Various thots

Is 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' a movie about incel?  Toula is 30 and unmarried, shy and drab.  I'm not sure, but John Corbett's pretty cute so I'll watch it in the name of research.
Just turned the tv on, I just missed the end of 'I Love You...Don't Touch Me' which is about a 25 year old virgin.  Sounds pretty lame though.

Still no messages on OKC, but someone apparently rated me highly.  They send you this email that says 'one of these 9 men rated 4 or 5 stars.  Go look through their profiles and if you rate them highly as well, we'll let you both know you're a match.' 

They talk about it like a fun game.  Oh, and it gets me on the site looking at 9 profiles, that's probably good for their advertising. 

I don't want to play these silly games.  I don't want to be favourited or ranked or winked at or sent virtual flowers.  Do we have to make online dating more ridiculous than it already is?
I just want a message! 

I read this and thought it was interesting-The Math of Beauty
Now, it's about women's looks, so be prepared, but the women featured are ordinary looking women and I actually found it reassuring that men rated them much higher than I would have.  Now I feel mean!

By analyzing profile photos and comparing them with the amount of messages the women get, the researchers found that it is to a women's advantage (in terms of male interest) if some men find her unattractive. 
A women who is rated a 4 out of 5 by almost everyone is 'cute', but no one messages her. 
A women whose rating is divided strongly between 1s and 5s gets lots of messages.

The theory, if I've gotten it right, is that being rated a 5 by someone gets you a message.  Hot = message.  Guys are excited and take action.  They might know they don't have a shot in hell, but it can't hurt to try.
Cute girls (4s) don't get messages because nobody's super excited, but everybody thinks everybody else is messaging them so nobody messages them.  Girls who get 1s and 5s get lots of messages because the guys who like them like them a lot, and they figure there's less competition so they're more willing to go for it.

You can't actually see other people's ratings.  We must all have some shared idea of beauty in our heads, enough to know when other people are going to agree with our ratings and when they're our own personal quirk.

The advice the article gives is play up your quirks- show off your tattoos and your crooked teeth...

My current photo is pretty ordinary.  A few years ago my friend dared me to join Plenty of Fish and at the time I had brightly dyed hair.  I got quite a few messages; I wonder if that had something to do with it.
Or is summer the slow season for online dating?
Well it doesn't hurt me to have a profile up.

Visited the new baby today, for only 30 minutes- bit grumpy that they went out at the time I said I was planning to come.  Weird dynamics about the family seeing this baby....we'll see how this works out.  The new mother is only 21.