Summary: How do you match up? Birds of a feather, like minds and... B.O.? On this episode of DDP we dig into online match making and how some of the different sites go about trying to put you in touch with a potential match. We also have some email in response to our last episode and a listener comment on a match making fail! - Direct MP3 Download - iTunes Subscription - RSS Feed Tweet Show Notes for episode 3 below… DDP Ep. 003 Show Notes: On DDP episode numero tres we talk about...Hurricane Earl, which hit Canada’s Atlantic Provinces over the weekend (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves!) How different sites match users: by vital stats (age, location, values, the basics) what kind of relationship/encounter you’re looking for Dating distance (is a whole other method of spatial measurement) We talk about matching dealbreakers for ourselves, like wanting to start a family or not, smokers v. nonsmokers, that sort of thing.OkCupid draws people in through quizzes - one of us thought that was a fun way to get matched, the other one didn’t really love the endless series of questions! Lara got drawn in through the “Are you a nerd, geek or a dork?” quiz (which is pretty fun!)We also mention echemistry.com, eharmony.com, and perfectmatch.com as examples of sites that have their own algorithms for matching users. Psychologist may be involved. NEWS Joel found a site that matches you by your DNA. Um, yikes. Where’s the romance? ScientificMatch.com Lara likes Alikewise.com, which matches you to users who’ve read the same books. What can she say, she’s a bookworm at heart. (We do get a little sidetracked talking about whether people are in fact still reading in this day and age!) She originally found out about Alikewise through Ruth Franklin at The New Republic, here. EMAIL Jared M. writes about an experience he had through the site Lavalife. As a shy person, he spent some time while living in Miramichi establishing a relationship with a girl on the site. Since she didn’t live nearby, it took a long time to plan a meeting. When finally Jared planned to stop by her house, he got lost and couldn’t find it! He was too nervous to go through with the meeting as planned and regretted it later. Oh, geography, how you get in the way. We talk about how tough this situation is, especially after sending messages back and forth for two months - but also how awkward it can be to meet someone at their home! Be safe out there, guys. Jenn O. writes about a really bad matching system. She had tried PlentyOfFish, and been disappointed by crappy profiles and people who weren’t taking things seriously. So she tried the more complicated system at eHarmony. She still found that there were profiles even on a paid site that were really low quality, even smutty. Basically, buyer beware. What a waste of time and money! Who are these people who take the time to build up a profile, get approved, find matches, and then fill it with trash?? Harrumph. NEXT TIME Back to school! Next episode or possibly the following one we’d like to talk about the experience of moving to a new city (possibly as a student) and dating. Do you have a story about starting university and going on a disastrous date or trying a new dating site in order to meet people? Email us (datingdigital AT gmail DOT com) with your thoughts or stories about being a student, moving to a new city, or your experience in general with trying to make connections in the world of online dating. Check us out on Twitter, and feel free to record a voicemail and send that to our gmail account as well. We’ll be back in 2-3 weeks with another episode and look forward to hearing from you in the meantime!
