I hope someone may be encouraged to know that your perceived attractiveness (and potential success on dating apps) isn’t a fixed, static thing based solely on physical traits.

There’s a lot you can do to change this by the quality of your photos and what they convey about your attitude and personality! (What you write in your bio can impact perceived attractiveness too, but that’s a topic for another post.)

I’ve been using a couple of different tools and resources for getting feedback on my photos for dating app purposes over the past couple of years. I am a data/science geek, so I like to do things like upload several slightly different versions to compare how they perform. I also read a lot of other people’s research and survey results.

I’ve learned that perceived attractiveness has a lot less to do with how your body and face are structured than you might think.

Different pictures of the same person regularly get widely different attractiveness ratings, and a less conventionally attractive person can be perceived more positively than someone who may “rate” higher on a conventional scale, depending on how the photos come across and what they convey about you.

So if you aren’t doing well on the apps it may not mean that you’re doomed to failure or even that people won’t find you attractive—you might just need to tweak your photos and profile.

Even the very same photo can get very different attractiveness ratings, just from being cropped differently or having things like the lighting and exposure adjusted slightly.

For instance, today I uploaded a photo that got an attractiveness rating of 5.1, with 90% of my test group (in this case, men over 30) answering “no” or “somewhat” to the question of whether they found the person in the photo attractive.

I also uploaded another copy of the very same photo cropped differently, with the exposure and brightness/contrast slightly adjusted to correct the lighting just a bit. That photo got an attractiveness rating of 9.3, with 90% of the test group (also men over 30) selecting “very” and 10% choosing “yes” for the “attractive” rating, and none of the sample group choosing a lower rating.

I only test photos I think are good pictures that honestly represent me, and that I like well enough to consider using on a dating profile. People tell me when we meet in person that I look like my photos. I’m at best average or slightly above average attractiveness on a conventional rating scale.

Even within the same day or week, my photos get attractiveness ratings of anywhere between 2.3 and 9.3 out of 10. My ratings on other perceived traits (smart, trustworthy, etc) are similar.

Sometimes a photo I think is my most attractive ranks terribly, and a photo I think isn’t flattering may get a very high rating. (This is very common, from what I understand—the pictures of ourselves that we like best may not be what others find attractive.)

Some things that generally tend to help attractiveness ratings, both from my own observations and from surveys and research I’ve read:

  • Look relaxed, happy, and approachable.

  • Don’t look too intense or aggressive—huge overly-toothy grins and frowns or sad/angry-looking expressions tend to turn people off. Laughing photos can be good, but generally try to avoid extremes that may seem unnatural or forced.

  • Try to have a natural, relaxed smile with at least some of your teeth showing or slightly-parted lips if possible.

*Have open and welcoming (but not seductive) body language.

  • Make eye contact with the camera, or be looking at something at least roughly in the direction of the camera.

  • Have your face visible and clear, or at least not hidden or obscured (avoid hats, sunglasses, shadows and angles that make it hard to see your face and eyes).

  • Have decent lighting, preferably natural light if possible. Lighting and shadows seem to be one of the biggest factors that affect people’s impression of the person in the photo.

  • Be the only person in the photo or have it very clear which one is you.

  • Have a setting and background that adds some interest, but isn’t too distracting or offputting. Blank backdrops don’t tend to do as well as settings that put you into a context. (As long as it isn’t a context, like a bathroom, that’s worse than no background at all. Pay attention to details in the background—people will notice!)

  • Take the photo from a natural angle, not way higher or lower than someone would be looking at you in a normal social interaction. Photos taken from above or below can distort your face and give a superior or insecure tone.

  • Try to avoid selfies. It’s ok to have maybe one selfie in a dating profile but people tend to dislike pictures that look very obviously like selfies, especially if there are several of them. The selfie lens also distorts your face in subtle ways that tend to make you seem less attractive. Prop your phone/camera on something and use the time-delay feature if you have to!

Also be aware that men and women tend to find very different things attractive. Some of my photos tend to get much higher attractiveness ratings from women than from men, or vice versa.

(Things like gym-bro pics that accentuate your muscles, shirtless pics, photos that look tough and intimidating, fish pictures, and muscle cars generally tend to be more attractive to men than to most women; and overly cutesy or duck-face photos don’t tend to be as attractive to the majority of men as some women seem to think.)

Anyway, I just thought I’d share in case someone might find it interesting and/or helpful!


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