The Science of Attraction Explains Why Dating Apps Don't Work For Many People
Research shows we are horrible at predicting what we want. So why would dating apps be any better?

It's a Friday night, and Samantha and John are looking for love. But they are not out mingling. They are home, swiping on a dating app.
Samantha is a confident, hotshot lawyer with a peccadillo for overusing Latin phrases to hide her imposter syndrome. John is a free-spirited artist who loves painting abstract murals, playing his acoustic guitar, and refuses to cut off his man bun.
When Samantha swipes right on John's profile, she notices his colorful, mural-filled profile picture. "Wow, this guy isn't standing behind a dirty toilet and a shower curtain," she thinks. But then she reads his bio. John has a mural backdrop because he is an artist.
Her thumb swipes faster than a dealer at a high-stakes poker table. "I can't be with someone who won't wear a suit," she mutters. She unmatches with John.
John sees Samantha's profile and is blown away by her sleek blonde hair and confident demeanor. "This woman has poise," he says to himself. He immediately swipes right.
But then he sees that she is a lawyer and imagines dating someone who finds a loophole in every argument. He unmatches with Samantha.
Little did they know, they were both missing out on someone great. Samantha could have had a sensitive guy who understood her passion for defending the underdog, and John could have had a steadfast, loyal woman who got him organized enough to pay his electric bill. Instead, they continued to swipe left and right, believing their perfect match was the person they imagined on paper.
Samantha and John are fictitious characters, but many have played their part.
Here is why the science of real-life attraction differs from dating app attraction.
People think they know what they want.
When I met my ex-boyfriend, it was an instant seismic attraction. A kite losing its string sort of lust. No amount of logic could plant my feet back on the ground.
But if I had met him on a dating app, I would have immediately swiped left. He simply wasn't what I thought I was looking for.
My experience is typical. Most people naturally assume that a partner who checks all the right boxes would be rated higher than someone who doesn't fit their romantic ideals. Unfortunately, research has yet to find that to be the case.
In a recent study, researchers asked single people to list the top three characteristics they sought in a long-term partner. Then they sent them on some blind dates.
To follow up, researchers asked them to rate their dates by how much they fit their previously listed romantic ideals on a scale of 1–11. And then, they gave them a questionnaire to gauge their attraction level to those people. They found that the dates they were most attracted to did not possess the qualities they claimed they sought.
In other words, whom people said they wanted was not whom they chose.
An older 2008 study tested the same hypothesis — do people know what the heck they want? In this study, people at a speed dating event filled out a questionnaire detailing what they sought in a partner. Men claimed they valued attractiveness. Women claimed they valued ambition and wealth. Shocker.
But what might surprise you is that when researchers asked participants to rate their speed dates, they found zero correlation between what they said they were looking for and whom they actually wanted to date.
Most people are attracted to the familiar — someone who reminds you of a childhood caregiver or past love. But when our choices are bound up with the past, future-focused influences hold less weight than we realize.
In other words, we are far better at learning from our past than predicting our future.
Construal-level theory explains why online connections fail (unless you meet soon).
In a 2021 study of over 2925 US adults, researchers found that digital communication did not build the same intimacy levels as face-to-face contact. Well, duh.
But there is a psychological reason why online connections set people up for failure — construal-level theory. In science speak, this theory states that psychological distance prompts people to think abstractly and ideally, while psychological closeness prompts people to think more concretely and realistically.
For example, when swiping through potential matches, we tend to focus on superficial traits — their killer smile, impressive job title, and glossy adventures hiking in Machu Picchu. But we're not really thinking about how they communicate, handle stress, or treat others.
And that's where things can go awry. You meet up with your dreamy match in person, only to find out that they're a terrible listener, they chew with their mouth open, and they have the emotional intelligence of a single-cell amoeba.
Suddenly, those abstract ideals that initially attracted you to the person online seem a lot less appealing in real life.
On the other hand, when we first meet someone in person, we tend to focus on more concrete and realistic characteristics. We're noticing how they smell (hopefully not bad), how they laugh (hopefully not like a hyena), and how they treat the waitstaff (hopefully not like garbage). When we get a fuller picture of who they are, we're more likely to access compatibility accurately.
Of course, we hardly need a research study to remind us that humans are pair-bonding species, not digital-bonding species. But judging by the number of people who text endlessly without ever meeting, some of us clearly need a reminder.
Dating apps feed a negativity bias.
I came across an attractive guy's dating profile recently that had the opening line:
“I am convinced 90% of the population is undateable.”
Project much?
Better yet, would you walk up to a woman in a bar and say, "Hi stranger, This place sucks, and I am having a miserable time. But how are you doing?"
Relationships are hard enough without a dark cloud spitting rain on them.
To be clear, this is not a gendered problem. I see just as much negativity on the distaff side. And because women risk more bodily harm by meeting a stranger, probably even more so.
But if you begin every dating adventure in a place of paranoia, negativity, and cynicism, don't expect to find joy. The energy we put out into the world has an uncanny habit of boomeranging back at us.
The technical term for this behavior is negativity bias — a cognitive bias resulting in people weighing negative traits and events more strongly than positive ones.
Unfortunately, with dating, humans have an amazing ability to find the negative quicker than the positive. Our primordial survival depended on it. A prehistoric person with a concealed rock in his hand was more dangerous than one carrying a daisy.
Case in point. There was an astounding level of negativity in the comment section of an article about why we should nix coffee dates. The men kept insisting a coffee date was preferable because it is a low investment of time and effort. The number one reason both men and women said they preferred a coffee date was that it was quicker.
I won't mince words. People who take the speed conveyer belt approach to dating are looking for reasons to reject someone. A coffee date allows them to quickly find flaws in less than 15 minutes (usually superficial) instead of trying to get to know someone. One guy even said he prefers coffee dates because the exits are more clearly marked.
If you always look for the exits, you will find them.
Sadly, dating apps have conditioned us to reject someone with the speed of a thumb swipe. But if those same caffeinated speed daters slowed down, they might find someone's flaws are not the dealbreakers they think they are.
A "matching hypothesis" algorithm only works in short-term mating.
Since appearances are the first thing we see on dating apps, a dating app's most valuable currency is beauty. Consequently, most dating apps' algorithms use a matching hypothesis — the theory that people are more likely to form a committed relationship with someone equally socially desirable, with appearance as the strongest influencer.
One small study applied the matching hypothesis to online dating. In this study, the attractiveness of 60 males and 60 females was measured by online daters. Then their choices of preferred partners were monitored, and the people with whom they chose were monitored.
It probably won't shock anyone that people were more likely to contact significantly more attractive people than themselves. However, researchers found that the person was more likely to reply if they had the same attractiveness level.
In other words, people attempt to date "out of their league" but do not necessarily succeed. And this is where dating apps are dangerous. When people demand champagne on a beer budget, dissatisfaction is bound to happen.
But there is some good news. In real life, people are not as shallow and care about traits besides appearances. Especially in choosing a long-term partner, people are more strongly influenced by cross-trait assortative mating — the phenomenon where someone with one desirable trait (for example, a wealthy man) mates with someone with a completely different desirable trait (for example, an attractive woman).
Trading female beauty for male wealth is a more cynical (and outdated) example, but people make "trade-offs" all the time. For instance, if a guy is short but has a wicked sense of humor, he isn't having trouble finding a partner (unless he uses a dating app). Reversely, if a woman is attractive but unkind, she might be popular on a dating app but won't be chosen as a long-term mate.
People are horrible at knowing what they want, but we are the ones training the dating app algorithm to know our hearts. Unfortunately, a dating app can't match you with the most compatible partner if we feed it the wrong preferences. That process is a complete mismatch of how humans seek love.
To be clear, I am not saying dating apps can't work for some people. But they only work if you approach them with humility and openness. That person who isn't necessarily your type might surprise you.
Be open to love's surprises.