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First, the average reply rate for the men all together is 42%– because the unusually low white male reply rate is included. They calculated it for you right there: without the white guys, the average is 48.1%. I’ll do the rest: that’s 19% less often than the non-white guys. That’s a pretty big difference.

Second, I read the “enjoying the adulation” line as saying white guys are enjoying adulation as compared to the other guys. Which, hello, they are. They enjoy a 29.2% response rate, while the rate for non-white men is 24.1%. In other words, white guys do 21% better.

Sheesh.

I don’t think these charts prove it, but I suspect that a lot of people use internet dating as a way to expand their options outside of what they perceive as their peer group.

But also, after I posted last, it occurred to me that age is a huge factor here. Whites are clearly the largest demographic group sampled, and in dating sites they are well distributed across age ranges. In contrast, members of smaller minority groups on dating sites – especially those with a more recent history of emigration – are far more likely to be in the younger age brackets. Would we be surprised to find that people under 40 get more replies than older folks?

The usual problem with isolating race data like this is that it often strands us with our stereotypes while obscuring the variables that actually make a difference.

Did anyone else notice the bizarrely low levels of same-race response in some cases? The lowest response by black males was to black females, and the lowest response by black females was to black males. Could it be that people who use dating websites are more likely to be dissatisfied with people of their own culture or race? White females received lowest number of responses from white males. And of course white men are going to respond less if they’re getting more hits.

Um…according to what? Not that they really prove anything, but if you’re going by these charts, it would appear that Middle Eastern and Pacific Islander females (49.5% and 46% mean reply rate, respectively) have substantially more “dating capital” than males of any hue (27.6%). And White men (29.2%) have only a slight edge over Native American men (27.8%). You could stand to be a little more observant when you put that Ph.D. next to your name.

It is interesting, though, to see how much these figures DON’T line up with some common stereotypes about ethnic prejudices and conflicts. If you have Hindu/Muslim tensions in mind, for example, you might be surprised that Indians and Middle Easterners aren’t particularly less likely than average to respond to each other. And if you’re thinking about notions of tribalism among ethnic groups (i.e. the cliches of minority parents urging their young to marry within the culture) you might be surprised at how little impact it seems to make here. I can see this launching an interesting inquiry into whether people might be less race-(or status-)conscious in the privacy of their own internet than when dating among their peers.

In short – thanks for posting these really interesting charts, but maybe try reading the data before assessing it!