Ladies – if it feels pretty bleak on the dating apps at the moment, scientists might have worked out the reason why.
An analysis of online dating sites has revealed that men tend to ‘punch’ above their attractiveness level when it comes to swipes.
Researchers discovered that overall, successful matches were more likely to occur between people with similar levels of desirability.
But this means that men have likely ended up settling for someone who they were initially less interested in – after being rejected by more attractive options.
‘Women nominate on average slightly less desirable mates, and men send ties (swipes) to women who are on average considerably more desirable than themselves,’ the researchers wrote in the journal Plos One.
‘Our research…shows that while men often aim high when choosing whom to contact, successful matches tend to happen between people with similar levels of desirability.
‘This pattern is largely the result of rejection, rather than an initial preference for similarity.’
The findings could shed some light on the success of certain male celebrities including Jay Z, Barry Keoghan and Pete Davidson – all of whom have dated women that many consider to be more attractive than them.
They’ve been married for 17 years but many people argue Jay Z is ‘punching’ with his wife Beyonce
Fans of pop star Sabrina Carpenter say she is more attractive than her ex Barry Keoghan (pictured together in 2024)
Ariana Grande and Pete Davidson dated between May and October 2018. At the time, many fans pointed out that Pete was ‘punching’ with Ariana
The research was carried out by a team from the Ludwig Maximillian University of Munich, in Germany, and the University of Manchester.
For their study, the team analysed data on nearly 3,000 heterosexual users of a Czech dating app, including swipes and desirability.
Desirability was calculated by working out who received the most swipes.
Women tended to rank more highly in this hierarchy, they discovered, largely because the app had many more male users than female ones.
Overall, they found that men were more likely to pursue women who ranked as more desirable than them.
‘Men tend to send ties (swipes) to women who are on average considerably more desirable than themselves,’ the team wrote.
‘All these findings together point toward the presence of aspirational pursuit among men, but not among women.’
The analysis also revealed a huge discrepancy between how many swipes a person received, with certain individuals receiving triple the average amount of swipes.
Men tend to ‘punch’ above their attractiveness level when it comes to swipes, the researchers discovered (file photo)
Women tended to rank more highly in the desirability hierarchy, the team discovered, largely because the app had many more male users than female ones (stock image)
While some users sent almost no swipes, some were highly active when searching for a partner.
The researchers said women’s willingness to ‘partner down’ should be taken with a ‘grain of salt’ due to the low variability in how desirable men were.
Previous research has suggested that married couples often share similar characteristics – such as age, ethnicity or political ideology.
Scientists have also found that men and women are good at judging their own attractiveness, and tend to marry people who are similarly attractive.
This suggests people largely date and marry people in our own ‘league’ – as far as beauty is concerned – experts from the University of Florida said.
