I have observed many 20-something women swiping through Tinder and the #1 cause for a man’s profile to be rejected is his attractiveness simply being average or below average. Have you ever tried online dating on platforms such as Tinder?
So for men, the biggest improvement they can make is take more photos of yourself in hope for some good ones and maybe get some professional photos taken. What constitutes a good photo? In descending order of importance: 1) they want to be flattering. You'd think this would be obvious, but far too many profiles have photos that actively highlight negative features of their subject. If your hairline is failing, have photos with hats on. If you've got a beer belly, don't have side-facing photos. Etc. 2) They should suggest that you do fun things, and are thus likely to bring a potential date to such fun things. Nature shot, beach shot, interesting place shot. If you have some interesting hobby, maybe an action shot of you woodcutting/flying a model plane/intricately painting plastic figures. 3) Since this is a forum for tech workers, you probably have more discretionary income than average. *Subtly* demonstrate that.
Ultimately, what it boils down to is that everyone knows your profile pictures are going to be your absolute best photos of yourself, carefully crafted to make you look your best, overselling reality substantially. If you put bad pictures in your profile, people will STILL ASSUME THAT, and thus assume you look even worse.
The OkCupid data confirmed this is false. Top 20% of men receive the vast majority of female attention.
The inverse of that is that the majority of women think that 80% of men are mostly unattractive or at least unattractive to them. This is about as far as you can get from just trying to sweep the stats aside with a "highly individual" comment.
The data shows men might rate women's attractiveness charitably, but they only messaged the most attractive 5s.
But whom women messaged tells a different story. Women messaged more average-looking men and were less likely to message the most attractive men.
Examining messages is largely moot, because by the time two people have matched we've already filtered out a huge portion of potential partners.
It’s more that not doing those things can be problematic for attractive people who would otherwise get matches.
(Most women who don't do basic things are depressed to the point they aren't on dating apps, so you wouldn't have an opportunity to swipe on them.)
One reason I'm glad I'm gay is that so many men just reek or don't perform basic hygiene.
(For instance, it's easy to "change" if you're a burn victim. If you're going to be scientific, be specific.)
So what? This correction changes nothing, the discussion is about control.
A man who wants to improve his attractiveness in terms of body height, skin colour or sensitivity of the scalp against 5α-DHT expressing follicle miniaturisation can't achieve shit by changing his environment.
If your hair is thinning that's less of a problem than you think. It looks bad if you look like you're intentionally ignoring it, but lean into it and you're fine.