Who Gets Matched Up at 7for7 Events?

I've held 3 events so far, and about 50 participants have attended my events. Only a few participants have attended 2 events, none all 3. Some of you have received matches, some of you have not. This post is about who gets matched up at an event, and how you can improve your chances of getting matches in future events.

Let's start with with a chart.

At every event, every participant indicates on their program sheet who they are interested in. In the chart above, every black dot represents a participant. On the x-axis is the number of participants he indicated interest in. On the y-axis is the number of participants who indicated interest in him.

Right now, the chart isn't very interesting. It's just a scatter of black dots. So, let's add more information. The chart below is exactly the same as the one above, except that participants who received matches are shown as red circles instead of black dots. The size of the circle is proportionate to the number of matches the participant received. Large red circles represent participants who received many matches.

The chart above shows more of a pattern, but to make things even easier to see, let's divide the chart up into 4 quadrants.

Now let's name each of the 4 quadrants.

1. Upper Left Hand Quadrant: Snow Queens (represented by Elsa from the movie Frozen)
2. Upper Right Hand Quadrant: Belles of the Ball (represented by Belle from Beauty and the Beast)
3. Lower Right Hand Quadrant: Butterflies
4. Lower Left Hand Quadrant: Wallflowers

If you haven't already guessed, the names are descriptive of each of the quadrants. Snow Queens tend to be popular, but are selective with who they are interested in. Butterflies are the opposite; they're very sociable and are interested in several guys, but tend not to be so popular themselves. Wallflowers tend not to make their presence felt during the event; they aren't interested in many guys and vice versa. Belles of the Ball are exactly that: popular, sociable...they never go home empty-handed.

Now, please note that while every participant falls into a quadrant, in no way am I judging anyone for which quadrant they fall into. Where you fall into a quadrant depends not just on you, but also on what everyone else does at the event. For example, if everyone at an event was a Butterfly, all the Butterflies would transform into Belles of the Ball simply due to group interactions.

The reason why I divided participants into these 4 quadrants was to try and understand how being attractive and being sociable at an event affects how many matches a participant gets.

Below is the chart showing a summary of results for each of the 4 quadrants. The left y-axis shows the percentage of participants in each quadrant who go home with at least 1 match. The right y-axis shows the average number of matches for participants in each quadrant who have at least 1 match.

Looking at this chart, some things become clear. Wallflowers unsurprisingly don't get many matches. Every other quadrant does significantly better at receiving at least 1 match.

What is a bit more unexpected is that while the Snow Queens are popular with many guys, they only do marginally better than the Butterflies in terms of the probability of getting at least one match and the average number of matches they get. As it turns out, a Snow Queen may be good-looking, have a great body, be popular...but that is no guarantee that the few guys he's interested in are interested in him back. The Butterflies do almost as well as the Snow Queens by being sociable and open to meeting many guys. For a Snow Queen, being selective may be about knowing what you're looking for, but it certainly narrows the field down quite a bit.

The Belles of the Ball do the best at events, again unsurprisingly. What may come as a surprise is how much better they actually do compared to other participants. No Belle of the Ball ever leaves an event without a match, and quite often, they leave with multiple matches. Being attractive is well and good, but being sociable and approachable at an event makes things even better for them.

So, what percentage of participants fall into each of the 4 quadrants? See the chart below.

Belles of the Ball are rare, Snow Queens and Butterflies are about equally represented, and the largest group are the Wallflowers.

So, at this point, you might be asking, what does this all mean for me?

The primary takeaway that I want participants to understand is that attending a dating event is not about screening guys for a potential soulmate. It's about being open to the possibility of chemistry with someone else.

While every person is selective about what they are looking for, it makes sense to be selective only about the things most important to you. If you are very selective about many things, that is certainly your prerogative, but you should understand that the odds of a match will be correspondingly lower, just as they are for the Snow Queens and the Wallflowers. As event organizer, I create the space for interactions; what happens in that space is entirely up to you.