Comments on: OKCupid: Mentioning Atheism Leads to Higher Response Rates

By: Chas

Chas — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 05:55:00 +0000

A lot of smarter women are self-sufficient and often do not end up getting married (aka Athiests). They are a bit more intimidating (less datable) as well.

Also, there’s not as compelling of a reason to get married when you have no religion. If the woman is not pressuring the man to get married, it might not happen, and so the stats would be skewed.

By: CommanderOfAll

CommanderOfAll — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:28:26 +0000

Mentioning atheism leads to positive responses on OKcupid, but it leads to negative responses on eHarmony, Match.com, and in many real-life social gatherings. OKcupid is once again proving exceptional and (dare I say it?) smart.

P.S. — Male atheists are always complaining about the lack of women atheists, but female atheists are always complaining that male atheists are married to religious chicks. Why is it? Could it be because male atheists give up too soon and settle too early?

By: klean

klean — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:28:16 +0000

As a long time user of okcupid I can tell you that the number of female athiest using the site is few. I suspect most people prefer to avoid a sermon and maintain their personal beliefs.
Those with religion often have a hard time defining and understanding the athiest and equate it to devil worship. The.mention of it may be like a train wreck for the rubber-necker.

By: Erik R.

Erik R. — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 03:07:40 +0000

My wife and I met on eHarmony and we’re both Atheists. I can’t say that there are that many, but probably more than you might think.

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 17:11:56 +0000

So, how would saying “I’m an atheist, but I believe in god” affect response rates?

Also curious that “allah” is positive” while “god” is negative.

By: Bruce Long

Bruce Long — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:32:49 +0000

Maybe I need to get an extreme makeover, but this doesn’t agree with my personal experience. I do have three kids and don’t want more – and that makes a big difference. However, I make a polite note in my profile (not on OKCupid) to the effect that religious and spiritual people need not contact me. This seems to act as rather a deterent.

What is the case, then? My experience does not seem to bear out the OkCupid results. There is one speculation I can make (VERY speculative.) I make it on the basis that OKCupid reports the biggest no no as including contact email details in one’s initial contact, but this doesn’t really compute, since:

A. This is the opposite in my personal experience. Many people want you to email ASAP
B. It doesn’t make sense – because people do not HAVE to email you externally
C. It would affect the dating site’s bottom line for everyone to bug out after ‘first contact’ – yes?

So – maybe they have also cottoned on to the fact that atheists don’t do so well in their sites – and they are trying to encourage we heathen to get in there and take the ‘hits’.

Like I said – speculative.

Bruce.

By: DangerousTalk

DangerousTalk — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:45:07 +0000

Actually, my brother went on eHarmony and met a ton of atheists. So while it was created by Christians, atheists seem to be attracted to the quasi-scientific compatibility thing. I recently wrote a story on this for the Examiner.

By: ZombieGirl

ZombieGirl — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:24:02 +0000

And for the record, nobody tried to convert me at all. Yay.

By: ZombieGirl

ZombieGirl — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 02:23:00 +0000

I joined OKCupid as an experiment after you mentioned it on your site (because I have no idea what dating sites are like.) I used the name “atheist chick” because I thought it would turn a lot of people off. I used a picture of me which wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely not my best one, and I was very honest about myself and told people I wasn’t there for hookups….I got 30 messages in about two weeks or so, and maybe around 25 instant messages in the few minutes I actually spent on that website….O___O

I wonder if that is normal for a dating site or not. I cancelled or suspended my account (forgot which I did) because it’s soooo much damn effort.

By: Mark C.

Mark C. — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 23:29:12 +0000

Well, I’m currently a member of OkCupid. My messages have all had “Hello!” as the subject line, and I’ve never mentioned religion or atheism within the the message. No one’s responded to my messages, though I did manage to have an IM conversation with one person on there… who logged out after every subsequent time I tried to IM her. I must come across as creepy or something… I readily admit that my online social skills lag behind my in-person ones, which aren’t the best, either.

But yeah, I’m on there because of my relationship history and because… well, I’m in Kansas, haha.