Looks Matter When It Comes to Online Dating

By ANNABELLA PALOPOLI

Don’t get me wrong, that’s the way it should be. And under most circumstances it’s true. However, your appearance may determine whether or not a guy decides to talk to you, at least on dating websites.

One might assume that a stellar personality would make up for any deficiencies in appearance. Or at least a weird, relatively unattractive personality would lessen the appeal of a beautiful girl, so I wanted to test that assumption.

I set up a little experiment. I created two dating profiles on the website plentyoffish.com, a dating website with “over 30 million registered singles!”

One profile represents an attractive girl who seems to be just one crayon short of a full box while the other represents an average-looking girl with a great personality.

My first character’s name is Alexandra. On her profile is a photo of a girl with a stunning smile, gorgeous eyes, a perfectly symmetrical face and long, wavy hair. In short, someone who seems to reflect the modern ideal of female beauty as shown in magazines and on television. She is 20-years-old and from Tampa, Fla. At first glance, everything seems normal … until you actually read her profile information.

Alexandra is Wiccan, Wicca is a religion also known as Pagan Witchcraft. This probably doesn’t match most religious preferences of people on the site. Her match preferences indicate that she is incredibly particular about the men she chooses, with one of them being “I only date single parents.”

Furthermore, she lives alone with her six cats named Demetri, Zach, Bilbo Baggins, Satan, Muffin and Sir Meowington. To top it all off, the only hobby she has listed is collecting marbles. Her personality is shown as high-maintenance, ditzy and a bit arrogant. Now, I’m not a guy, but I’m pretty sure this type of girl would turn off most, if not all sane men.

My next dating contestant, however, is a little less than “model-material.” Michelle is a 20-year-old girl, also from Tampa, but her appearance greatly differs. Michelle has a rather large nose that is slightly disproportional to her face, small eyes and an awkward smile.

Her appearance would probably be considered average by today’s society when compared to Alexandra’s model-like features, but personality-wise,

Michelle is much more impressive than Alexandra. Michelle is shown as intelligent, outgoing and compassionate. Her interests include running, reading, spending time with family and listening to music. She is very open to all types of people and is willing to talk to anyone. Michelle, as it is strongly implied, is a friendly, lovable girl with whom many would probably enjoy interacting.

Within five hours of putting these two profiles online, Michelle received seven messages and six “likes” on her page while Alexandra received 20 messages and 21 “likes.” After two days, Michelle’s grand total was 17 messages and 14 “likes” while Alexandra’s was 42 messages and 45 “likes.” The results of my small experiment show that, clearly, looks are more important than personality according to the men on dating websites.

On the other hand, you never know how much of this is just men trolling the site looking for pretty girls to hook up with. So girls, don’t put too much stock in dating websites where clicks are cheap.

There’s no investment or commitment; everything is as impulsive as a single click. Go out into the real world and meet someone the old-fashioned way where the richness of human companionship is more reliable.

Annabella Palopoli can be reached at Annabellapalopoli@gmail.com.