A little over a month ago, I posted my data from Hinge usage over the course of 5ish weeks. That data can be found here.
My profile can be found on my post history.
A discussion ensued regarding how much of a role height played in my success. To test this hypothesis, I created a second hinge profile that was identical to my first, except that my height was set to 5'9 instead of 6'0.
Disclaimer: Take this data with a grain of salt, as not only is it only one person over one period of time, but there was also many people whose profile I had already seen/already seen me from my previous month on the app. I also was not as engaged with my 5'9 profile as I was before, for the same reason. This study should not be considered scientific.
Note that I chose not to include how many dates I actually went on, since I was much less motivated to follow through on dates (I am getting tired of dating). However, I still asked women on dates if I was genuinely interested in them, but didn't always make the effort to nail a specific time down (I never cancelled on anyone though). Assume that the rate of actual dates would be similar to my previous experience.
When I did go on dates, every woman noticed I was taller than what my profile said, but found it funny that I lied in a way no one has ever done to them before (lying about being shorter than I am). It did not cause friction.
Other data not shown: The average height of women I matched with was 5' 5.9" vs 5' 5.7" and the difference was not statistically significant (a=0.74). If that seems like a tall average, it's probably because I have a personal preference for tall women.
Conclusion: Overall, I found there was no significant difference between the profiles. If there was any difference at all, it's that being listed as 5'9 seems to have excluded matches with women who were 5'10 or taller, but those were already very rare for me (and for everyone for obvious reasons).
Ultimately, if you have a good personality and present yourself well, being an average height male is not going to tank your dating chances. Based on my conversation with many women about height, the median woman just wants their partner to be at least 1-2" taller than them, although a significant portion don't really care at all.
Posted by Illustrious_Fail_729
38 comments
Source: Hinge data export and self tracking
Tools: Google sheets and Sankeymatic
Reddit incels are going to HATE this data
The first chart is an okay one, but (1) what does “R to S ratio” mean? (2) you as the chart maker already know the significance of the steps in the process that you plotted, but readers like me don’t. (3) In my mind the only interesting comparison is the overall end outcome, but (without knowing the meaning of the steps) I’m unable to tell.
Your next two sankey diagrams do show the significance of the steps, but they’re no use because they don’t compare 5’9 to 6’0; I have to keep flipping back and forth. Even just putting the two in a single image one beneath the other would be better.
I think you must be able to find a better way to plot this, one that combines the benefit of the first chart (the comparison between the two) with the benefit of the sankey charts (the stepwise flow of the process). As it was, I had to keep flipping back and forth between the two.
Seems like you wasted people’s time and fouled up the algorithm and overall data with a phony profile for your personal entertainment.
I’m far from an incel and this difference is even smaller than I would have thought.
How are you receiving more engagements than sending them? Majority of men get zero active engagement from women and always need to match and engage first.
Am I reading this correctly when I say you matched with 0.3% of the people you liked. And you got on a date with 0.3% of the poeple you matched with? Because that would mean you would need to send over 111k likes per date. That just doesn’t seem like it’s worth it.
So instead of listening to us when we say a majority of us don’t care how tall you are, you waste our time and enter us into an experiment?
R to S ratio likes means received / sent ratio? If so, the data doesn’t match up. .4/.3 should be less than .3/small number, but the tall height column is larger than small height column.
I’m a 6’3 cyclist, so I’d pass the height tests only to have women act like I catfished them when they realized I’m only 170 pounds and lean. I’d be there applying for the boyfriend job and they’d want bodyguard credentials.
I’m curious as to how good looking you are and how this would go for someone average looking
Now do occupation (surgeon vs teacher)
Haha good idea dude
being attractive in general is definitely the driver of engagement on dating apps and is supported by your small study
I think if you asked most women if they’d rather a universally attractive guy who is 5’10 vs a 6’2 guy who is medium-ugly, they’d prob still go w the more attractive person.
So basically, girls are more likely to give you a shot when you are taller, but it doesn’t matter after you chat because you still get the ones who were going to be interested in the whole person+personality regardless of the height.
Interesting!
I wonder what changing the height to 5′ 6″ would do.
i should note that your profile would deter a lot of traditional/conservative women (tbf few of them exist anyway) who would probably select for height a lot more.
as someone who presented as male and was 5’5″ i never felt as though i received less likes than i would’ve otherwise, so while i can tentatively agree the median straight ciswoman would like to be 1-2″ shorter than their partner, i don’t at all think this is a common requirement.
*edit:* could be a fun idea for you to try with 5’4″ as well! if you do i recommend potentially drawing attention to the height in a proud and positive way, bc obviously there is a (accurate) perception that shorter men tend to be insecure about their heights. if you own the height it should quell those concerns
If you’re very good looking being average height is OK!
Average looking / short men rejoice!
Once you match, conversions are way higher. So at least you’re wasting far less time with honesty.
I’d be curious if you did 5’11” vs 6’0”, just to see if the 6’0”+ stereotype is even prevalent in women’s preferences.
This clearly shows it’s not as a big of a deal, with a larger difference but isolating just the stereotype could be interesting!
Cool chart and info. Second one is more engaging from a storytelling perspective and the first one is required to normalize the data (because the sample size is different).
I feel like the feminine equivalent to height is tits – men might swipe right because boobs but as soon as they get a better feel for the person, if it aint gonna work (bc incompatabilities such as bad personality, etc), the date likely isn’t happening (and def aint marrying). The statistical exception would be if they’re just looking to get laid.
Why 5’9?
Try like 5’7 or 5’6.
I imagine the difference would be much bigger.
Interesting experiment!
My #1 criticism is that you need to use a MUCH bigger font on your charts. “What are these, labels for ants?!” /zoolander
Also, change the text color on the titles to black. Darker blue/orange on lighter blue/orange is nearly illegible.
Could you flip the “sent” and “received” categories on your Sankeys? I think that might be more aesthetically pleasing.
Would love to see this for someone below average height (5’2”-5’6”)
If you’re 5’9″, just round up to 5’10”.
As a 5’8’’ man that has never had too much trouble with woman, this still really surprised me. I thought there would be a huge difference. This is actually quite refreshing.
“Ultimately, if you have a good personality and present yourself well, being an average height male is not going to tank your dating chances. Based on my conversation with many women about height, the median woman just wants their partner to be at least 1-2″ taller than them, although a significant portion don’t really care at all.”
You know, about half of men are shorter than average.
Thank you for the effort, but this is not a valid A/B test, and therefore, you cannot make any significant conclusion. The fact that the rates are close together can be completely due to chance.
In order to make this a valid test, you must:
– Change only 1 variable (your height)
– Be exposed to the exact same amount of people with both profiles OR
– Be exposed to a minimum sample size so that sample differences won’t matter and a minimum observable effect can be achieved
– Assuming a 23% match rate (conversion) from your 5’9 profile, the minimum sample size you need for a 5% detectable effect is ca. 1,100 – that’s 10x larger than what you used. You should continue making this experiment until you got the minimum number of profile impressions – then redo the analysis.
Yeah I see many profiles of women not saying they need the man to be tall, but they do want a man who is taller than they are. Most of these are tall women kind of apologizing about it.
breaking: man discovers that women are attracted to height
You’d think out of all subs, this one would understand the difference between ratio and %
5’9 is not really a killer some may think it is, still enough to be taller than 90% of women. I know plenty of 5’9-5’10 guy having a good time with opposite sex. 5’7 and below is where real hardships start.
Wait, so over 5 weeks you talked to 49 different women? That alone is impressive, you must have good time management skills. Presumably you were also going on dates several times a week, how did you manage it?
5’9″ Nice
(it’s 69 inches for those in the know)
YESSSSS that’s the stuff I’m here for!
Honestly, as a woman this doesn’t surprise me. My experience has always been that no one cares about height as much as guys do. Every woman I know will always choose personality and values over height and aesthetics.
This is really interesting data though and I’d love to see it repeated in different countries to see if the results change much.
I think the key takeaway is in the likes sent
The biggest issue with hinge is that they bury the likes so if the woman isn’t paying she can only see one really until she clears them out (it does shuffle a bit but this can also be changed if a guy has the paid version where his profile stays at the top)
Regardless, if you want to optimize then the takeaway is that you should really only focus on dating women who liked you or messaged you first.
I do think that sending a like with a good opener is effective though
Would you be willing to do the same A/B testing with the liberal/conservative factor as the variable? It would take changing some more text than just a single number, but I’d be wildly curious to see the changes.
This is really cool. Thanks for taking the time to do this and put it out there. Going to agree with what others have said that the incels won’t care, but i am sure there are some shorter guys out there who will get a boost from this. I think your photos, where you look very friendly and are smiling and well dressed, are way more important than the height.
5’9″ is the average male height in the US. Instead of tall vs average, I would’ve liked to see tall vs short (e.g. 5’6″). I feel that would have made a difference.
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