Photos can be retouched to perfection. Today anybody with a smartphone and the Facetune app can brighten their skin, teeth and eyes. Filters can be added. Waists can be narrowed. Curves can be added. Breasts can be enlarged (without surgery). Some people even go as far as removing people from the background (seriously).

Angles can be played with and makeup can be painted.

With all of this in combination, any woman on the planet (even somebody who is universally, monumentally ugly in the real world) can begin to look rather attractive.

(“Ugly” in physical appearance only. Not ugly in character)

Have yellow teeth? No problem, just digitally whiten them.

Have beedy eyes? No problem, highlight them with makeup and then digitally enlarge them on an app.

Overweight? No problem, point the camera down at yourself from up above your head, an angle that highlights your cleavage and hides your stomach. And if this isn’t enough, open up an app and start narrowing that waist.

Are these options open to men too? Yes. But it simply doesn’t have the same effect. Because once again, men are far more visual than women

The snowball effect

All of these small advantages that women have in online dating may seem relatively minor.

However, all of these small details add up over time and begin to radically change people’s perceptions.

Let’s start with the year zero.

For arguments sake, lets say there are 1000 men and 1000 women who have downloaded Tinder for the very first time and lets see how the dynamics of the app develop overtime.



Stage 1 - Day zero:



Men upload their photos and do their best to use the weak medium of text to convey their personality.

Women upload their digitally perfected photos and type in their descriptions.

Right away, due to human biology and the fact that images are the focal point of every profile, the women will receive more messages than men.

Most women have multiple messages to choose from and reply to only 30% of the messages. The woman feels desirable and gets a nice little boost of self-esteem.

On the other hand, most men will send out multiple messages to a number of women, and receive replies from around 30% of women. He’s a little bummed about those who didn’t reply, but satisfied with the 30% who did.

Stage 2 - After 1 week



Women continue to be flooded with messages and begin to feel like they’re quite the catch. They begin to only respond to around 10% of the messages they receive.

Meanwhile, from the men’s point of view, women seem to be responding to less and less of his messages. So they begin to get frustrated and desperate. Is there something wrong with me?

He begins making adjustments to his profile. A photo of him rock climbing. A photo of him holding a puppy. A shirtless selfie (After all, I would be attracted to a women taking a shirtless selfie, so women must like it too right?)

But no matter what he tries nothing seems to work. I guess I’m just unattractive..

He tries to show his sense of humour that seems to work so well in real life, but it doesn’t seem to have the same effect when using the weak medium of text.



Stage 3: - After 1 month



Women are now mostly bored of the whole thing. The most attractive women have hundreds of messages and they begin to see an opportunity to direct people to their Instagram account and build a following there.

The average women are also flooded with messages. Men seem to be reacting to me significantly better on the app than they do in real life…

She begins to realise that she essentially has an endless carousel of men for the picking. Her standards begin to rise. Now she will only meet men who are particularly attractive.

The average man, who she would happily date in the real world, is now disposable in her eyes. Although she may still send a few short responses to encourage a few compliments her way.

Men on the other hand (The average men), are losing their minds.

They seem to be sending out countless messages and getting almost no response. The women who do respond seem to take hours between their messages and don’t seem particularly interested in meeting up.

He feels a REAL drop in self-esteem. It seems that he’s far less desirable to women than he thought he was.

His messages begin to reek of desperation. He starts sending 3 messages. 4 messages. 5 messages in a row.

He’s aching for some kind of reply. Anything.

“K”

“Cool”.

It doesn’t matter. Just something. So that he can enjoy the next dopamine surge he gets from her replies

Overtime, he begins to get angry. Who does she think she is? Why do women think they can treat me this way?

And that’s when you start to see this: