Some notes on OKCupid

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OKcupid most users will not take you seriously unless you answer several hundred questions, honestly close to 1000. Also OKcupid skews younger and more towards casual dating. If you are only looking for something serious early on you will get a pass and less hits. I can go into all the details, but there is an art and methodology to OKcupid, you have to be aware of it to make it work for you. I get tons of hits and tons of guys flirting, even when it is pretty clear I don't respond often and I am in a relationship. But I am also open and poly, which gets higher response rates on OKcupid. Even though I am not looking now.

Education and income also matter to OKcupid, it is literally in many cases a dating site for the highly educated. There is also a response matrix within OKcupid, who and who will not be more likely to get responses. Basically OKcupid pays off for educated users who understand how OKcupid works and appreciate the matching algorithms. Most people will not respond to folks below a certian very high match %. My match % with my partner is 96% for example. He is an Alphanerd who played an important role with regards to the foundational structure of the internet, I am an analyst who has an interest in the singularity. There is such a positive feedback loop for us that we improve each others intellectual capabilities and knowledge base.

OKcupid rewards smart users and casual daters, and those who are bit more outside the norm. Eharmony is more for those who are hetro-normative looking to get married. If somebody asked me if Okcupid was right for them, I would have to go through a litany of questions. Its not right for everybody. Its right for the people in the creative and knowledge class more than anything, the freaks and geeks.

What I am saying it really depends on what you are looking for.

Looking for marriage intially is not good for OKcupid. The truth is the average person these days wants to test people out in a casual relationship first and move on from there if it works. I am not saying there are not successful relationships there, but the site is more reflective of its younger gen x and y urban userbase. "Looking for marriage" is kind of a red flag these days whether you are male or female, they are more cautious about that type of committment. They want to make sure the relationship works, often for several years, before getting married. In fact there is a geographic divide. The early marriage types in the south are also more likely to get divorced, while the people in Mass. who tend to get married in thier thirties and often have established LTR for years before getting married, have a much lower divorce rate. I can go into the reasons for this, but my advice is NOT TO LOOK FOR MARRIAGE. Look for a short term or long term relationship, drop looking for marriage out of your profile even if that is what you ultimately want, just be more aware that these days getting to the marriage point may take years.

I think part of the problem with OKCupid may be that when you answer a lot of questions, you are much more likely to catch one that is a dealbreaker for the other person. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing, but I suspect it happens.

I personally only put new friends and long term relationship on my profile. I don't think marriage is even an option. But even if it were, I wouldn't put it on there. I need a few months to a few years of friendship before trusting a woman enough to try a relationship with her, and then a couple years of relationship before I'd feel comfortable enough for marriage, much like you mentioned about people from the northeast. The problem is, because of this long period, I need to really meet someone pretty much now (within the next couple of years), or I'll be 42 before i'd be ready to marry, and by that point I won't be able to start a family unless I got with a girl that was much younger...