A "heat map" for NYC, from OkCupid last Valentine's Day.

​According to data released to us by OkCupid, some New York City neighborhoods are more likely to make connections on the dating site than others. This may seem intuitive in some ways, but it's better to know these things for sure, right? After all, just like that map that tells us where the single men and women live, we can use this for our own purposes, whatever they may be. The numbers below reflect "the average compatibility between people in each neighborhood with other neighborhoods." The NUMBER 1 top compatibility is between...drumroll please...Greenpoint and Bed-Stuy, featuring a 46.09 compatibility return!

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​How do you date successfully? Some might say it's only when you stop dating, a/k/a, find someone and settle down, or whatever people do. Others might say that it's as simple as going on a good date, or learning something from the experience, even if it's bad. Free-living caddish types and those who adore them may pin it all on sex. Now science has decided to ponder this question with a focus on online dating, and we thank them, in part because their findings can help us justify our oft maligned behaviors. "According to Drexel researchers, marriage isn't the only measure of success among people looking for love in cyberspace." Oh no?

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​We were wondering: Could there be truth to the idea that, say, after a natural disaster, or on a long holiday weekend, there might be a stronger inclination to turn to the sex of your choosing and merge, or try to find someone with whom to merge, or at least get some dinner or something? And how did the year of 2011, in New York City, match up to that theory? We gave some key dates in the last year in New York to the data masters/love specialists at OkCupid, who ran the numbers for us. Aside from the fact that more and more people are online dating in general -- OkCupid co-founder and CEO Sam Yagan told us that from the beginning to the end of the year in 2011, New York City users of the service were up about 30 percent, with overall logins increasing from 30,844 on January 1 to nearly 60,000 logins (and 91,822 messages sent) in December. More intriguing numbers on how we dated last year, after the jump!

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Remember Jessica Sporty? She is the enterprising Murray Hill twentysomething written about in November by Business Insider, which first published her name, after which it was picked up by various media outlets (us included); then changed it to another, similar name; and then changed it again, to the name of a Harry Potter character with the note "We have changed the name of the woman in the story because people were taking it waaaay too seriously." Because, briefly, the internet had been set aflame by Sporty, who confessed to using Match.com to get guys to buy her dinner, a financial plan that made her $1,200 a month. So sated by dinners provided by the funds of strangers that she had no interest in actually taking seriously as romantic propositions, this became a full-fledged gambit involving roommates and spreadsheets and other machinations. More >>

"Make dinner happen."

​I wasn't going to write about this, but it started making me madder and madder, so here I am. Business Insider today writes of a woman named Jessica Sporty, who, at 23, was simply too poor on her $45K salary to take care of her $1,475 a month (ahem -- Murray Hill) apartment and also her extra $500 or $1000 in credit card bills, so, she took to Internet dating on Match.com to essentially get dudes to buy her dinner and keep her out of debt.

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Ageloff, from his Prison Inmates profile

​Thank you, New York Post, for easing our transition into the post-holiday work week so warmly. For all of those single ladies bemoaning the lack of good men in the city, several hundred words have been devoted to the relationship-ability of 52-year-old Brooklyn man Roy Ageloff, who used to be a millionaire (and a free man) until he confessed to running "one of the biggest mob-linked stock frauds in U.S. history." One should always aim high, after all.

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​"Sadly, the only
Guy I'm going steady with
Is my bartender."*

Have you heard of Haiku for the Single Girl? It's a new book written by 29-year-old Beth Griffenhagen, who, when not penning haiku, spends her days in the marketing department at Murray's Cheese. We talked to Beth, who happens to be having a big launch party tonight at the powerHouse Arena (drinks, cheese, and Cheetos will be served, and haikus will be read).

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​How about we...arrange a blind date in which we will be watched by an array of other people, media professionals and whatnot, but really, whoever happens to be curious about what other people do on their blind dates (because we're all afraid of failing in this regard, right?). How about we go on it tonight, and make sure the whole event is an actual event, and is livestreamed on the Internet, and maybe, let's add along some drinking games for the folks at home! Except, we don't have to organize this, because it is already here.

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​It happens with any online dating site. Any social network, even. After a while, the filters get less and less stringent and the real creepy dudes start leaking in and next thing you know, you're MySpace. Sad young literary magazine n+1's new personals site, only a few days old, is already attracting icky older guys, or at least guys who make themselves sound like icky older guys in jest (probably the latter). This ad is from "THE LETHARGIC READER BOY LUSTING AFTER COLLEGE-AGE GIRLS":

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​The sad young literary people of New York have a new outlet for their forays into online dating: literary magazine n+1's new personals site, n+1 Personals. It's everything you want it to be, and more. The ads are exquisitely, beautifully, perfectly insufferable in every way.

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