Some data on join dates

There's been a claim on the forum that enthusiast women join the site at a reasonable rate, but they leave faster than men. I suspected this wasn't true, so I collected some data. I only looked at people within 300 miles of San Francisco or NYC who've been online in the past month.

I just looked at the date at which people joined. I expected the join date to be roughly the same for both men and women, but that wasn't what I found.

Among the 1308 men whose data I was able to collect, the median join date was September, 2019.

Among the 295 women whose data I was able to collect, the median join date was September, 2020 - a full year later.

So women's accounts are mostly much newer than men's, which does lend credence to the idea, but doesn't conclusively prove that they join at a reasonable rate.

ChibiShema

This does not feel scientific at all

TheFunCartel

@ChibiShema More scientific than the speculation being spewed.

UKGuy

Your survey does not contain any data about leave dates so I fail to see how it proves anything.

TheFunCartel

@UKGuy He never said it proved anything. SMH

CuddleDuncan

Wow! @CuddleMeLater that's amazing! Did you go through 1500 accounts by hand or did you do something fancy? Either way that's quite an impressive feat.

Just to clarify, these numbers are for both enthusiasts and professionals' right?

We are almost at the end of the month. Do you have the number for how many joined in December?

After your post last night, I got to thinking. Using the claim for 190,000 accounts I came to a very crude estimate of 160 women joining the whole site each month. That seems a bit high compared to your much more useful numbers, given that you have covered the two most active geographical areas.

As for 'reasonable', any of these numbers will do for me. 50 a month is more than one a day, and that's all we need to get started.

@ChibiShema what he has done is simply observe something and communicate it. That's completely scientific. It's not comprehensive - it doesn't include deleted accounts for example - but that doesn't matter. It's really useful information and I'm absolutely thrilled.

@UKGuy it's not about proof. It's about collecting data to help us understand what's going on. The more we understand, the better decisions we can make about what to do or not do to make the cuddling community a better place.

CuddleDuncan

300 mile radii. The problem with centering on New York and San Francisco is that the circle has a lot of sea in it. I have been playing with maps ....

A 300m search radius centered on:

Scranton, NY - covers virtually everything that a circle centred on NYC does, plus Ottawa and Toronto and the whole of Pennsylania. Reduces coverage of the sea and small corners of Maine and Virginia.

Visalia, CA - covers most the San Francisco circle, except northern California. However, it add Los Angeles, San Diego and Las Vegas.

Shreveport, LA covers Austin, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Memphis and the fringes of Oklahoma City.

Brazil, IN covers Chicago, Milwaukee Detroit, Indianapolis, St Louis and Nashville.

The site search function recognises those four towns.

The Scranton, Shreveport and Brazil circles have small gaps between them - they don't overlap.

A fifth circle, based on population, would cover Georgia and Florida. A sixth, maybe Pacific northwest?

bekah_cuddles

As a woman, I've found that a large majority of the men who message me try to push boundaries, specifically trying to sexualize the cuddling experience. I imagine it's probably even worse for female enthusiasts. If that isn't a good enough reason to leave the site, I don't know what is. I stick around for the very rare respectful client.

Many women love the idea of a strictly platonic cuddle session, which is why we join in the first place. When they come to realize it's more or less a pipe dream, they leave.

cuddlerforu24

There’s an inquiry by the website to departing people asking why they delete . Or at least an attempt is made to ask . I would be interested to hear from the site that rude messages are in fact the most frequent reason for deleted female accounts

MOD: Victim-blaming be most dangerous. [SoulcuddlerZ]

CuddleDuncan

@bekah_cuddles I read your comment some hours ago and I've been thinking about it.

I used to believe that it was impossible for the number of females on this site to equal the number of males. That is the conventional wisdom, but I've been wondering about it for a while and I'm beginning to drift the other way.

If it is the case that a large proportion of men cannot deal with the idea of platonic cuddlies, but it is something which a lot of women would like if the sexual element can be removed entirely, then I can imagine a future when this site has more women than men.

@ChibiShema @UKGuy

Sigh.... Rampant speculation with no data whatsoever all over this forum and you guys are fine with it. Now when I actually collect some data you guys are complaining based on a complete lack of understanding of what's going on. Absolutely ridiculous.

@CuddleDuncan

Haha, I certainly did not collect this data by hand!

Just to clarify, these numbers are for both enthusiasts and professionals' right?

Just enthusiasts, I should have clarified that.

Do you have the number for how many joined in December?

Later I can see what proportion of the ones I looked at joined in December, but that data may be misleading - of course people who joined but already quit won't be in the data.

MarkBPhx

@bekah_cuddles My heart hurts at the realization of the weight of what you shared. For those women who have been approached in that way, as well as for the men on the site who are truly here for platonic connection.

BotWithFeelings

@CuddleMeLater Aren't there people who actually have this data, deletes included? Can't we just ask? Also did you find an API or make a scraper?

I imagine that with the complete data that women both join less often and leave more often. They don't have to be dissatisfied to leave. If one can find a consistent partner within five minutes, why keep looking? It may not be possible to improve retention by much while improving everyone's experience. Improving the join rate is a better solution.

Grace_Anna

I haven't cuddled for awhile, but I've had some people who were willing to respect boundaries. I've actually had a number of good experiences from this site. I tend to do the following:

1) Make it clear in my profile that I'm not looking for sex
2) Ask them what their boundaries are and tell them what mine are when I get messages

This can cut down on the number of men who contact me and the number who get past messaging. Remember, there is a high ratio of men to women so women do have options to cut down on the number of people without necessarily cutting out everyone. Some women are also willing to cuddle either gender whereas many men are not. I've tried reaching out to some of the other women but haven't gotten any farther with that than the men do. But, maybe someday.

If someone has been told multiple times very clearly what the boundaries are and they still want to push them...well, they can enjoy another website that aligns better with what they're looking for.

@BotWithFeelings

I scraped it. For that reason I'm a little reluctant to scrape again; sometimes that's considered rude. I do have more data on each of the users I scraped than what I listed here though.

Can't we just ask?

We definitely can, although in my experience sites are reluctant to share data that's not public. Feel free to ask Mark if you wish though.

If one can find a consistent partner within five minutes, why keep looking?

Yeah it's definitely possible that's what's going on.

A little more data:

Of 295 women, 94 joined in December 2020. That's about 32%.

Of 1308 men, 166 joined in December 2020. That's about 13%.

It's hard to know how to interpret this. As I mentioned above people who joined but already left are of course not included.

Since I collected data from everyone I could who met my criteria, it seems that the number of men joining per month is less than twice the number of women joining each month.

Given that in a lot of regions, when I count active accounts, there are 10x or even 20x as many men as women, it appears that these extreme ratios may not be caused by different numbers of men vs women actually joining.

But this is probably not sufficient data to really reach that conclusion.

quixotic_life

What does scraping/scraped data mean?

@CuddleMeLater @BotWithFeelings

@quixotic_life

Scraping means I wrote a program to access web pages on cuddlecomfort.com, and to look through the HTML pages and extract the data I wanted. Normally HTML is rendered by your web browser into the human-readable content you see when you browse the site.

This is in contrast to accessing an API - some sites provide an API, which is an easy and direct way for computer programs to access data on the site. If a site does not provide an API, you have to do it this harder way, by scraping the HTML pages that are really meant for humans rather than computer programs.

BotWithFeelings

@CuddleDuncan I guess we need historical data. It could be that cuddling has recently become more popular

CuddleDuncan

@cuddlerforu24 of course it would be nice to have that information but exit interviews are notoriously unreliable. And, in any event, we know that women leaving for those reasons is a serious problem - the weight of anecdotal evidence is overwhelming. Whether it's the most frequent or second most freqent doesn't matter. It shouldn't be happening at all.

I take issue with your description of people 'attracting' vulgar messages. Inappropriate messages are an act of textual violence by the writer.

It is true that some usernames create ambiguities, which is why the site allows you to change it. Your example doesn't make any sense though: you know you are on a cuddle site, it even has 'cuddle' in the name ... what else could 'cdl' stand for in such a context? It may have the meaning to which you refer elsewhere, but it obviously doesn't here.

@BotWithFeelings we could ask the site, but they have very limited resources. They've had the data for a while and haven't managed to squeeze any revenue out of it. There is also the confidentiality problem. This thread is more about how we the community can come up with easy-to-implement ideas to make the site better. More data would helpful, obviously, but it's not the be all and end all.

Edit: I agree that improving the sign up rate would be great. But's that's easy if you have lots of budget, and very hard if you don't. And the site doesn't. Plus, although it might help it won't solve the horrible messages problem.

@Grace_Anna

they can enjoy another website that aligns better with what they're looking for.

What a beautiful way of putting it!

CuddleDuncan

@CuddleMeLater that is awesome, thank you!

1308/295 = 4.4:1 so the area in question is already slightly untypical. (Figure of 10 or 20 to 1 have been found, although those likely include female professionals.) Interestingly, within 300 miles of London the ratio (logged on in the last month) is 379/87 (by hand!) which is also as near as makes no difference 4.4:1. But California and London are both cuddling 'hot spots'.

I agree with you that it appears that the extreme ratios may not be caused by extreme differences in sign up rate, but we don't have enough data to say that for sure.

I very much appreciate your reluctance to scrape too much. This data is certainly very interesting, and very useful. Food for thought.

BotWithFeelings

@CuddleDuncan by hand within 150 miles of me the ratio is ≈ 8:1 for enthusiasts who cuddle the opposite sex and logged in within a week. It's ≈ 7:1 for a month.

MaullySterling

@cuddlerforu24
Get out of here, with that.
CDL is commercial driver's license, in mainstream usage.
Urban dictionary is niche, and crude.

While some user names may be suggestive, you need to choose one before accessing the site, and ppl tend to fall back on ones theyve used before. Even so, the conduct rules are clear.

And it's NOT the person with a suggestive name, that's violating them.

You're the kind of person tells a girl she was asking to get assaulted, by being in public, wearing makeup, or not yelling "no" loud enough.

I've been on here a month.
I question deleting my acct every day I sign in.

While I like most of the ppl and interactions I find in the forums, 9 out of 10 of my DMs, make me feel cheap, or dirty, or just plain exhausted. Half of them are flat out trying to book an appt, as if I'm a pro, with their first msg.

Even the ones I have ongoing msgs with, tend to turn sour, as he tries to get me to use an alternate app, where his sexual msgs aren't going to violate this site's rules. Or it comes out that the goal is for dating, but he's using this site to screen women.

One msged me yesterday, so I look at his page, and find 3 lines on how the ideal cuddle is to "find each other's sweet spots, and give pleasure".

Honestly, I've found better results listing myself as "asexual" on actual dating sites.

MOD Edit: removed profanity [SoulcuddlerZ]

ChibiShema

@MaullySterling thank you! Finally, a proper woman who will tell men how she really feels. I value you here!

MaullySterling

Yeah, @ChibiShema, no problem there.
LOL
And, thank you.

CuddleDuncan

@BotWithFeelings that's really helpful, thank you for that.

@MaullySterling 👍

LyleLuvsHuggles

That sadly is actually a very common complaint @ChibiShema and plenty of women here are quite vocal about it (and rightly so)

But I do agree, I appreciate every one of you who chooses to stick around and speak out against it rather than giving up and leaving.

Y'all have my respect and admiration.

cuddlerforu24

No. I will not leave with any opinions I’ve presented . Oh how dare that i have offered the community alternate reason that there may be explaining a women’s DM’s or departures . Go ahead , tag me and drag me . Sorry

ChibiShema

The cdl comment was a terrible example and inappropriate. If you want to be tagged in dragged, I’m sure this community will oblige. They are pretty brutal here.

CuddleDuncan

Goodbye, @cuddlerforu24. With that attitude you won't be here long - you are on the wrong forum.

You didn't offer an alternative reason. You tried to blame the victims of aggressive behaviour Instead of the people who do it. You don't seem to understand that people being attacked for their username is wrong.

cuddlerforu24

More data on departures : 100 per cent of the women enthusiasts who initiated contact with me have been permanently banished