The copy on the front page (specifically the reasons to date ugly people) has a rather mocking tone. I can go along with the idea, but I feel like the site should be showing its members a lot more respect.
If this site becomes known, I could see it being used as a mean insult where someone sends a message on a dating site, and the reply includes a link to TUBB.
The cliche is that men go to dating sites looking for sex and women go to dating sites looking for wealthy men. A site like this would be a bonanza for men looking for an 'easy' partner.
Someone needs to start a "rich but ugly" site, that would be a winning proposition for both genders, albeit a fertile source of disappointment to anyone who paired up.
I had seriously considered a site playing to that cliche. The site would always maintain a 2-1 ratio of women to men, with the women's accounts being free, and having them only be accepted into the site if they were a 7 or better. (something like top 15%)
Men's accounts would be prohibitively expensive, something like $250 a month.
The site would be promoted to women by going to clubs, bars, etc with women (on a per city basis, probably starting in NYC, Boston, etc) and giving them something of a 'golden ticket' to signing up. ie, the invitation itself would be proof of attractiveness and would an invite would therefore be desirable.
Eventually women would be approved by some sort of crowd sourcing or just editorial control.
Honestly, I think the real problem is getting enough women that the site has enough value to shell out $250 a month.
I think wealthy men, even if they have no problem getting laid, will still find a lot of value in a large selection of women in a market that is artificially in their favor.
I wonder if they'll enforce the ugly requirement to 'Stop the the beautiful people from wrecking it'. I can just see their next headline about someone being kicked off the site for being too hot.
#1. Most ugly people don't want to date someone else ugly. This is especially true for men, who typically care far more about their mate's appearance than their own.
#2. Most ugly people aren't conscious of their ugliness, or if they are, they at least aren't comfortable enough admitting it to sign up for this service.
1- True, but if you are ugly and have little else to offer than you will settle for ugly.
2- I think we will see lots of decent looking people signing up because they think "in a pool of ugliness I will beauty queen", and that will help. For example in the latest members section, the girl on the top right is not ugly.
But who wants to meet a future spouse on a dating site for ugly people? Rather, an ugly person would prefer a dating site for smart people or mac enthusiasts or music enthusiasts, etc.
There's still an element of stigma around online dating. When you combine that with the fact that nobody wants to admit to others and especially to themselves that they settled, this site is a trainwreck in the making... assuming it isn't some sort of a prank or something. Nobody intentionally goes out looking for ugly people to date.
Given this, I think stratifying dating sites on attractiveness would actually improve successful match rates. Whether you can do this all in one site or need to create stronger logical boundaries is really a matter of implementation.
OkCupid already has a form of this stratification in place. I'm just not sure how obvious it is (or whether people should even know about it).
If people consistently rate your photos higher, after the ratings clear a certain threshold, the system considers you "attractive." The system sends you an email congratulating you and about how "you'll be shown more attractive matches from now on."
Ugly to one is attractive to another, in many cases.
For example, fat women have the whole BBW (Big, Beautiful Women) movement and guys who love that. Same with gay men and the 'bear community'.
Even geeks get to take advantage of being 'adorkable'.
Having a huge birthmark, or cross-eyes, or something else that sets you apart from the 'average' person may be considered ugly, or just strange. I don't see any people on that home page that I would call ugly.
Also, I think that people who believe themselves to be less attractive generally try harder. :)
Or is it that majority of the people are so conscious about the way they look that they are more comfortable labeling themselves 'ugly' than let somebody else do it!
Nah, I'm pretty sure I'm ugly alright, and even if I wasn't there are several data points that make it kinda obvious: First, girls have repeatedly told me so. But just to make sure, I conducted an experiment by creating two accounts on a dating site: one using my real photos, the other using pics from a normal-looking (not overly attractive) man off the web. The "normal guy" got tons of winks and responses, while the real me got nothing as usual. Well, nothing is not quite true, I got a response from a girl who was apparently offended because I thought I was in her league... This pattern didn't change when I made the normal looking guy sound like a total douche on his profile.
You made the normal looking guy sound like a douche? That may be the reason he got so many winks and responses. Often being an arrogant douche can be mistaken for confidence and attractiveness.
Right, that was what I was thinking. Females love confidence whether it comes is the vessel of an asshole or a nice guy.
I once had a girlfriend who I did not like, shallow as a wading pool. I made a bet with a buddy of mine that not only could I get her to break up with me, but I could get her to sleep with our other buddy (who was in on it).
All I had to do was have a crisis of confidence in which I was no longer decisive, confident, surly arrogant in a humors way. No, I was spineless, Lilly-liveried. All the things my buddy was not, and I made sure to talk about how cool he was all the time, how he got all the girls and did I mention how cool he was.
The buddy I made the bet with was floored at the surgical precision of the whole event and also at how so spiteful and hateful that she became towards me in the process. The events unfolded at my birthday party in which she slept with our friend in his bedroom. They talked for a little while, got up right in front of me, with no respect and no regard, went into the bedroom and shut the door. The buddy, I made the bet with's jaw was on the floor. I was smiling like the cat that ate the canary and everyone at the party is looking at me like, dude did that just happen to him.
I had a similar experience once. I'm a bit of an introvert, but have awesome social skills, and was teaching a friend of mine how anyone can get a hottie if he's confident enough. I got the hottie to go home with him by being confident first to lure her in, and then breaking down and making my friend look alpha in the process. His jaw also dropped when he realized it was that easy. He still sucks at getting women to do what he wants.
Right, confidence has a lot to do with the mating game. Which brings up the grandparent posters comment about being ugly. The fact is for him it does not matter for a woman looks are far down on the totum poll whereas for men conversely they are far up. A good deal of men don't understand this because we as human reason from our perspective. We tend to project, so unattractive men tend to project that women think they are unattractive and given that attractiveness is such a high weight for them they obviously do not have a shot.
The thing is just as a beautiful woman sets of a chain of bio-chemical reactions in a mans brain, a alpha male does the same for women. So being a strong (not just physically) man is far more important than looks. It is the reason women are attracted to older men, they generally exhibit more of the Alpha traits.
The best advice I can offer someone who feels that they cannot get a beautiful woman is to work on their confidence. Just as a woman can augment herself to be more attractive so can a man augment himself to be more dominate, not in a beat you wife tell her what to do way, But in a win friends and influence people kind of way.
Tip #1 is dress sharp, the cloths really do make the man. You don't have to dress up but dress sharp. It is a male boob job, women don't look at a mans face they look at his cloths, his shoes. How many times have you heard a woman say they love a man in uniform, there is a reason? You would be surprised what looking good with a little bit of style can do for your confidence. It makes you walk different, it makes you talk different and women have years of adaptation that pick up on these little nuances.
While I suspect you are generally right and a guy appearing "alpha" is very important when women rate attractiveness, I don't see my not-too-serious A/B test fitting into the story here. Dressing sharp, being an assertive jerk, all that was actually eliminated on account of this being a simple online test where all other factors besides the optics of the face were pretty much equalized. That doesn't mean you're wrong, but it also means in addition to the "dog pack psychology" ranking there is probably a facial attractiveness criterion at work here that is just as important to women as it is to men.
On a darker side note, if we take it for granted that both sexes prefer attractive people in equal measures, there appear to be crass differences in other expectations that depress me somewhat. For example, what I find attractive in a woman:
- good sense of humor
- being nice and constructive
- intelligence and wisdom
- adventurousness and a sense of wonder
- creativity
- good sex and a sense of intimacy
...contrasts pretty sharply with what women want in men:
- assertiveness and dominance
- always puts himself in the best light
- money and good clothes
- adherence to tradition / gender roles
- perceived aura of success
Well, it may be polemic, but you can see the different qualities at work here. The worst thing is, I'm beginning to see my past relationships through that lens and I honestly cannot tell anymore if it's just the resignation talking or if this is actually how the world worked the whole time.
Being a jerk is not a precondition to being an Alpha, it is just a low-brow way to play the mating game. While it works it is crude and unrefined. Kind of what Cutty Sark is to Glenmorangy. While it gets the job done it by no means covers the nuances of refinement, it is an amateur approach at best. If you want to look at an example of what a true Alpha looks like watch a Bond film with Connery. He exemplifies a none wife beater, wearing, Camaro driving Alpha. I mean if you truly break it down is the Camaro, woman beating guy, getting the kind of girl you really want. When one breaks it down past the instant chemical brain pop of hell yes, the answers is no.
Now you don't have to be as swave as Bond but there is something that Connery exhibits well, the kind of guy women want to be around, the kind of guy that is in control, and the kind of guy that can get things done. There is nothing wrong with being this guy, they are really happy people, they don't feel like it is a chore.
The thing to remember is the like beauty the air of being the Alpha is only the ice breaker, it may get you into a 2 month relationship but like all other things it fades, other mental processes take over, things like compatibility become more important, but yes a good deal of women will become dissatisfied if you become a whinny, needy boy (you is meant in general).
The harsh reality though, is that men are more disposable, there are winners and looser and the winner takes all in the mating game. But attractiveness for men is by no means a prerequisite for being a winner.
On this website, is everybody considered to be in the same league? At-least that way, one needn't fear offending anybody...I'm sure the female that you mentioned has low self esteem.
> On this website, is everybody considered to be in the same league?
I have no idea, but at the very least I'd expect the people there to not be so focused on optics. Despite it all, my own self esteem isn't actually low, I'm just aware of a few shortcomings...
> I'm sure the female that you mentioned has low self esteem.
Probably, but it also taught me something important that I hadn't thought about before, because I hadn't even considered that getting a message from me would maybe confirm the doubts a person has about her own looks.
# Once with an ugly partner it is unlikely that anyone will try and take them from you meaning you can let yourself go completely once you’re together.
# In these straightened times TUBB is cheaper as a) We don’t charge much as the pretty sites and b) Ugly people have lower expectations – for a first date A Family Bucket will usually do the trick.
One time I met a guy that had a dating site for people in Rio de Janeiro that was only for hot or rich. All the people had to be pre-approved by the rest of the members to get in. If not approved you could pay something like 500$ to get in.
I wonder if it's still around.
This is just a dating site skin, it is just the main tour is marketed for ugly people, but i'm pretty sure the members area will have the same members as any other whitelabeldating.com site.
from the whitelabeldating site -
> "WhiteLabelDating.com provides the dating software, membership database, payment processing, customer support, hosting infrastructure, tax processing and much more.
You provide your brand, website design and marketing and we do the rest."
What about levels of ugliness? Scale from 1 to 10 or like maybe in levels of "bags". The stereotype that the uglier you are the more bags one would need to put over your head before they would "do you"..??
Like a double-bagger....or a triple bagger..as an example.
Then maybe you say call someone a "f-ugly double bagger" and it might be considered a compliment in the goals of this site!
The real target audience of that site is people with a poor self-image. That's a perfectly valid target market - and a big one, I'd bet! Of course, they can't just come out and SAY "join if you have issues with your looks" - that wouldn't go down very well with the users.
I don't want to come across as a spelling Nazi, but since you're asking for feedback I hope you take this as constructive criticism to improve the front page copy:
"In these straightened times TUBB is cheaper as..."
Should be "straitened times"
"Ugly" needs to broken out by category: ugly on the outside? Ugly personality? Ugly mental illness? Ugly by car accident or Ugly by DNA? Ugly not intelligent?
The dating game in this country is broken, as evidence I point at the 50%+ divorce rate.
I propose a better solution. One where a dating website has "ground rules" that if you break, you get three strikes and your out. Rules like you have to respond to the suitor with a reason why you are incompatible. Rules like if you are chronically offending other people, you get restricted rights. If you are beautiful and get hundreds of messages and don't respond to any, you get removed from search. If a suitor comes up, fitting all your criteria for a date, and you don't like them, and can't quote a reason why you don't like them, you get a emblem on your profile that says: "Profile criteria inaccurate, this person doesn't have any idea what they want". Which would encourage one to actually put down what they want in the mate, instead of the fluff that women/men actually put down.
"The dating game in this country is broken, as evidence I point at the 50%+ divorce rate."
That stat is always brought up as proof of the failure of marriage. To me it validates marriage.
Seriously, if you told a computing engine that two people committed to each other (often when young), and they always had the option of saying adieu, and asked what percentage would over the entirety of their lives, it would probably estimate somewhere in the 100% range of people wouldn't stick it out.
Just look at the evidence: How many people stick to anything they commit to, much less something with a commitment often greater than 60 years.
If almost half of marriages remain, that is just shockingly high.
My guess is a not insignificant chunk of that 50% is people being willing to stay in an unhappy marriage because the social, legal,and financial consequences of divorce are so destructive.
If this site becomes known, I could see it being used as a mean insult where someone sends a message on a dating site, and the reply includes a link to TUBB.