This week we will be confronting a fact that, by definition, haunts the average online dater: no matter how much time you spend polishing your profile, honing your IM banter, and perfecting your message introductions, it’s your picture that matters most.
We’re going to look at how your photos affect both the messages you get and how successful your own outgoing messages are. We all know that beautiful people are more successful daters, but let’s quantify by exactly how much.
To illustrate the exact spectrum of looks we’re talking about here, and to put some human faces on our discussion, I want to introduce a few photos of real OkCupid users. Here are two women near the top our range.
![]() |
![]() |
And here are two rated in the middle.
![]() |
![]() |
As for photos at the bottom of the curve, it didn’t feel right to write someone and say “can I use you to illustrate the concept of ugliness on my blog?” so you’ll just have to extrapolate.
The above featured users have graciously agreed to let me post their pictures, so please don’t make them regret it. Funnily enough, I had to write about a dozen beautiful female users before anyone would even get back to me. Life imitates blog!
Anyhow, I know attractiveness is far from a universal concept, but maybe keep these folks in mind as we go through the data.
We’ll start with a simple line chart. The information I’ll present in this post is not normalized because, as we’ll see, it’s interesting how men and women evaluate looks differently.
Our chart shows how men have rated women, on a scale from 0 to 5. The curve is symmetric and surprisingly charitable: a woman is as likely to be considered extremely ugly as extremely beautiful, and the majority of women have been rated about “medium.” The chart looks normalized, even though it’s just the unfiltered opinions of our male users.
Given the popular wisdom that Hollywood, the Internet, and Photoshop have created unrealistic expectations of how a woman should look, I found the fairness and, well, realism, of this gray arc kind of heartening.
Now let’s superimpose the distribution of actual messages guys have sent:
When it comes down to actually choosing targets, men choose the modelesque. Someone like roomtodance
2/3 of male messages go to the top 1/3 of women.
above gets nearly 5 times as many messages as a typical woman and 28 times as many messages as a woman at the low end of our curve. Site-wide, two-thirds of male messages go to the best-looking third of women. So basically, guys are fighting each other 2-for-1 for the absolute best-rated females, while plenty of potentially charming, even cute, girls go unwritten.
The medical term for this is male pattern madness.
The female equivalent of the above chart shows a different bias:
As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. But with the basic ratings so out-of-whack, the two curves together suggest some strange possibilities for the female thought process, the most salient of which is that the average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.
Just to illustrate that women are operating on a very different scale, here are just a few of the many, many guys we here in the office think are totally decent-looking, but that women have rated, in their occult way, as significantly less attractive than so-called “medium”:
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
![]() |
Females of OkCupid, we site founders say to you: ouch! Paradoxically, it seems it’s women, not men, who have unrealistic standards for the “average” member of the opposite sex.
Finally, I just want to combine the two charts to emphasize how much fuller the inboxes of good-looking people get. I have scaled this graph to show multiples of messages sent to the lowest-rated people. For instance, the most attractive guys get 11× the messages the lowest-rated do. The medium-rated get about 4×.
This graph also dramatically illustrates just how much more important a woman’s looks are than a guy’s.
Now let’s take a look at how senders’ and recipients’ attractivenesses affect reply rates, not just the number of messages sent.
As you’d expect, more attractive people get more replies. And since they themselves get so many more messages than everyone else, they write back much less frequently. Here’s the graph for female senders, plotted in evenly-spaced “attractiveness groups.”
And here’s the one for male senders.
One interesting thing seems to be going on here: when the best-looking men write the worst-looking women, taste the rainbow,
of self-esteem issues their message success rate takes a big hit. The knee-jerk response would be to somehow chalk it up to hunky spammers, but we very carefully control for that in these articles, and in any event why would better-looking girls be drastically more susceptible to it? It seems to be some kind of self-confidence thing.
As we did before, I’m going to consolidate the line charts to show just how your attractiveness changes how often your messages get responses.
This post has been the preamble to the larger discussion of “what makes a good profile?” We’ve spent a lot of time on OkTrends looking at messages, and since your profile is the other important place you express yourself, we thought it deserved the same treatment.
I wanted to address physical attractiveness right at the start, because obviously it’s a huge factor in how successful your profile is. In the upcoming posts in this series, we’re going to control for attractiveness, so that we can deliver real and useful advice for all the non-models out there.
We’ll look at, among other things: what makes a good picture (is it taken outside? inside? is it full-body? a head-shot? with your pet snake? what?), what kinds of self-presentation will get you the most messages (jokey? flirty? all business?), and how much profile information is too much. Should be good.
Following Us
To join us, visit: www.okcupid.com, which is freeTo learn of new posts, follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/okcupid
To subscribe to our feed, click: RSS
If you’re from the press, we love you! pressokcupid.com
Doesn’t surprise me at all that the last attractive women don’t write back to attractive men. They think they’re being mocked. This is the plot of at least a million Hollywood movies — pretty guy takes up with ugly girl “on a bet” or “on a dare.”
Christian, you guys have done it again. Bless you and your Aspergers-esque attention to detail.
Maybe we could see what some gay results looked like? I’d be interested to see how males rated male attractiveness and how females rated female attractiveness and their corresponding successrates
Sorry, I’ve been skewing your data by rating nobody lower than three stars. Since only 4 or 5 stars triggers a match scenario, it just seems cruel to give somebody one star.
Now that I know that the very validity of dating science is at stake, I’ll start practicing truth in starring.
-John
Christian,
You’ve just taken words out of my mouth. I’ve always felt that women these days have too high expectations (and was about to post a topic in a forum up here on the same soon). A typical girl profile under the heading “the kind of man I’m looking for” on any dating website would be: “He should be smart, handsome, well groomed, educated, funny, ambitious, professionally succesful, confident and yet caring, honest and romantic” or some version of the above.
C’mon gals, be real! We know you’re all not Victoria secret models so don’t expect us to be soap opera guys.
- Shome
Can I just say, that if no-one else wants him, I’ll take the guy with the guitar! He looks five-star to me.
It would be great if we were able to see where each of us individually fall on these charts. I know some people will be disappointed, but there will probably be a high percentage of people it would surprise.
Also, are you counting the quick match messages as messages sent/replied to?
I love that both the males and females are completely delusional but on opposite ends of the spectrum.
This confirms my suspicion that you’re all fucking crazy.
If my previous comment was to risque, then I’ll reiterate by saying that this confirms my suspicion that you’re all GD crazy. The one thing I actually agree with is 2/3 of messages going to the hottest 1/3 of girls. That seems to be in line with the rest of the animal kingdom.
Raise your hand if you searched for roomtodance and ghostttt’s profile
Haha, something that I already knew. And so do many others. It’s cool though. I did find it funny how a lot of woman rate guys though. Damn, they shallow! So are most people though. I can’t wait to read what else you guys have in the future. These are quite entertaining.
I’m not raising my hand, haha. I honestly don’t find them that attractive. Maybe there is something wrong with me? Nah. They are cute though. I need a little more cushion in places they just don’t have it?
Amazing! The last graph seems to imply that the best chance a guy has at a response is a slightly better than a 50/50!
I guess the odds are pretty good none the less. Haha!
This info is amazing, keep it up team!
Being a memeber of okcupid is worth it for the insights to whacked human activity
Did you control for the ages of message sender and/or person in photo? I would be shocked if this wasn’t statistically significant.
I didn’t think those two girls were that great looking either, Sure they are pretty but the look like most of the girls on this site. boring.
Wow.
What if your response rate is below 10%? I mean, that’s pretty much beyond ugly…. Should I be talking to a plastic surgeon?
Why are all the hotties and kinda-hotties American (with one exception who’s British). Why are they all Caucasian?
The fact that the female comes out on the more shallow end of this experiment is hilarious to me…. Proof that nice guys probably do finish last, simply because women in general are not nice… Us guys take a shot to the ego on a regular basis but the size, spectrum, and overall inflated awe inspiring grandeur of the typical female ego is simply MASSIVE… Amazing.. Good work lads…Thank You!!
So what about us no-pics?(Of course it doesn’t help that OKCupid encourages people not to write to us).
Anyway,I stopped doing any star-rating when the ratings became all-in-one instead of for looks and personality,and I’d think that using data from after that merger for this article makes a fallacious assumption that all the stars given are based on looks.(Especially since it’s the personality rating from before that was carried over as the merged rating).
Was there any attempt to use photographs of non-white users in this blog entry?
This entry and the previous entry regarding race are incredibly well-done and enlightening. I’d like to see, however, this analysis repeated with a focus on race (basically, a fusion of both blog entries). You’ve shown that it’s detrimental to be unattractive or non-white, but is a “highly attractive” Middle Eastern male as successful as a “highly attractive” white male? More attractive than an “average” white male? Are “average” white women more successful than “highly attractive” Asian women?
Basically, can you determine which factor (race or attractiveness) is more influential?
Great job.
I love how Christian included himself and other staff members as being less attractive than the “medium”. Oh, how I miss your days of the Spark.
So how do us guys that are clearly not the best looking know if we’re considered average or butt-ugly according to men? Is there are way to see how we’ve been “starred” by other users?
As for myself, I am stunned at how we women (as a group) tend to rate men as below-average. I have voted guys as 1- or 2-stars in looks, but usually 3- to 4- stars in personality. I’m intrigued in what future articles hold in this regard!
Strong work Christian & crew! Makes me wanna A-li$t!
I’ve found this to be true and this validates it. I’m a relatively good looking man. I’m not a male super model by any means. But I’ve found that women who are at my level of physical compatibility or lower think they deserve someone much better.
I’ve sent fake pictures under different email addresses of men who would be considered the more stereotypical version of male attraction and even morbidly obese women respond to those messages.
Now, it’s just pathetic that they not only reject a guy who’s better looking than them, but go for a guy who is much better looking, who wouldn’t even give them the time of day.
And yet, these very same women complain they can’t find a guy who has the characteristics they’re looking for, even when I have them. It’s due to their unrealistic expectations and they’re tenency to go for the very jerks they complain about.
It seems “what makes a good profile?” is being equated with “what profile gets the most mail?” I would think that women in particular might be interested in writing profiles that REDUCE the amount of mail they get. Even as a man, I sometimes get mail from people whom I have no interest in–people who obviously didn’t read my profile, either. “Success” means attracting the RIGHT people, not the highest volume of people. Unless, of course, your goal is to have sex with as many people as possible…
Something here frustrated me – which was that you haven’t explicitly stated that you have controlled for looks in the “female messaging and male attractiveness.”
One hypothesis of data-skewing is that really attractive women just message less frequently. They expect to be messaged and not work for dates. So the distribution of messages coming from women is not equal, but depends upon attractiveness – less physically attractive women message more. This would fall in line with traditional gender roles and would be interesting to look at.
This, combined with a general assertion (which may be false) that women end up with men of about the same attractiveness as they, may explain the entire curve: Most messages from women come from low to mid attractiveness, and they set their expectations low. That doesn’t explain the fact that all men on the site are ugly, however.
Maybe I am not thinking this through entirely but I would like to see this control done.
WT
Curses. I meant “… most of the people I know from here don’t really use the *rating* system at all.”
The sad fact is, that I am many of the things that are on a supposed check list… but really! who wants to be a part of someones check list?
Perhaps, the joke is on those with unrealistic expectations… I would love to rate my or any other person’s accomplishments and general attractiveness to those with such expectations, I think you will see a reverse relationship of “actual worth” vs “perceived worth”
I’m wondering the female bias to rate men low has anything to do with the poorer way in which men generally present themselves? Female grooming, fashion, fitness, and general beauty enhancement are huge industries, and most women are given strong and ubiquitous messages that our appearance is extremely important. It’s hard not to take this to heart and do at least a few things to try to look prettier. Men (at least in North America) seem to get a more lenient treatment in appearance, and it often shows. I don’t know how easy it would be to control for nice haircuts, decent-looking clothes, and general good grooming in user photos, though. I certainly see many pictures of guys who would go up a star or two in my estimation if they put a little more effort into it. And yes, someone’s going to bitch at me for having said this, but I’m just giving out what I’ve been getting for years. I get more attention if I put some effort into my appearance, even from the pleasant, intelligent types of guys I’m interested in.
Hmm… so I should just quit now? ^_^
So, are you ever going to look at same-sex data?
YOU GUYS. You can’t just go giving three stars to everyone. For future reference, here is ‘the system’:
1 star: would not
2 stars: would maybe
3 stars: would very likely
4 stars: would certainly
5 stars: would chew off own arm to
with would, in this case, referring to ‘bone.’
The guy with the glasses is pretty cute, imho.
I’ve tried to use the star rating system to accurately reflect my opinion in relation to our compatibility. For example, I usually rate the super-model girls about a 3 in looks. Not because I don’t find them hauntingly beautiful- but because I know I cannot compete for, and retain, that level of beauty. They’re more likely (as the graph shows) to find me unworthy and move on to a more attractive man.
I really wish personality counted for more than just the “filler” that keeps you happy outside of the bedroom.
There’s a critical piece of data missing here: range of attractiveness scores per person for men vs. women.
Men tend to think fairly alike on how attractive women are. Thus, they’re all messaging the same ‘type’ of girl – the same type all the other guys think is pretty.
Women, on the other hand, have much more variation in what they find attractive in men. There’s really not very many men that they *all* find attractive. And since there’s little agreement on what’s attractive in men, there’s not very many men with high average attractiveness score – just as the curve above shows.
As “John I” mentions at the top of the comments, I wonder how much weight is put on an honest evaluation of attractiveness here. Like “John I”, I only use ratings 3, 4, and 5 99% of the time. Part of what influences the rating for me is “do I want this person is “do I want to possibly contacted by this person?” Or “do I want this person to know I rated them?” In the latter case, maybe it’s some very young girl that comes up, and I really don’t want to stimulate the “eeewww” response. At any rate, the point here is that, if others are like me, then there are behaviorial factors that underlie the ratings. Your overall analysis is very interesting, I just wonder how you can correct for this specific kind of inherent bias.
I would really, really, really like to see how the distribution of women’s ratings of male attractiveness breaks down by country of origin. Are the majority of OKCupid’s women American? Is it possible that unreasonable female standards of male beauty are an American cultural phenomenon?
I wanna see if there’s a correlation between women’s reply rate and men’s height.
I don’t care. My dog loves me
I find it a little strange honestly. In everyday life I see a lot more “conventionally attractive” chicks settling for uggos than vice versa.
I found it interesting that for both guys and girls, there is distinctly a point after which, the more attractive the person, the less likely they are to receive a message.
As someone who thought rds858 was attractive and messaged her with no response a week or two ago, I am so proud that my actions were part of this great scientific endeavor.
Jim has a point.
Im very greedy with my Stars.
I love the statistics. Wonderful statistics and graphs. I love you, oktrends.
I suspect OKC could find useful data by analyzing profiles users HIDE. I can relate to Strophe’s Star System (above). For me, though (with all due respect to the ever-so-subtle concept of “Bone Potential”
, the spectrum covers whether the profile merits my attention. Sometimes it’s due to astonishing beauty or sensual appeal — at other times, great humor, or wisdom, or sweetness…
When ranking, I tend to think to myself:
5 star: I want to MEET her. (I’ll do whatever I can to help that happen.)
4 star: I want to KNOW her. (I’ll do what I can ONLINE to help that happen.)
3 star: I think I’d like her. (I don’t mind seeing her status, or messages.)
2 star: I don’t think I’d like her. (Her profile is merely clutter to me.)
1 star: Her profile disturbs me. (Please don’t make me look again!)
Early on, I rated every profile — at least 2,000 of them — from 1 to 5 stars. Now, I no longer bother with 1 and 2 star ratings: those I simply HIDE. There must be a few thousand of those, too. As noted, I suspect that would be a informative study.
Totally agree with the shallowness of females on OKC. Something about having all the guy’s details up front must make women that much pickier. I don’t get near the number of brush offs in real life as I seem to get on here, including from many very average women.
This really reflects the social trends that are represented beyond this website. For example, if a few bombshells (4 or 5 stars) enter a bar or club, you’ll see a lot of guys experiencing whiplash. And they will experience a lot more pain if they are with a date. Throughout the course of this night they will probably get the most attention in the bar, many daring guys will approach them and all but 1 or none will fall short of getting a number. However, if you look around the place I’m sure you will see some more average looking women (2 or 3 stars) who are not being approached as much if at all. Now I feel like most guys would experience an ego-hit if they didn’t even attempt to go for the 4 or 5. As though they weren’t successful if they didn’t get the most attractive girl. So only those guys that have come to the realization that these girls are unattainable go after the 2’s and 3’s. This only represents 1/2 of the equation though since I don’t know if the same example applies. I could be wrong.
But I just have to applaud the OkCupid team on their incredible efforts and this fascinating information. I think what OkC provides is a medium where some of the social boundaries and stigmas that stem from the standard bar scene are broken down, however, this does show that you can’t alter human nature.
-J
wow….attractive people receive more emails….GROUNDBREAKING.