The reason why Tinder isn’t helping you find love… or the shift

Using Tinder but still single? Turns out all of these apps aren't being quite as helpful as we'd all hoped...

Yep, despite the daily/hourly/minutely checking back of Tinder, Plenty Of Fish, Bumble, etc., all us single folk are still as painfully single, unloved and untouched as ever. Perhaps even more so, because we keep checking to see if that hottie we swiped right on has swiped us back, and... (checks phone)... no, no they haven't. That's fine. I'm fine. However, it turns out that said hottie might not be the one for us after all. A recent scientific study revealed that - shock of shockers - just because someone has a great pic on their dating app, that does not automatically mean that they're going to be a great match for us. A group of people were shown pictures of 10 strangers and asked to rank them in terms of attractiveness. They were then given ten minutes each in one-on-one time with the strangers and then brought back in the re-rank them in attractiveness. Those who had initially had a low-to-middling ranking saw a massive boost in their attractiveness afterwards, while those who had already ranked pretty high in attractiveness did not see a similar boost. Turns out that being funny and charming has a massively positive effect on people you date, and just being beautiful isn't going to cut it anymore. Who knew? Associate professor of communication studies Jeffrey Hall told the Mail Online:

"With Tinder and user-directed online dating services, people try to manage the vast number of profiles by picking the most attractive people. Several researchers have made the critique that that is not the best way to find a partner."

So there you have it. Just because they look great in their gym selfie does not automatically mean they (A) are a good match for you, and (B) they actually have much of a personality to go with the looks. Plus, chances are, unless your dating app profile pic is also a gym selfie, they probably won't be into you anyway. Long story short, despite the Darwinian nature of picture-based dating apps, you're probably more likely to find a decent match based on that funny bio than anything else.