Long story short, my roommate did this experiment where he morphed some of my pictures into a female (I'm a guy). It actually looked pretty convincing, and he used photoshop to touch on it further. Appearance wise, female me was probably a 6/10, decent but not stunning. I then installed Hinge, put a bunch of generic information in "my" profile like how I was an early 20s university student in California, doing some generic degree. Thus, the experiment began. I just wanted to see what the female experience was like.

Within the first 10 minutes, the profile got like 30 likes, I had to limit the dating pool to only Asian men (since we are Asian). Here are some of the things that stood out to me.

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  1. The profile was popular and it was hard to reply to all messages. It was like every 20 seconds, there was another like. And I had likes from all sorts of people, from teens to doctors in their 30s. I could relate to women having trouble with filtering the matches, as it's only possible to talk to like 2-3 men at a time, while the rest inevitably get left behind. If I was a woman, I'd have a lot of trouble forming deeper connections in this system. And keep in mind that female me was just...slightly above average, yet I had some IVY educated very good looking males pursuing me, it felt surreal.
  2. The quality of males on Hinge was definitely good. I don't understand how some women are on about creepy/bathroom selfie males. Out of so matches I got, almost all had pretty good pictures, were highly educated, had relatively interesting profiles and many began with intuitive openers I could have never come up with. Apart from one guy who began with an innuendo, the rest were very respectful and honestly seemed like great guys. They evidently put a lot of effort in the quality of their messages, and were definitely more interesting compared to the women on Hinge. I recall when I swiped as a straight male on Hinge, conversation with women was like pulling teeth, and it felt like I was just there to entertain them. And their pictures/profiles in general had far less effort to the males I saw. Though now that I've gotten the female experience, I guess I could definitely relate as to why women don't even make the effort; they just don't have to.
  3. Most males on Hinge were above average compared to the street. If you are a 5/10 in real life, then you are probably a 4/10 on dating apps, because the pool is simply better looking. I would imagine that it would be very difficult for an unattractive male to get dates on dating apps. Even if you are an above average male, why should any women choose you on there, if she has a lot of other guys competing for her that are better looking and richer than you?

I feel like after this experiment, if I was make an actual dating app that creates relationships, I would probably have a matchmaker system where you had consultants within the app. You would provide them with information about yourself and what you look for in a partner, and they would play matchmaker, linking you with people that are actually compatiable, and maybe you could only get like 3 "options" a month. Because right now, dating apps simply don't result in relationships. Women get too many choices and are overwelmed, while men get nothing.