Online dating: Men are looking for more attractive women, but they have the last word

Millions of people are looking for a flirt online or even great love. How they behave in this has one in the specialist magazine Plos One presented study taken under the magnifying glass. The researchers classified users of a Czech dating app after how desirable they were-based on the number of expressions of interest, i.e. the swipes that they received from the different sex.

They found that on average men contact women who were more desirable than they themselves. Women would have more targeted on men who were at a similar or slightly lower level than they themselves. A match, i.e. a mutual goal, had mostly resulted in couples in which both sides were classified as similarly sought.

Do similar attractive people attract each other?

So is the old saying “right away and immediately likes to do it”? According to the researchers’ assumptions, less the existing preferences play a role here than the process in the entire process. This pattern is mostly the result of rejections by the more desirable partner and not the result of an initial preference for similarity, you notice.

The successful matches correspond to the preference of women than that of men, comments on the team. “This probably reflects the stronger position of women on the online dating market, since men exceed the number in number and are often expected to take the first step.”

More research necessary

The Author duo Renata Topinkova from the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and the Karls University in Prague and Tomas Diviak from the British University of Manchester had analyzed the data of a Czech dating app that was collected in July 2017. It evaluated the information from 2,321 users from Prague and 624 from the second largest city of Brno (BRNO). The team admits that further research is necessary, such as other apps that have more sophisticated algorithms. This is all the more important than more and more couples got to know each other online.

The analyzed app represented significantly more men than women, so that women receive more swipes on average. “We take this into account statistically, so that our results are not distorted by the unbalanced relationship between men and women”, explained researcher Topinkova. “Specifically, we standardize all results based on the number of users of the different sex.”

The examined dating app did not find any information about the motivation of users. “However, this can vary greatly-from the search for a one-night stand to the desire for a long-term relationship,” admits the team in the study.