Internet Dating Punks You Into Wrong Match

Using OkCupid to find "the one?"  Well, they may have introduced you to a complete frog as part of an experiment.

I've made it no secret that internet dating (actually, dating in general) freaks me out.  After repeated fails, I really find it hard to believe that you'll just happen to run into a guy somewhere, have drinks with him, go to a movie or two and realize that the two of you are meant to be.  (Then again, I've dated completely in the biz or in a mutual group of friends for the past six years and that hasn't worked so well either.)  But someone pointed out to me that internet dating would actually help me weed out the people that had the potential to bore me to tears and have some other things in common with me, like my love of endurance sports.  After being single for a few months, I started to think about it...until I read what OkCupid did to some of its users.

According to Jezebel, OkCupid decided to match some of its users with people that were completely opposite from their Mr. Right.  They either pumped up or completely sunk a potential match's compatibility score in an attempt to find out if their matching formula actually predicted if people would fall in love or they were just interested in the profiles they were clicking on because data told them that was their happily ever after.

When asked about lying to their customers about potential matches, co-founder Christian Rudder explained:

If you use the Internet, you're the subject of hundreds of experiments at any given time, on every site. That's how websites work."

Ouch! I really hope no user ended up wasting years trying to make a relationship work because the false data told them that their guy was perfect for them, when in reality it was doomed from first click.  By the way, the mismatching was only one of the three experiments conducted on OkCupid users.  Click below to see how the other two may have affected you.