Online dating not working out? Maybe you’re too GOOD-LOOKING: Ugly people are MORE likely to get attention on websites

Th is is because they tend to divide opinion more than a classic beauty

Daters who like someone's unusual features will rate them higher

Researchers also believe online daters are intimidated by people who are widely regarded as beautiful as they may face more competition

From the arty filter to the pouting selfie, online daters know just how to hide their faults on camera.

But according to a recent study, people would be better off uploading a candid shot of themselves and exposing their flaws if they want to snag a hot date.

According to statistics from dating site OkCupid, universally beautiful people get lower scores in terms of attractiveness than people with unusual features.



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OkCupid found that when some men think a woman is ugly, other men are more likely to message them. This is partly because they have unusual features that may divide opinion, but also because men think there is less competition

Hannah Fry, of Youtube channel Head Squeeze, claims this makes sense if you take game theory into consideration: ‘The people sending these messages are thinking about their own chances,’ she says.

‘[If you’re ugly] it means they can have less competition….why bother humiliating themselves?’

The founders of OkCupid, who have maths backgrounds, have been collecting data for almost a decade on how online daters interact with each other.



While Holly Willoughby (left) is often described as beautiful, Sarah Jessica Parker (right) tends to get a varied response. In the online dating world this would mean that Sarah Jessica Parker would receive more messages



VIDEO: Why less attractive people get more online attention





ONLINE DATING: A NUMBERS GAME

A 35-year-old mathematician hacked OkCupid and found his future-fiancee in just 90 days all with the help of computer algorithms.

The dating site founded by Harvard students in 2004 matches singles looking for love based on a compatibility percentage rendered from a questionnaire. Boston-born Chris McKinlay was working on his PhD at UCLA in June 2012 when he signed up for the site, but was having dismal luck finding a mate. Using an algorithm he was able to sort the women on the site, focusing on a sample of 5,000 who live in LA or San Francisco and had logged onto the site within the last month.

He then created a new profile and changed his potential matches to from several hunder to over 10,000.

At one point he had over 400 women a day looking at his site. He proposed to the girlfriend he met on the site a year after they met.

They have another theory, however. In a recent blog posting, they revealed that how good-looking someone is depends on how they divide opinion.



A woman tended to get a better response from men as men became less consistent in their opinions of her.



‘The less-messaged woman was usually considered consistently attractive, while the more-messaged woman often created variation in male opinion,’ they claim.



Ms Fry suggests that as well as intimidating the opposite sex, obviously attractive people are often given lower scores.

Mr Fry uses the example of Holly Willoughby and Sarah Jessica Parker. While Holly Willoughby is often described as beautiful, Sarah Jessica Parker tends to get a varied response.

‘A lot of people - i.e. most of the internet - thinks she looks like a horse,’ says Ms Fry.

But Sarah Jessica Parker would get more messages, according to Ms Fry, because those who think she is attractive will consistently rate her higher than someone who is a classically beautiful.

She adds: ‘If some people think you're beautiful, you're better off having other people think you're a massive minger.’