When Ben Ellman, 26, moved to NYC in 2015 and fired up his Tinder and OkCupid profiles, he was expecting to meet a bevy of compatible women. Instead, the 5-foot-9 journalist was swiped left by matches because of his height — or lack thereof.

“It seems like all the women online were going for guys 6-foot-1 and above,” Ellman, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, tells The Post. He estimates that for every 50 women he expressed interest in, only one would swipe right on him. “People can feel worse when using Tinder because it’s such a meritocracy for hot people … People swipe left or right based on your profile picture, and that can make you feel bad about yourself.”

He’s not the only one who faced a drop in confidence after using Tinder. A new survey at the University of North Texas found that singles who used Tinder are more likely to have lower self-esteem and feel unhappy about their looks than non-dating-app users. When it came to gender, male Tinder users reported lower self-esteem than females.

The study’s co-author, Jessica Strubel, says this gender imbalance could be due to a numbers game.

“We don’t know causality of these results, but one possible factor is that there are more male Tinder users than female Tinder users,” Strubel, an assistant professor at the university, tells The Post. “Men also swipe right more than women, so they face rejection more often, which could affect their self-esteem.”

‘People can feel worse when using Tinder because it’s such a meritocracy for hot people.’ - Ben Ellman

Ellman, who was going on a couple of dates a month via dating apps, says that some women are too picky when it comes to finding the right guy.

“[Dating in NYC] feels like a meat market,” says Ellman, who’s now in a relationship. “Some people are like, ‘Well, if he only checks off three out of the seven things, that isn’t enough, so I’m gonna look for someone who checks off more things on my list’ … [It] can make people feel disposable.”

NYC matchmakers such as Julia Bekker agree that putting yourself on the online-dating market can be a taxing experience.

“It can be very disappointing if you’re not matching with many people,” says Bekker, who’s based on the Upper East Side and owns matchmaking service Hunting Maven. “My advice is not to look for a confidence boost from dating apps and [to] go into the online-dating world already knowing your worth.”

Take former Tinder user Taylor Costello, 24, who says that the dating app made her feel better about herself after men swiped right and showered her with compliments.

“I’ve always been confident, but when you use this tool and get 50 people wanting to see you, it can definitely be a confidence boost,” says Costello, a bartender who lives in Hell’s Kitchen and ended up finding a boyfriend through the app.

“Once you stop taking [Tinder] so seriously, the dating scene in NYC can be a lot of fun.”