night?”Furthermore you can simultaneously filter for Atheists.

Skimming For Matches

When you have tuned your OKcupid algorithm to FDR’s frequency you can now skim for the most philosophical matches.Visit the profiles with the highest percentage matches and rate them with 5 stars. I visited and rated ca. 500 profiles. I skipped profiles with an unappealing profile photo.In the following weeks and days some of those 500 matches checked out my profile and a subset rated my profile with 4 and 5 stars.OKcupid notifies you when you and your match both rate yourself 4 or 5 stars respectively.You have now access to a group of matches that are tuned to FDR’s frequency and like your profile.OKcupid had allegedly 30 million active users in 2013. (Source:http://www.telegraph...te-for-men.html

Simple Rules To Measure Romantic Interest

Her greetings usually merely tell me that she wants to greet me. The style and the subtext of the greeting is almost always very similar to the subtext and style of her profile.•If her message contains superficial questions, the author may want to wait with the serious questions till the second date. I respect that.• If her message is very informal and contains some errors, the author may be a very communicative person, who is intelligent but not detail oriented. I can accept that.•If her message is only three sentences long she might try to answer all the messages she gets from everybody. She seems to have problems with setting her priorities, but as long as she seems like an intelligent person on the first date that is acceptable to me.•If it takes her 5 days to reply, that might be due to her busy schedule. This is a red flag for me, that I would address at the first date. If she does not have time to send messages, does she have enough time for a relationship?• If she sends messages during work hours it might indicate that she is bored at work, which also might hint at a larger problem.• If she sends regularly messages at 3AM that might as well indicate that she has a larger hidden problem.

As soon as I have decided to message somebody, she has already passed 90% of my internal quality-checks regarding our online interaction.The time between me initiating the first messages and the first date is about me passing her quality checks.

Metrics of Online Communication Involvement

I use the following metrics to measure the involvement and balance of interest in my written online dating conversations:

•Time to reply•Length of message•Quality of error-proofing•Quality of layout•Quality of wordingI think it is advantageous to mirror those metrics at least during the first few messages to make your conversation partner feel comfortable.

Make Use Of Your Intuition

I am not a slave to my checklist. If she has three piercings in one ear and I have a positive gut feeling, I still send her a message.I assume that my gut feelings incorporate all my conscious and unconscious knowledge and experiences.So ideally I only need to think or read about the checklist once in my life and my stomach feelings will still incorporate it, as long as it is relevant.

Cast A Worldwide Net

In order to have perfect conditions I cast my net worldwide. But if it depends on how high somebodies standards are. The woman with an 80% match lives 15 miles afar while the 96% match might live 500 miles afar.

Teachers — The Good And The Bad

I see teachers at state schools as an overlap of desirable and undesirable criteria.Teachers at a private school could still be desirable though.Contradictions are to be expected in the checklist. My philosophical dating checklist is not a philosophical argument but merely a checklist to find people that likely are open to UPB and philosophy in general.

Men and women on OKcupid rate attractiveness differently

Some interesting data from the OKcupid people:While men rate the women’s attractiveness on OKcupid on a bell curve, the women tend to rate the average looking male’s attractiveness as below average.

Your Looks and Your Inbox
This week we will confront an unfortunate truth of online dating: no matter how much time you spend polishing your…blog.okcupid.comI do not see instantly actionable information from this 2009 OKcupid article but it is interesting nonetheless.

FB Groups about Philosophical Dating

FDR Singles

Interested in rationality and virtue in all aspects of life? Finding it difficult to find a date or partner with similar interests.(Link to Facebook)