Your Dating Leauge, Standard Deviations and Something about E-Harmony

We have often heard people say, "Whoa she is way out of his league." Which usually means that one of the dating partners is much more attractive then the other. However, the reality is that there are 100's or 1000's of leagues and you are in several of them at the same time. For example you may be in the great looking league but also in the dumb as a box of rocks league and in the generous league. Are you with me so far?

This explanation assumes that you grant a few common terms.

1.) That there are multiple leagues that people belong to. Income League, Attractiveness League, Humor League etc.

2.) That there are varying levels of how much someone belongs to one of those leagues. For example you can fall somewhere on a scale of 1-10. I am a 7 in looks btw.

Now here is how it all works. This is a fun experiment to do with your friends at a bar. Write on a napkin these ten things. (Or pick 10 others that are important to you order does not matter)

1.) Looks
2.) Humor
3.) Cleanliness
4.) Intelligence
5.) Income
6.) Manners
7.) Interests (Hobbies or things that make you interesting)
8.) Experience (Amount of things you have had to overcome)
9.) Attentiveness (How well you pay attention)
10.) Chemistry\ Personality

Now rank your self 1-10 in each
Have your friends do the same.
Take all the totals...come on you haven't forgotten all those Stats lessons have you?

Now you have a mean and also a standard deviation for each category. As well as a mean and standard deviation for the whole set.

Now when you go on your next date. Do a napkin for them. Rank them 1-10 in each category.

Breaking out the results... Now you can create leagues two different ways you can look at the score and mean of all of these combined or you can look at category levels.

For example a person scores 7 in all of the categories they get a score of 70

Say a simple standard deviation for our group is 5 my league a.k.a my matches mean that anyone who is a 65 to 75 is a match a.k.a my league(The more people you add the tighter this deviation gets)

So if I dated a 76 or a 64 they would be out of my league. Make sense?

When a dating site says they match the whole person this is exactly what they are doing. This is fine until you realize that person scored a one cleanliness and is a pig and higher in everything else so that you are a statistical match but not a compatibility match.

Or you can break it out by categories and have people say which ones matter most to you. Say looks and income. This has the same problem. You will over look the 8 other areas where you do not agree and drive each other crazy.

It is also important to know that at a category level a 5 and a 7 could be very different.

This is why you need to look at both when making your decisions.

This is why I like looking at my matches on say okcupid or match.com or other such site amuse me so much....it is telling me statistically who is in my league.

PS. I am not dogging on dating site quite the opposite, they do a good job of screening out people who are way out your league. Saving your time and if you are worth a salt you are probably pretty busy and they can be of great help.

You just have to know their limitations.

1.) They are only as good as the people they get to sign up for their service.
2.) Your match's are only as good as your answers. (You could have one question that you answered that could skew all of your matches, it is helpful to know where this could be and work around it.)
3.) It is helpful to do the napkin exercise to understand how all of this works. Use your napkin on the dates that you go from the services. This can help you identify your questions or areas that could be skewing your results and setting you up with duds...