I totally agree, but actually this is one of the things I like about OkCupid -- the questions you are asked in the 'improve your matches section' have a space for your answer, and a separate space for your ideal match's answer. I've put down different answers in those sections for plenty of the questions.

I see your point, Melismata, but it's been shown that the best predictor of a relationship's success is similarity of experiences and background. So we want someone who's like us in certain ways and different in a few noticeable others.

Then again, I'm still dealing with the aftermath of my last long-term ... situation ... and we both really liked each other but we were just too different in so many key ways. For a while I loved being challenged but in the end it was just a recipe for conflict.

Mrs Miniver's problem:

She saw every relationship as a pair of intersecting circles. It would seem at first glance that the more they overlapped the better the relationship; but this is not so. Beyond a certain point the law of diminishing returns sets in, and there are not enough private resources left on either side to enrich the life that is shared. Probably perfection is reached when the area of the two outer crescents, added together, is exactly equal to that of the leaf-shaped piece in the middle. On paper there must be some neat mathematical formula for arriving at this; in life, none.

Needing a complement is why I'm glad the stereotype about girls being good at cooking and boys eating dry ramen straight from the bag is sometimes true.

I'm fire roasting poblanos and chopping onions and all I have to do is point at the garbage can and it's taken out, because I am too busy cooking! Which I love to do! And without me, my boyfriend would be eating cold canned tuna with soy sauce and mayonnaise out of a tortilla,* so damn straight he's taking out the garbage, something I am genuinely bad at as if you can even be bad at something so simple.

I've often thought I couldn't be with someone who was a better cook than me, because I really love that look of amazement when you put a tasty creative warm meal in front of someone who shouldn't be allowed within fifteen feet of a stove. They'd be serving me chimichurri foam on jicama carpaccio with a side of fleur-de-sel-crusted mahi mahi cutlets or some bullshit like that and I'd be crying softly because I can't compete with that. And I like to be needed.

*don't be stealing his recipe, it is copywritten because it's going into his forthcoming cookbook TEN THOUSAND RECIPES FOR THE CHEAPEST BRAND OF TINNED TUNA IN THE STORE

I think it's a common fallacy that people believe that humans want to date others like themselves. To some extent, it's fine. But do I really want to date a neurotic, geeky, slightly obsessive lawyer like myself? Hell No!

One way to get around the algorithms on OKCupid may be to check out people who are seemingly not matched to you. I'm sure it'll at least get you some interesting dating stories.

My online dating experiences are a decade out of date now but I never understood how any of those matching features made any sense. I don't think that humans are that easily quantifiable (or at least I hope so). My wife and I are alike in some ways and very different in others and I have no idea how you'd distill that into some compatibility formula. When I was dating, I would much rather read what the other person had to say and judge myself whether we'd fit.

I like okcupid's system of being able to choose multiple "acceptable" answers for the other person plus assigning importance to questions.

I think the system works well to weed out people who you have fundamental differences in religion, relationship ethics, etc., but to get good results you need to skip all of the trivial questions on issues which don't matter and questions which are poorly written with inadequate answers. (There are way too many of both types.)

I just recently signed up and haven't even finished writing my profile, but a very nice woman contacted me and we've been exchanging messages since last week. Wheeeeee.

aw, the sweet chains of marriage.