A fellow with a 93% match percentage on OkCupid sent me a message last night. It was harmless enough, but my answer clearly upset him. Minutes after receiving my reply, he took down his profile (or possibly blocked me, I’m not sure how that works).
His question was this:
I decided to address his question in terms of online dating in general, and here is my response.
Hi, I’m glad you sent me a message, but upon reading a bit further through your profile than I was able to using quick match, I don’t think we’d be very compatible.
In response to your question of why it’s “easier” for women, the answer is somewhat complicated. For starters, it’s a matter of perceived risk. A guy’s worst imagined scenario for matching with the wrong person is finding out the other person is unattractive in real life. In contrast, a girl’s worst imagined scenario is that she’ll end up drugged and raped by a serial criminal. Women are socialized to be a lot more selective and careful with how much we share online. Simply posting a photo of our face can be dangerous, let alone our bodies. Guys, on the other hand, feel safer looking for romance online. They face fewer, less serious risks and when it comes to photos, are not told repeatedly that their appearance is to blame for their own harassment and assault. Since men feel safer, there are more of them willing to put themselves out there.
Because there are so many more guys online, women have a perceived advantage of choice. We can be more particular and choosy because there are more options. Anonymous guys with low match percentage flood our inboxes with one-word messages. We use stricter filters to keep this problem at bay. We stop filling out our profiles because it seems like nobody reads them anyway. We hide our answers because creeps will bring up sexual preferences in chat that are really nobody’s business until at least the third date (yes, ALL of these things have happened to me and every woman I know). In spite of all of this, there are still guys who don’t understand any of it and make stupid demands about how much of our body or face they can see in a photo.
Dude, it may seem “easier” but trust me, it’s not. I’d trade this “advantage” any day for half of the advantages dudes have in every other aspect of life.
Thanks again, but I don’t think you and I would get along at all.
Poly Momma 
Yeah, he got all butt hurt and blocked you.
Reality is seriously too hard for some dudes. I feel a certain cruel satisfaction that he was really hoping I would reply. I don’t think he actually wanted a real answer. He wanted tips to “overcome” the asymmetry. Not sure if he wanted to know how to meet more women or how to deal with his own issues about not getting to dive into a pool full of available vaginas.
I’d like to mention that the main thing I objected to in his profile was specifically the “don’t message me if you don’t have current/full body photos” and the typical bullshit about how it is dishonest to only show part of your face. Many of his pictures were backlit, or action shots where his face was obscured by sunglasses, so it seemed rather hypocritical. “No face-only pics” is the new “no fatties.” The inherent body-shaming and ageism in that is pretty terrible. And I’ve discovered there are many MANY guys who lie about their age to try to outsmart women’s age filters. Cis-het guys are so uncomfortable in any situation that puts them at a disadvantage.
I’m not entirely sure how accurate his observation is, it’s really just a broad generalization. It may be “easier” for women to find a warm body in online dating (or polyamory in general), but in my experience my bf has had a lot more success than I have in finding *quality* people that he actually wants to spend time with in real life than I have. You are absolutely correct in that women have a lot more weeding out to do, and I think many women just get tired of the time it takes to do that and don’t want to put in the effort for it anymore.