OKCupid: My Adventures With Big Data

By Staff Pan

While visiting the OKCupid site, I saw in the left column the suggestion that by answering 50 or 75 questions it will help improve matches. Actually, I wasn't interested in that. I knew from Visualizing.org that OKCupid (OKC) was crunching a "ton" of data scooped up from these questions, so I was interested more in the "Big Data" sort.

Since it was Tuesday, a rest day for the Tour de France, I decided on a short ride with Stage 10 in front of me on a tablet, and then I would answer some questions to get some insight into the data being gathered. I should have kept riding - 50 questions flowed into 100, then 250, then 500 and OKC never said "Heh Cupid, cool it, you're messing with us now." Frankly, I thought it was just the opposite. There seemed to an excessive number of questions about bondage, or maybe it was Euro bonds - by #375 I was becoming fatigued - I didn't have any wine, ripe peaches, olives, or day-old pizza from a neighbor. I had to settle for one of Jacques Égan's creations - a White Nimbus (vodka and Maalox) - to ease my stomach.

I admit I don't know much about bondage, so questions like "Would you prefer to be inside an Iron Maiden, or whipped while strapped down to a revolving Lazy Susan," left me perplexed and feeling that I need to get out a bit more.

Near #475, questions like "Have you ever been tongued tied during a first date?" were getting me more muddled. Were we still on sex and bondage, or is that just referring to ordinary first date anxiety - if first dates usually include Smith & Wesson handcuffs and a Lazy Susan.

Just after #600, I think I simply faded out. A bit later, I heard a low slurping sound. I recall thinking: "This is nice. So bondage ends with licking," but it was my cat, Mr. T., finishing the White Nimbus, and then nose-diving semi-wasted onto the keyboard. That woke up the workstation, and I was immediately presented with an OKC email announcement that they had crunched the data, and created a "match-map" for me.

On the map, the two dark green areas showed places that it was imperative that I waste no time in traveling to as they are "babe cauldrons." I was a bit surprised, I never heard of New Hampshire being referred to as a babe cauldron, but I wasn't in the mood to argue with Big Data, besides the "match-map" said the rest of the U.S. is off-limits - for my own safety - until I reach light-green Oregon. Great! That gets me out of visiting my sister again in West Virginia. Just as well, the chef Jamie Oliver went down there a few years ago and left in tears - as well as overweight.

So what about hot spot #2? Well, the French didn't want me apparently, but off Normandy, in the nearby Channel Islands, on the Isle of Jersey, both of the available females had read my profile. Yippee. And it's a tax haven, and everyone is incorporated. Well, since persons are persons, and corporations are persons, the prospect of "climbing the corporate ladder" offers some intriguing possibilities.

Meanwhile, back in Ulster County, NY, this so-called matching system includes %Match and %Enemy. That's just swell! There are people I haven't met yet, and already my mouth (or my mouse) has caused problems. With respect to one very interesting woman near Accord (pronounced "Ack-Cord" for those interested), I have a 86% match and 12% enemy rating. I think "enemy" is rather a strong word for a compatibility issue about which I'm not yet conversant. Maybe we're really in sync on this bondage thing, but there's an issue over something as simple as toothpaste. Frankly, I don't quite see how toothpaste would be integrated into a bondage scenario, but if we meet a second time (this is definitely not first meeting material), I may be able to work it into a seemingly innocuous conversation. "So, when you said you were all tied up in meetings the other day, what brand of toothpaste was involved?" (If she doesn't run off after that inquiry, we may be able to put this issue behind us, and then talk about a matter with a significant wildlife impact.)

But I'm getting a head of myself. Against my own inner-tube of admonitions, I was inclined to answer more questions - honestly - to improve my %match score.
"I want to be perfect to someone!" That's right: "...deception should begin at home" (Joseph Conrad, "The Return").

So, with boundless joy, and a double White Nimbus in hand (it was exactly 17:00 - the start of "Blotto Time"), I pulled the mouse out from under a cat - who wandered in - and proceeded Firth of Forth-with - whatever...

Almost immediately, I was stuck.

"Would you cheat during a first date?"

My inner dialog said: "Uh, Lord Goring..." (sometimes I like to think of myself in scenes from Oscar Wilde's "An Ideal Husband") "...such a scheme definitely requires more organizational skills than you'll ever possess. And don't forget your valet quit - again. Gads man, pay him something." (This was very short, my inner dialogs often last 30-40 minutes, longer if "someone" is taking notes.)

What to do? If I press Cancel, my score can't progress. I have to answer Yes or No, and then attach importance to the answer. What would Lord Goring do? Well, a gentleman (without a valet to manage things) wouldn't do that, so the answer should be No, and everyone else should answer No - just for the symmetry.

I pressed the blue Answer tab.

"Gotcha! We have read your profile, and you're never going to have a first date. So the answer is irrelevant. But if it was - in your case - the answer should be "No." Unless you're thinking of a three or four-way, and how are you going to work that into the conversation while talking about cats?"

"Press Next to continue to another question."

I stopped. Resignation seeped slowly in.

My score is my score.

Now if I only could score.
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A note of caution:  Although I answered hundreds of questions at once, and was really bored doing it, my attitude has had consequences. One person's "irrelevant / somewhat" is another's "mandatory." It's just the way it is.

OKCupid Related Links To Meaningful Data   Terminology / Analysis * What does %enemy mean? http://www.theinternetpatrol.com/what-does-enemy-mean-on-ok-cupid/ * Best Questions For A First Date [Like beer & horror movies? Really?] People who like complexity (exclude Dems in NYC) are 2:1 more likely to be liberals. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-best-questions-for-first-dates/ * The Mathematics of Beauty [Some strange results here.] http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-mathematics-of-beauty/ * How a Math Genius Hacked OkCupid to Find True Love Data from 1000s of profiles; 1000s of calculations; 87 dates, but the girl finds him. http://www.wired.com/2014/01/how-to-hack-okcupid/all/ * We Experiment On Human Beings! (28July2014) 3 "Experiments": "...your picture is worth that fabled thousand words, but your actual words are worth…almost nothing." AND just being told you "match" works too. http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/we-experiment-on-human-beings/

It could be worse - much worse: Pino D'Angio - Ma Quale Idea    Lyrics