Victor Wong's Online Dating Adventure
By Tom Kagy | 18 Jan, 2026

Victor shares how a 2.0 version of his online dating profile boosted his search for a lady with ambition, intelligent media consumption habits and a sincere love of the active life.

Tom Kagy (00:01)
Hello, this is Tom Kagy with Goldsea Podcasts. Today we have Victor Wong, our operations manager. In addition to overseeing various duties, he sits in his window office overlooking beautiful Westlake Village and communicates with several dozen publishers spread across Asia.

Victor captured in the office by Kelli Luu.  Below, Victor enjoys skateboarding at Venice Beach.   Victor was asked to pose with his UCLA diploma for his MS in statistics.  

Recently, while I was speaking with Victor, I learned that he had recently become single and that he's embarked on an online dating journey. So being opportunistic, I figured this would make a great podcast topic and invited Victor to share some of his experiences. Welcome, Victor.

Victor (00:46)
Hey, Tom, glad to be back on the podcast.

Tom Kagy (00:49)
Yes, as some of you might recall, Victor and I did a podcast about his fitness journey, which involved a number of elements, including his ⁓ jujitsu tournament competitions. So today, let's start by finding out what your qualifications are for the lucky woman that will

be the subject of your attentions through these online dating platforms. What are some of the qualifications that separate these women from the, I would estimate, maybe a half a million single young women across the LA metro area?

Victor (01:32)
boy, boy. Just starting off with the deep cuts. Wait, so just to clarify, are you asking about my preferences?

Tom Kagy (01:42)
Yeah, exactly.

mean, you know, you must have some guidelines. I mean, you're not indiscriminately aiming to talk to every single one of these half million women, I'm assuming. So just, yeah, give us a little rundown of what qualifications you're focusing on.

Victor (01:52)
⁓ Of course.

Like a job interview, that's funny. That's funny. Yeah, yeah, the job description, the job posting. Yeah, in general, I guess I, as far as like profile selection goes, right? Typically, I'm looking for somebody like physically active, likes, I would say sort of deeper.

Tom Kagy (02:01)
Thanks

Victor (02:18)
Consumption of media I'm looking for somebody that's a little bit discerning when it comes to consuming their media and not just sort of like passive consumption watching every single new Netflix show or Movie that comes out like, know, I like somebody that Will take the time to you know, taste the food right like talk about the components that make media work That's what I typically value

Active lifestyle tend to like people that don't sort of just treat being active as like a chore that they have to do. I do value people that like…

going outside, being active, exploring things, having skills to develop. And then also, I guess, ambition, right? career, whether it be career goals or hobby goals, I find that it's attractive when people have things that they're working towards. So those are just a number of things that I'm looking for. Yeah.

Tom Kagy (03:15)
Yeah, those are some interesting qualifications,

especially the first one. I I never really considered this. Of course, I haven't been single in a long time. the idea of focusing on the person's media consumption, know, like what type of media and how they consume it. Well, give me some examples like what what type of media consumption would get you all excited and hot and bothered with a person?

Victor (03:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no that that's a that's a good one Yeah, because because it isn't really something that we talk about especially nowadays. We have so much media out there whether it's like through YouTube Netflix Apple TV, streaming service out there. There are there's a lot to consume now. So to me

It's a little bit easy just to kind of fall into the trap of just like, you know, consuming media just to consume it. So when I talk about like discerning media consumption, I mean, really being able to like, you know, in high school, right, everybody rolls their eyes as to reading a book that they kind of don't want to read, like The Great Gatsby. then like, you know, figuring out the symbolism between the bill, like of the billboard with the eyes of TJ Echolberg. Like everybody rolls their eyes.

when it comes to that, but personally I find this sort of like deeper analysis of media of stories to be really, really exciting. And it shows, to me it shows somebody that's engaged in what they're consuming, right? Because there's just somebody that, you know, will just be sitting on their phone and then just like, you know, scrolling through like 10,000 reels a day and then not really getting anything out of it. Whereas…

what I value is the intentionality that comes in curating the media that you consume, right? Like if you have a movie that you really, really like, I like the idea of intentionally picking out a movie and then really taking the time to deconstruct it and…

see those component parts and how they work and then how you sort of internalize that, right? And to me this applies, I use a very vague and broad definition because to me I apply this sort of framework with any kind of media, right? You probably are thinking, I used a lot of like examples like Netflix, know, and movies and whatnot, but this…

can be any type of entertainment media, whether it is like books, television, movies, or video games, even animated works. do like, I think that they all have interesting stories to tell and

and I get excited when somebody has something that they're really fascinated with and that they've invested time into picking it apart. Like there are multiple like video game franchises that I'm interested in and I like to look at the symbolism behind certain things and it'd be nice to sort of share this ⁓ deeper media analysis with another person, yeah.

Tom Kagy (06:20)
Yeah, when you think

about it, I guess that would actually make for a very convenient conversational topics on your first dates. So now, so I was thinking when you said that that you were being a bit of a snob and you had certain types of media in mind, but it sounds like what you really want is somebody who isn't mindlessly sitting in front of TikTok videos for a couple of hours.

Victor (06:28)
Of course.

Yes, yes.

Tom Kagy (06:49)
and

that can talk intelligently about what they just got through consuming. OK. So it's a sort of a, I guess in a way, sort of an indirect IQ test, right? mean, is that how you see it? I mean, it doesn't sound as cold and snobby as an IQ test, but.

Victor (06:53)
Yeah, yeah, precisely, precisely.

Yeah. ⁓

Tom Kagy (07:11)
I mean, there is ⁓ clearly some correlation between a person's IQ and how they consume media.

Victor (07:18)
Yeah, yeah, in a way it is, it's not like an intentional IQ test. I would say, I would be a little bit kinder and say something more like a psychological test, right? Because to me, it kind of shows that do our brains function on a sort of similar wavelength, right?

Because because like, you know, psychological like psychologically matching is just as important. I mean, I'm sure that, you know, I don't I don't want to go into things like IQ, but I'm sure that you find yourself being able to relate better with people of certain educational backgrounds. Right. So, yeah, this this again is.

Tom Kagy (08:04)
Mm-hmm.

Victor (08:08)
is definitely like a proxy for that level of compatibility. Yeah.

Tom Kagy (08:13)
Okay. All

right. I'm kind of getting it. I see that is sort of a convenient way to find people with whom you could at least have a couple of good conversations on your first date.

Victor (08:25)
Yes. And if

we're going by, you know, these proxy measures, right? I did mention something about profile selection, right? This does show their ability to, you know, have a conversation, right? If you can develop these articulate thoughts, at least mentally, then, you know, in a conversation that should come out because it's really hard to… ⁓

Tom Kagy (08:50)
Yeah.

Victor (08:51)
you know, be with someone that you can't really communicate with on a base level or communicate with in a way that feels satisfying because similarly, right, when I'm on like these app, like when I'm, you know, selecting profiles and looking at how they filled their profile out.

Tom Kagy (08:56)
Right.

Victor (09:10)
To me, like a red flag is incomplete sentences, right? When they, when they fill out like all the, all the text boxes, because what I found, right? Is that if they're not willing to put a complete sentence inside this, inside the text box on the app, then how can I be confident that they'll be able to communicate with me in complete senses if we even move on to the talking stage? You know, because I have had the experience where

I've matched with people and then on and you know when it moves to the texting stage they don't really they they flat out do not reply in complete sentences in a way that leads to fruitful conversation and then I reviewed their profile again and then I just went wait a second there's not a single complete sentence in this profile

Tom Kagy (09:59)
So

they were offering clues in their profile all along. You just didn't pick up on it. Okay. Well, by the same token, when you say you want somebody who's active, you, is that sort of a polite way of saying, I want somebody who's fit? Is that the kind of active you're talking about? Physically active? Okay. All right. Well, that's a clever strategy. I mean, you don't have to sound like a

Victor (10:02)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I'm very good at this.

Yes.

Tom Kagy (10:24)
a cold-hearted snob, you can kind of use these indirect measures. So are you finding that that's the case, that when you pick out people that are physically active that they are in fact fit?

Victor (10:40)
I mean, they are.

Most of the time, yeah, if you are physically active, you should be, you know, relatively fit. That's what I've seen, yeah.

Tom Kagy (10:50)
Okay, you're

not seeing people putting up like, you know, sort of inflated descriptions of their physical activities that don't really carry over to their daily habits.

Victor (11:02)
Well, I mean, that's where the pictures come in, right? Typically, typically if they have like a sport, like a photo of themselves doing like some sort of outdoorsy activity, like a hike or tennis or something, then that's usually a good indicator. I don't have to just take their word for it. There's a picture, you know.

Tom Kagy (11:06)
Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, now what about the ambition part? I mean, are you, so is there not some limitations in that? mean, what I mean is like, somebody can be very ambitious, but that ambition may actually…

preclude them from having a meaningful relationship, for example. So are you like just indiscriminately turned on by people with a lot of ambition or are you kind of curating that for reasonable levels of ambition? if somebody wants to be a senator, is that a turn on or is that too much? mean, what is your measure of an appropriate amount of ambition?

Victor (11:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

That is a very good question and I'm still personally trying to figure that out. Yeah. And honestly, it's really like a case by case basis, right? Because, there is, you do raise a good point about like what levels of ambition are acceptable, right? Or like what levels of ambition do like leaves room for

Tom Kagy (12:12)
Okay.

Victor (12:31)
you know, a relationship, right? Because if, you know, somebody is, the example you gave is like somebody that aspires to be a senator, that might be, you know, prob, I could see that as being, you know, problematic. Not that there's anything wrong with being a senator, but.

having a target put on, like indirectly being put on me does not really sound appealing, right? Because like not too long ago, know, Nancy Pelosi's husband, wasn't he assaulted? Yeah. Yeah, right, right.

Tom Kagy (12:59)
Yeah, I he was assaulted. Yeah. I mean, it's not funny. I'm not laughing at that.

I'm just laughing at the fact that you immediately dredge up that to exemplify the possible downside of having an ambitious date.

Victor (13:16)
Right. And secondly, you know, there is the levels of ambition that lead into say, delusion, right? Because this like ambition doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, somebody has the skill, like the prerequisite skills succeed in all that, right? Like we have to like, kind of like look at the look at the whole picture. At the moment, I

Tom Kagy (13:32)
Right.

Victor (13:41)
say it's something more like

Clear, like if I were to scale it back, would say something like, you know, clear goals, right? And, you know, steps being taken towards those goals, right? Like a sort of like long-term planning type of mentality. Oh, sorry, I was just going to say like a sort of long, like I'm looking for more like long-term thinking.

Tom Kagy (13:49)
Mm-hmm.

Or, okay, sorry, go ahead.

Right. So are you sure this is not just another example of you using kind of a sort of veiled alternate socially acceptable criterion and not saying, OK, I want somebody to be making a good income, be at a productive, financially productive job. mean, is that is this kind of a proxy for that or? OK.

Victor (14:30)
In a way, yeah, that is a proxy, but

as you know, play like if we look at, you know, dating as a game, right? These are these are metrics that everybody is looking for without actually saying that they're looking for these metrics. So.

Tom Kagy (14:43)
Right.

Yeah, no,

I find it interesting that you have the, your strategy is to, you know, find proxies that are socially acceptable and may also reveal a little bit more than just, you know, how much money are they making or, you know, how, how, what is their BMI or what is their IQ, you know what mean? So yeah, I think it's a, it's a good strategy that you've come up with to focus on these as

Victor (15:05)
Ha ha!

Yeah.

Tom Kagy (15:14)
Pretty reasonable proxies, I would say, for what most people are looking for. ⁓

Victor (15:18)
But these are things

that do appeal, that do actually appeal to me, but obviously they do index towards other appealing traits, yeah.

Tom Kagy (15:27)
Right, right.

So those are kind of the non, I guess, sort of the subjective traits, if you will. But what about objective traits? I I understand you're what? Are you 30 now or are you 31 now? OK, 30. So what is your age range?

Victor (15:44)
30.

Um, at the moment, between 20 to 30, though I feel like…

I feel like 25 is probably my preferred lowest threshold.

Tom Kagy (16:09)
Okay, that sounds a bit sexist. mean, are you basically ruling out Cougar of 33? You know, like, what's that about? Why do you not want to date somebody who's a few years older?

Victor (16:23)
I've had some bad experiences already.

Tom Kagy (16:25)
Okay, like what? Give me an example.

Victor (16:27)
Yeah,

yeah, yeah. Not too long ago, I did a match up with somebody that was 38, and I asked a pretty innocuous question in the chat, and then she exploded at me. And it was a very, very unsettling, I will say.

Tom Kagy (16:54)
So you mean she exploded at your ageism or inadvertent ageism?

Victor (16:57)
It wasn't ageism

really. simply asked them a very, very innocuous question because she had mentioned that she had a pretty catastrophic sports injury, which ⁓ made her quit her sport.

And out of concern, I simply inquired, have you pursued any other sports since? I understand that after experiencing a catastrophic injury, can be hard to.

you know, engage in sports, like engage in sports again, right? Because that's a very common thing. And she got very mad at me and then said I was insinuating that she was a fat slob by asking that question. those were the words she used, by the way. She said I was insinuating that she was fat and lazy when I just simply, you know, asked if she was still active after a catastrophic injury. And

Tom Kagy (17:32)
Yeah.

Victor (17:53)
you know, part of me was a little traumatized by that and it got me thinking, oh, maybe there is a reason why.

somebody older is still on the app. I don't know that that

Tom Kagy (18:08)
Well,

this woman sounds like she was particularly insecure about maybe having put on a couple of pounds during her inactivity, you know, that might have been behind that. So, so you're not going to reconsider and adjust that. Okay, that's fine. I mean, this is your life.

Victor (18:12)
Yes.

Yeah, I'll probably

reconsider and adjust that. At least for the short term, I was very scared.

Tom Kagy (18:30)
Okay, well what about the other sort of objective things like height? Are you providing like a range of height that you find acceptable? I'm just curious how you are structuring your queries.

Victor (18:43)
Yeah, height. don't really have. I haven't really put too much stock in height. Yes, yes, I'm six foot one.

Tom Kagy (18:49)
You're 6'1", right? Or something. Yeah. OK. So

I guess you have a somewhat wider range than the average guy in the number, the kind of the height of the woman. Right. So all right. I can understand that. So what I'm curious now about is tell me, describe for me, you know, like, OK, you broke up with your girlfriend, Vicky, and that was what, three months ago or something? Oh, OK. So it's been a while.

Victor (18:57)
Yes.

That was back in August,

Tom Kagy (19:19)
So what did you do? mean, tell me your process of deciding to go online.

Victor (19:26)
it's just a very after I broke up with ⁓ my previous girlfriend, you know, I spent some time alone and then I just basically did a sort of napkin calculus napkin math where I was just looking at the frequency at which I was meeting new people and you know, the thought crossed my mind that wait a second.

At this rate, I don't really think that this is a good rate at meeting people because in between all my athletic endeavors and my work over here at Gold Sea, I'm not really seeing a lot of new faces every day.

Tom Kagy (20:05)
Right, like a statistician,

kind of did the numbers, you ran the numbers and decided that your likelihood of meeting someone that way is not high. Okay.

Victor (20:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I mean, admittedly, I did make a couple of new friends here and there, at the airport randomly. you know, being, again, being the statistician, it's like, I can't exactly rely on just random chance encounters, you know,

Tom Kagy (20:31)
so I guess if that leads you to the right path, then your masters in statistics from UCLA would have been well worth it.

Victor (20:41)
I guess.

Tom Kagy (20:42)
So

what is the actual platform you first decided on and when did you start on that?

Victor (20:47)
Uh, let's see. I started admittedly on Tinder because a friend that I was speaking to mentioned it offhandedly. And when I was like doing the Matt Napkin math, I just thought, I might as well try it. So that was the first one. And then after…

Tom Kagy (21:03)
Yeah. Is that the biggest one, by

the way? Sorry to interrupt. Is that the biggest ⁓ dating app around now?

Victor (21:11)
I'm actually not sure. I'm pretty sure it's Tinder and Hinge right now. Yeah. Well, I think the big three are Tinder, Tinder, Hinge and Bumble. But Tinder, I was going to say, but Tinder and Hinge are owned by the same holding company.

Tom Kagy (21:16)
Okay.

Okay. All right. yeah, take a, sorry.

Okay. So what's the differentiation between tinder and hinge?

Victor (21:35)
So what I did not like about Tinder was how it obscured the profiles that liked you behind the paywall. And because of that, you're always kind of like at the mercy of the algorithm because in theory, you could…

A bunch of people could have swiped right on you, but you know, depending on how the algorithm is feeling, they may never serve those profiles to you. So you could feasibly never find, find that match. And secondly, I guess I liked Hinge because the UI was a little better and it's a little bit more geared towards people looking for serious relationships. And I liked how, you know, it wasn't as…

information wasn't as obscured as it was on Tinder, but you know, there's still a lot of features and other information hidden behind paywalls and whatnot, so that's still a pain point with these apps.

Tom Kagy (22:40)
tell us how miserable ⁓ the Tinder experience was. mean…

Victor (22:45)
Basically, to summarize, it was just a whole lot of nothing. I just came in, I was like another loser on Tinder. I just made my profile. I just put a profile together, did my daily swipes, got zero results, and then I heard about Hinge, and I thought, the user interface looks better. I guess I'll try this. And then I started having a little bit more success on Hinge, so I just kind of stuck with it.

Tom Kagy (23:08)
So are you seeing a difference in demographics between Tinder and Hinge?

Victor (23:13)
let's see.

I would say it's hard to say actually because the way Tinder structures its profiles, like the way you experience the other person's profile, it's very, how do I say this, like pictures first.

So all you really do, all you really see is just like a collection of photos. And that's kind of it. Whereas like at least on Hinge, you can kind of get a better sense of like who these people are because the way the profiles are set up, you can kind of see more information about each person you're looking to meet. I see things.

Tom Kagy (23:57)
Well, is

this a function of, ⁓ you said that you weren't paying for Tinder. If you were paying for Tinder, would you have been able to see their profiles as well?

Victor (24:09)
So you can still see their profile information if you're on the free version. It's just that the way the user interface is set up is that you have to tap a little bit extra to see the profile information. know, it's very like how Tinder works. It very much shoves the picture in your face first.

Whereas Hinge, the way the user interface is designed, you encounter more secondary information through things like the prompts and their general biographical information, like their age, height, where they live, where they're based out of, et cetera, et cetera.

Tom Kagy (24:48)
Okay.

Victor (24:48)
Yeah, yeah, when I say I got nothing on Tinder, I mean that I did not get any matches. I would occasionally see that my profile would get some likes here and there, but I never encountered anyone that I liked back. So because it just kind of felt like it was going nowhere, felt I didn't feel inclined to continue with Tinder.

Tom Kagy (25:11)
Yeah.

So what are you experiencing with Hinge?

Victor (25:15)
Definitely more success overall. I've been getting pretty consistent matches week by week and I have been getting dates here and there, which, you know, is positive reinforcement for me to stay on the app.

Tom Kagy (25:29)
Thank

So, I mean, give me some sense of what frequency, what volume of, you know, matches and dates you're getting on Hinge.

Victor (25:40)
Yeah, yeah. So as far as matches go on Hinge versus Tinder, right? Tinder I was getting almost, or I was getting effectively zero matches. On Hinge I average between about three to four matches per week. And so far I've gotten about

I want to say I've had four dates on Hinge and I've

a few more planned. ⁓

Tom Kagy (26:13)
great. How long did

that take to get to that point with hinge?

Victor (26:17)
About one month, about one and a half months. Yeah.

Tom Kagy (26:21)
Okay, so how long were you on Tinder before that?

Victor (26:25)
Yeah, I was on Tinder, I would say in mid November for until early December. So I was only on Tinder for a couple of weeks.

Tom Kagy (26:33)
Okay,

is it possible you didn't give it a fair shake? Maybe you could have paid for it and gotten better results. mean, any like doubts as to whether you left it prematurely?

Victor (26:45)
That is a possibility. That is a possibility. you know, I never embarked… Because I wasn't getting any sort of positive reinforce from Tinder. was…

Tom Kagy (26:55)
Yeah.

Victor (26:57)
very, very hard for me to like, ⁓ move to the next step of investing, so to speak. Right. And now this is, guess this is a good time to talk about the, ⁓ benefits and possible pitfalls of paying for the premium services on the apps. Right. Because with Hinge, ⁓ I did get some positive reinforcement because when I was still figuring out how the app worked and figuring out how to present myself on my profile,

Tom Kagy (27:04)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Victor (27:27)
I was getting some positive reinforcement. People were matching with me. I was getting the schedule dates with certain people. And since I was getting some feedback that then…

That then made me go, okay, let's see what would happen if I switched to the premium plan. And it did work. I did. Yes.

Tom Kagy (27:56)
Did that increase the volume quite a bit? Okay.

What do you mean by the premium plan? What are you paying a month and what are you getting?

Victor (28:05)
Yeah, yeah. So for Hinge, when I was, um, when I sort of got into a groove with my profile, I was averaging, I think, three to four matches per week and a couple dates being scheduled. I found that when I paid for the Hinge X for $25 for one week, I got about

to say 20 matches within one week. ⁓

Tom Kagy (28:38)
Brown.

Victor (28:40)
I had two dates. I managed to schedule two dates after getting the premium plan. So I can say that did work.

Tom Kagy (28:48)
Okay, so

you're saying 25 bucks per week or per month?

Victor (28:52)
I only bought it for the week. For the month it would have been something like $55, but I only wanted to… I was only interested in trying it for a week.

Tom Kagy (28:54)
Okay.

Are you

going to extend it now that you're seeing that it works or are you going to cruise on what you've already paid for?

Victor (29:09)
that's a good question. I want to the, what I had in mind was having little pushes here and there as opposed to just, as opposed to blanket paying for months at a time. I find that, you know, it can be a little overwhelming. What kind of,

help my decision when I got it for the week was it was during the holidays when you know I had more downtime.

sort of engage in this little optimization experiment. yeah, yeah, yeah. The experiment was after, you know, after I was on free and then I saw that my profile was getting some interest.

Tom Kagy (29:36)
Okay, yeah, tell us about that experiment.

Victor (29:46)
opted for the paid plan because these paid plans are good multiplicative boosts for your profile. That's an important distinction because if your profile is strong, the paid plan will amplify it. But if your profile is weak, a paid plan will just…

do nothing for you. So the math is, you know, 10, like, you know, the marketing says, buy HingeX and get five times as many dates. And if you're getting zero, you know, five times zero is still zero. Right. So, and then in a way, you know, the math almost checks out because before HingeX, was like, I would schedule a couple dates and then people would flake. So it'd be sort of like, ⁓

Tom Kagy (30:21)
Right.

Victor (30:33)
half a date and then getting hingex, it amplified my chances and then it led to two. in a way the marketing, the math did check out. anyway, yeah, yeah, so going back to this idea of the experiment, since I saw that my profile was getting some matches, the idea of hingex was to basically…

Tom Kagy (30:40)
Right.

Victor (30:58)
get my profile in front of as many eyes as possible just to see what the limits were, right? Like how many, like how much interest could I gather within one week if I could just get it front of as many eyeballs as possible? And you know, it was an interesting experiment. I will say yes, the premium plane did work.

Tom Kagy (31:17)
Well, now I'm curious what you you said you're optimizing your profile. Now tell me about the profile. Like what are some of the highlights of your profile before and what did you optimize after?

Victor (31:30)
Yeah, yeah. So before, since I didn't really, you know, know anything, right? I saw the… I just saw the prompts. I just saw, put six pictures of yourself. I just thought, okay, I just have these pictures of myself. I'm just gonna throw them on here. And these prompts, I'm just gonna answer them, however. And obviously that didn't work out well.

Tom Kagy (31:35)
Mm-hmm.

Victor (31:53)
After getting some feedback from women around me and also going to Reddit and then deleting my posts after, what I learned was that, well, one, a dating profile is not the same as a personal profile.

if that makes sense. mean, obviously you still have to show off like your personality, but in a way, if we think about it to the job analogy, right? Like if you were applying to a job, won't say, you wouldn't say that, you know, I'm interested in pickleball. I'm interested in rock climbing or whatever. Like, you know, you're applying for a job. What you should highlight are your qualifications.

So to speak. then similarly in a dating profile, right? You may not necessarily want to go off on all your preferences, right? Like, you know, ⁓ I like long, long, like, I don't know. I like XYZ restaurant or whatever. You would try to spin that in a way that

includes or makes room for a partner, right? Like it's one thing to say, ⁓ I like beer, but then it's another thing to say, I like, I know these breweries and great places for beer tasting, right? See, the second way is a conversation opener and

Tom Kagy (33:12)
Yeah

Victor (33:17)
gives room that, I have, or gives room for like another person to join if they're interested, right? Secondly, pictures. What I learned is that, well, one, know, posing in pictures is a skill that you have to develop. You know, nobody talks about how you should look in pictures. You just kind of stand there nonchalantly and, you know, you don't even look straight at the camera. And what I've been learning.

Tom Kagy (33:30)
Hehehe.

Victor (33:39)
is that, that's actually very important. Having clear pictures of your face that are unobscured and at good angles. And then secondly, going back to the prompts, having prompts that invite conversation.

So like I said earlier, it's one thing to say, I like beer. It's another thing to say, ask for beer recommendations or brewery recommendations, or saying that you know a place with like great happy hour, so to speak. Right.

Tom Kagy (34:09)
Right. Well, what about

some of the bragging type of things that would help somebody? mean, is there a place for that in these profiles? Are you able to tell them that you're making a six figure income and that you graduated, that you have a master's from UCLA? I mean, are these the kind of things that you put in your profile or are you keeping them out of it?

Victor (34:30)
you

Those are things that are in my those are things that are definitely in my profile though things like the salary are implied and I guess this is a good way to segue into the game theoretics, right of Dating yeah, so

Tom Kagy (34:52)
Okay. Yeah, yeah, you mentioned that.

Victor (34:57)
We kind of briefly touched on this when you asked me what my preferences were in my profile selection and looking at these women's profiles, right? And women do the same thing with men, but it's also indirect. So the three things that people look for in partners are going to be their genetics.

Tom Kagy (35:06)
Mm-hmm.

Victor (35:19)
their resources and then their status, right?

Tom Kagy (35:23)
When you say partners, are you talking about women looking for men or are you talking about both genders?

Victor (35:29)
Generally women looking for men, but Men also also do this with women as well. This is just universal partner selection. I would say So read so genetics right is just simply how does somebody look right? Are they physically appealing? Are they tall or do they look healthy? Are they active? Right do they look like they'll live a long time, you know, just the very superficial

Tom Kagy (35:31)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Victor (35:53)
Resources, right? Like you mentioned, you know, like do you have a high income? Right? Does this person have money, car, house, et cetera, et cetera? Like do they have, do they own things? And then thirdly is status, right? They're so like, are they somebody that matters? Like do they mean something to other people? Do they like know a lot of people? Do they have friends, family, et cetera, et cetera? Like, is this a person that people value?

And it does sound very, very clinical, right? And it does make it seem like, where's the magic? But if you look at every single blanket, piece of advice when it comes to crafting your profile.

Everybody recommends something that indexes to one of these three things Right like having a full body shot and a full face shot that and also on action shots if you do a sport right or a hobby Right that indexes to genetics, right? Like if you're if you play sports, right if you're tall if you're athletic if you have a good-looking face or a body then and you show that off that indexes towards their genetics and people appeal to

that.

They say, ⁓ show yourself doing hobbies, right? Show yourself having fun, right? Like at a restaurant, like a candid photo of yourself, like at a nice trendy restaurant. Or better yet, like very common on Hinge is traveling pictures. That indicates towards resources, right? Like if you have a picture of yourself hanging out with your friends at a national park or like, you know, snowboarding, that indicates that that's an indicator

towards your resources because it shows, this person has the time and the money to go traveling, right? And then thirdly, status, right? People always say, you should have at least one or two group pictures where you are easily identifiable, right?

Tom Kagy (37:43)
Mm-hmm.

Victor (37:55)
And that is status because if you show that you have a lot of friends, then that indicates that you have some status. Maybe not, you know, status as we think of, you know, in the feudal times where it's like, you're a lord and you have a fiefdom where you have this many serfs under you, right?

if you, but in this day and age, right, status just means like, do you have friends and do people like you? Which is why it's also important to have like group shots of you with your friends. So.

those are things to consider, Like to put the nail in the coffin on your question about like, know, indicating towards things like, you know, your income, right? You have to find these very socially acceptable and roundabout ways of indicating your income.

Tom Kagy (38:39)
Okay, so there's no place on the profile where somebody would feel comfortable putting in all of those specifics like income, education, height, weight, things like that.

Victor (38:51)
Weight isn't a metric you can put on your profile, but you can put on height, you can put your education level, and you can also put your job title.

Tom Kagy (38:56)
Okay.

But you can't put income.

Victor (39:03)
You can't put income. You can't, though technically speaking. Yes, though technically speaking in one of your prompts, when you write about your personality, you could theoretically just slap your income on there as a, like, like as a,

Tom Kagy (39:05)
You can or can't.

Okay, I guess it would also be kind of crass.

Victor (39:28)
answer, right? Like, oh, what is your greatest strength? And then you say, Oh, I make $300,000 a year or something.

Tom Kagy (39:29)
Yeah.

But you don't want to do that. that the game theory you're talking about? You don't want to do things like that. Is that the point?

Victor (39:40)
Yeah, yeah, I personally wouldn't. I haven't seen a single profile that does, but also, you know, putting that is off putting. It's like saying, don't date me unless your IQ is above like 120 or something, you know?

Tom Kagy (39:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So, so when you did this transformation, you basically produced, reproduced, or produced your profile. What was the impact of that? I mean, did you see a before and after impact of changing it from, you know, just kind of your standard, you know, brainless, you know, fill in the blanks profile versus your highly produced profile?

Victor (40:23)
yeah, yeah. It was not even close. ⁓ Yeah, I… One of my friends, she's a professional photographer and I traded fitness coaching for some high quality photos and she did a great job. She did a great job with my pictures and it's…

Tom Kagy (40:25)
Okay.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah.

Victor (40:45)
It's not even close, like how far my two profiles were like after I got those pictures taken.

Tom Kagy (40:50)
Yeah, but

I mean, can you put a number on it? You are a statistician. What would be the multiple or whatever impact that that had on the response rate?

Victor (41:00)
Yeah, more than triple. More than triple. Yes, very.

Tom Kagy (41:04)
⁓ okay. That's significant. What about

the quality of the, I mean, does that affect the quality of your respondents in any way? I did you notice any kind of difference in the quality of the people that were responding to you?

Victor (41:20)
That is a good question. And I almost feel that the quality of respondents is more so going to be a function of my ability to select profiles more so than the content of my profile. I think that is something that I would need to test out actually.

Tom Kagy (41:42)
So in other words, it's all on you as far as the quality, not on whoever decides to respond.

Victor (41:48)
Yes, yes.

Because, yeah, my profile is weird in the way that I don't get a lot of incoming likes on my profile, but I do get matches when I send likes to these women. So that's where it kind of, that's the part that's under my control, which is

being discerning about which profiles I decide to reach out to to express interest.

Tom Kagy (42:17)
Okay, so you've to pat a lot of people

on the back to get them to think that you're nice, desirable person. Okay.

Victor (42:24)
Yes.

And then tapping and then, you know, tapping the right people. Like I said earlier about, you know, really critically thinking about the types of profiles that I am that I'm looking at, right? Like looking at how their ants, how they filled out their page and whether or not, you know, they can.

Tom Kagy (42:31)
Right, right.

Victor (42:46)
converse with me in complete sentences as an example.

Tom Kagy (42:48)
Right.

What about in terms of ethnicity? you focused on specific ethnicities or is that not a factor or is that not even something that's legally permissible? I I have no idea what the role of that would be in a dating app.

Victor (43:02)
You can use.

You can filter by ethnicity, yeah.

Tom Kagy (43:10)
Okay, and what do you filter?

Victor (43:13)
I don't, I just put open to all. Yeah. I would prefer not to mention my preferences.

Tom Kagy (43:15)
Okay.

Yep.

Right. So you've had a few dates. It sounds like you've had several dates now off of Hinge. You're expecting a few more from that one week. So tell us about the dates. mean, you know, I know you can't get, you don't want to get too personal. I understand. But tell us some things that you think might be instructive for other young single, you know, Asian American men out on the dating scene.

Victor (43:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, as far as like in the date.

One thing I will say is don't be afraid to walk away. That's something that I'm personally learning too. Like, don't put yourself in a situation where you have to be a doormat.

to the other person like, ⁓ I'm not getting a lot of matches. I have to impress this person. It's like, why? If you meet somebody and you don't like them or if they're just something off putting about them, don't be afraid just to put your foot down. That is.

Like one thing I will say, it's better to just, if a date is going poorly, like you just, you meet them and you really don't like them. It's okay to just like pack up and just leave.

Tom Kagy (44:35)
Okay.

You mean just say thank you, good night, and just walk out?

Victor (44:39)
Yeah, yeah, obviously don't Dine and Dash, right? I mean, within reason, like, don't be rude. Don't be-

Tom Kagy (44:44)
Yeah. So

how many of the dates that you've had, give us some sense of what the numbers are like. How many were bad dates, good dates, so-so dates?

Victor (44:56)
Yeah, I would say 50-50 actually. Yeah, yeah, so far it's 50-50. Two of them were very pleasant. Two of them, very unpleasant.

Tom Kagy (45:08)
Okay, well tell us about what made them pleasant or unpleasant.

Victor (45:12)
Yeah, yeah, of course, of course. So I would say the good ones were definitely a sense of intellectual curiosity, right? Like, is the other person actually engaged in speaking with you and learning about you, right? And having a real conversation.

Right? Like do they ask things about you? Are they actually interested in things that you have to say? Because in the bad dates, I will say that the one of the off-putting elements was a sort of like lack of intellectual curiosity and like an abject non-responsiveness really. Like you would bring something up and then

they just would not say anything to it. That is a big thing. And then also, as some advice to people out there is be a good listener. Because after experiencing what it feels like to have somebody blatantly not listening to you, that is very, off-putting.

if you're speaking, if somebody speaks to you and you signal that you're not really listening, right? Or that you're just trying to say what you wanna say. Yeah.

Tom Kagy (46:25)
Right, right. So what

about the, I guess, sort of the catfishing effect? You're picking these people partially on their photos, right? So how accurate are the photos? Have you found there to be a lot of discrepancies?

Victor (46:38)
Yeah, yeah.

They're actually pretty accurate so far. Yeah, yeah. I mean, a couple of my dates actually look better in person than in their profile.

Tom Kagy (46:48)
⁓ okay.

Wow, okay, so they needed a photographer friend to do them a favor.

Victor (47:03)
Yeah, possibly possibly Yes

Tom Kagy (47:06)
Okay.

So, this has actually gone on much longer than I expected. but I do have one final question. What would be your advice to, based on your experience, what would be your advice to, you know, another single person on the online dating scene? What do you think is the most important thing or things that they can do to improve the experience?

Victor (47:13)
Yeah, perfect.

Okay, yeah, yeah, man, I'll try not to spiral into another hour here, but improving the experience

Tom Kagy (47:40)
Okay.

Victor (47:43)
One, again, the blanket advice that I mentioned earlier, right? Be critical of your profile. Like show it to people, get it in front of strangers and see if you're like properly communicating things about yourself, right? Like.

Tom Kagy (48:00)
Mm-hmm.

Victor (48:02)
I know that especially nowadays you have to stand out, you have to be a little bit witty in your profile, but make sure that the wit is coming off as wit. And you can't always rely on your friends and your family to give you feedback because they know you and they're already attuned. So you have to put yourself in the perspective of a stranger seeing your humor raw and out in the wild for the first time.

sometimes

jokes just won't land, right, without seeing you in person. Secondly, be just like a job interview, really. Like, you have to be confident about things that you've achieved or things that you're working on. Because I see a lot of people, like, have a habit, I guess, like, especially, you know, if we're talking about, like, Asians and culturally, right, we're brought up in a…

in households where it's like, you have to be humble. You have to be soft spoken, et cetera, et cetera. you can't brag, right? But unfortunately, that does come off as very meek and insecure, especially to strangers. And I see a lot of people that they do have things that are going for them. Like even with myself, like I have a lot of things that are going for me, but I like to, you know, downplay a lot of the things that I do.

but from a third person, it's like, these are actually really, really exciting things, but you have to actually sound like you're excited about them, because if you're not excited about yourself, then you can't really expect other people to be, because imagine you meet a stranger and then they're like,

a couple martial arts here and there. It's like, that's not appealing. You have to like, see, like, you have to write down your strengths and then you have to really, really sell them. Because if you're not selling yourself like that, other people are. And by comparison, you're not going, like, a person's not going to be impressed with like, how timid you are compared to somebody else who is more willing to sort of brag.

their accomplishments. So yeah, this comes down to being confident and finding ways to communicate and showcase that. And…

Tom Kagy (50:09)
Yeah.

Victor (50:10)
It is admittedly and then thirdly, right? When it comes to like putting that profile together, it is a little uncomfortable to sometimes stage pictures of yourself doing things that you do. But as long as you're authentic in doing those things, it should come off in those pictures. Like if you're really into tennis, you should have like a decent action shot of yourself playing tennis and actually enjoying tennis. Even if you may have to stage a couple of things, right? You have to think about

the profile as like an advertisement for yourself and sometimes that may mean you know inflate like like inflating a couple things or staging a couple things here and there.

Tom Kagy (50:51)
That's great advice, especially for Asian Americans, because it is true. I think we do feel a little uncomfortable about appearing to brag about our good qualities.

Victor (51:02)
Yes, but I think the way a good way to reframe it is that you're not necessarily bragging about your qualities. You're finding good ways to present them. And especially, especially like with men, I find that there's a sort of aversion to simply just documenting things like, you spent time with your friends. why do I need to take a picture? Right. you spend time like woodworking or whatever. Why do

Tom Kagy (51:14)
Okay.

Victor (51:30)
But personally, it's actually a decent exercise, right? To simply just document the things that you do, right? Because you're not always going to have them.

This also kind of leads into the status thing that I talked about earlier. A common counterpoint I hear from a lot of people, especially online is they say, I don't take pictures well, or I don't have anybody to take these photos of me. And then what they don't realize is see, that's a problem, right? That's a problem. If you don't have a good enough friend that's willing just to grab your phone and just take a decent like

decent picture of you in like two to five minutes, then that's a problem. That sounds like you need to make friends, right? That sounds like, okay, you need to find a way to boost your status. third and fourth piece of advice, right, is don't forget to do things in real life.

Like, especially if you have the premium version of the app that allows you to have unlimited likes, right? It becomes very easy to treat the app as, this is a thing I have to do. This is like a job I have to do. You cannot neglect the things that you do in real life. Like, do your job, right? Still cultivate relationships in real life and…

have and cultivate things that you can talk about on the profile, but obviously don't just do things simply for the profile, right? Like don't just say, I'm going to start hiking and traveling just to look better on my hinge profile. Like legitimately do things that you enjoy, right? If you enjoy hiking with your friends, then…

hike with your friends. If you don't have friends to hike with, okay, then you have a bigger problem than finding a date on Hinge. You should go out and make friends. And ironically, when you kind of cultivate these things outside and then you take the time to better document and present them, then that is what leads to a stronger profile.

Tom Kagy (53:22)
Okay, yeah, great.

Yeah, well, that is very good advice. Not that I'm wishing that you stay on the on the online dating apps for too long, but I think it might be very interesting to do a follow up with you in another, I don't know, a couple of months after you. So I assume that you right now you're only on hinge. Is that right?

Victor (53:52)
shirt.

I have profiles on Bumble and Coffee Meets Bagel as per recommendations from friends, but being on all these apps is kind of overwhelming. Obviously, I still have operations duties.

Tom Kagy (54:06)
Yeah.

Right,

exactly. All right, well thank you very much, Victor. I think that's been very enlightening and interesting because it also tells me a little bit about the current state of our society, you know, and what young people are going through. So thank you and I look forward to a follow-up maybe in a couple of months. Hopefully by that time you'll have found a suitable mate, but if not, we can do more follow-ups.

Victor (54:17)
voice.

Yeah.

Of

Hahaha

for us.

Tom Kagy (54:39)
All right, thanks Victor. I'll talk to you soon.