数学运算终难破解爱情密码

The online dating site OkCupid asks its clients to rate each other’s attractiveness on a scale of 1 to 5. When men rated the women, the median score was about 3 and the ratings followed a bell curve — a few really attractive women and an equal number of women rated as unattractive.

在线约会网站OkCupid邀请用户给其他人的外表打分，最低1分，最高5分。当男性评价女性的时候，中位数在3左右，分数分布呈钟形曲线。也就是说，只有一些女性得到极富吸引力的评价，同样也只有一些女性得到全无吸引力的评价。

But when women rated men, the results were quite different. The median score was between 1 and 2. Only 1 in 6 of the guys was rated as having above average looks. Either the guys who go to places like OkCupid, Tinder and other sites are disproportionately homely, or women have unforgiving eyes.

然而当女性评价男性时，结果却大相径庭。中位数在1到2之间，而且仅有六分之一男性的相貌得分高于一般水平。这要么是上OkCupid和Tinder等网站的男性相貌过于寒碜，要么就是女性的眼光太挑剔。

Looks, unsurprisingly, dominate online dating. But I learned some details from “Dataclysm,” the book by Christian Rudder, who is the co-founder and president of OkCupid.

并不让人意外的是，长相在网上约会中占据了重要位置。不过，从OkCupid的联合创始人和总裁克里斯蒂安·鲁德尔(Christian Rudder)撰写的《数据大变革》(Dataclysm)一书里，我得知了其中的一些细节。

There’s a gigantic superstar effect. Women who are rated in the top 5 percent of attractiveness get a vast majority of the approaches. The bottom 95 percent get much less. For men, looks barely matter at all unless you are in the top 3 percent or so. The hunks get barraged with approaches.

首先是存在一个庞大的巨星效应。外表打分在前5%的女性会获得绝大多数的示好，而剩下的95%则要少得多。对男性而言，长相几乎无足轻重，除非能位列前3%左右。这样的型男也会应接不暇地被人示好。

It’s better to have a polarizing profile than a bland one. People who generate high levels of disapproval — because they look like goths or bikers or just weird — often also generate higher levels of enthusiasm.

其次是激起两极化评价的个人页面，要好过平淡无奇的页面。很多人不认同的那些——比如外表哥特风、机车党，或者纯粹就是怪异的——往往也能受到不少追捧。

Racial bias is prevalent. When Asian men are looking at Asian women they rate them as 18 percent more attractive than average. But when they are looking at black women, they rate them as 27 percent less attractive. White and Latino men downgrade black women by nearly the same percentage. White, Latino and Asian women have similar preferences.

再就是普遍存在种族偏好。亚裔男性给亚裔女性的外表打分时，要比平均水平高出18%。不过，他们给黑人女性的打分要低27%。白人和拉丁裔男性给黑人女性打低分的程度也与之相当。不过，白人、拉丁裔及亚裔女性的外貌偏好相似。

When people start texting or tweeting to each other, they don’t turn into a bunch of Einsteins. Rudder looked into the most common words and phrases used on Twitter. For men they include: good bro, ps4, my beard, in nba, hoopin and off-season. For women they include: my nails done, mani pedi, retail therapy, and my belly button.

还有，人们互相发短信或在Twitter交流时，也并不会变为爱因斯坦。鲁德尔研究了Twitter上最常用的词汇。男性是：好兄弟、PS4、我的胡子、NBA比赛、打球、没球看。女性则是：美甲完毕、手指脚趾一起修、购物疗法、我的肚脐眼。

People who date online are not shallower or vainer than those who don’t. Research suggests they are broadly representative. It’s just that they’re in a specific mental state. They’re shopping for human beings, commodifying people. They have access to very little information that can help them judge if they will fall in love with this person. They pay ridiculous amounts of attention to things like looks, which have little bearing on whether a relationship will work. OkCupid took down the pictures one day. The people who interacted on this day exchanged contact info at twice the rate as on a regular day.

此外，在线约会的人并不比其他人更浅薄或自负。研究显示，他们其实相当有代表性。区别只不过是他们处于一种特定的精神状态之下。他们是在婚恋市场上挑拣，将人商品化。他们并不能获得多少信息以助其判断自己是否会与对方相爱。因而他们将多得离谱的精力放到了外貌这种事上，而这些东西对于一段关系是否顺利，起不到多大作用。曾经有一天，OkCupid把照片都撤下了。在当天互动的用户中，交换联络方式的比例，较平常高出了一倍。

The dating sites have taken the information available online and tried to use it to match up specific individuals. They’ve failed. An exhaustive review of the literature by Eli J. Finkel of Northwestern and others concluded, “No compelling evidence supports matching sites’ claims that mathematical algorithms work.” That’s because what creates a relationship can’t be expressed in data or photographs. Being in love can’t be done by a person in a self-oriented mind-set, asking: Does this choice serve me? Online dating is fascinating because it is more or less the opposite of its object: love.

各家约会网站都在努力搜集在线信息，并试图利用这些信息来帮个人配对。但结果并不理想。西北大学的伊莱·J·菲克尔(Eli J. Finkel)等人对此进行了详尽的文献综述研究，得出的结论是：“相亲网站宣称的数学算法行之有效的说法，没有得到令人信服的证据支持。”这是因为，孕育出伴侣关系的东西并不能通过数字或照片展示出来。怀着以自我为中心的心态，提出“这个选择对我好不好”的问题时，人是没办法坠入爱河的。在线约会之所以吸引人，是因为它或多或少地背离了初衷：爱情。

When online daters actually meet, an entirely different mind-set has to kick in. If they’re going to be open to a real relationship, they have to stop asking where this person rates in comparison to others and start asking, can we lower the boundaries between self and self. They have to stop thinking in individual terms and start feeling in rapport terms.

在网上约会的男女在现实中相见时，必须转换成另一套截然不同的心态。如果他们想迎接真正的伴侣关系，就得忘掉对方跟别人比起来评分有多高，而是要开始思考，我们能否撤去两个自我之间的藩篱？他们得放弃个人化的思维方式，开始感受彼此间的默契。

Basically, they have to take the enchantment leap. This is when something dry and utilitarian erupts into something passionate, inescapable and devotional. Sometimes a student becomes enraptured by the beauty of math, and becomes a mathematician. Soldiers doing the drudgery of boot camp are gradually bonded into a passionate unit, for which they will risk their lives. Anybody who has started a mere job and found in it a vocation has taken the enchantment leap.

基本上，他们必须大胆一跃，沉醉其中。只有这样，原本的枯燥和功利，才会迸发出激情四射、舍此无他、全心投入的感觉。有时候，学生会陶醉于数学之美，从而成为数学家。经历新兵训练营种种艰辛的军人，会逐渐融入一支充满激情的队伍，从而愿意为之献出生命。开始时只觉得是一份工作，后来却从中找到使命感的那些人，便是纵身跃入了这种沉醉。

In love, of course, the shift starts with vulnerability, not calculation. The people involved move from selfishness to service, from prudent thinking to poetic thinking, from a state of selection to a state of need, from relying on conscious thinking to relying on their own brilliant emotions.

在爱情中，这样的转变必然始于脆弱，而非计算。沉湎其中的人，由自私转为奉献，由谨慎考量转为诗意思维，由栖于挑拣之国变为栖于爱欲之国，由依赖智识到倚仗美好的情感。