Quantifying online dating

My most-hated class this semester is Operations. Unfortunately, it's not because I think the topic is boring -- on the contrary, I actually find operations to be rather fascinating. I loathe the class because our operations professor just doesn't operate at the level that I would expect from an MBA professor. Actually, I'm convinced the man is on medication ... and some days he overdoses and on others, he underdoses. Seriously, how else do you explain the fact that he has a PhD from Johns Hopkins and yet can't remember what goes in the numerator when calculating throughput rates? (Doesn't really reflect very well on Johns Hopkins, does it?)

Anyway, our latest assignment included the creation of a decision tree. Good thing we learned all about decision trees last semester from our exceptional economics professor. But I started thinking about what the decision tree would look like for someone (like me) who is considering online dating. What would be the probability of a "good match" turning into a date? And, given that this particular dating site requires a $30/month charge for 3 months, what would be the minimum number of dates to make it worth the cost? Well, I'll tell you.

As it turns out, I need at least 8 dates to make the online dating worth the cost, according to my decision tree. That's assuming I have a 60% chance of landing 8 dates, a 70% chance of those 8 dates involving at least 3 drinks, and a 30% chance of those dates involving a $30 dinner. And, of course, that he pays.

So to get 8 dates, I think I need to find at least 16 men who I'm interested in and who are interested in me before the $90 fee is worthwhile.

It's so great to know I'm learning something in graduate school...