Science Says You’re Better Off Having Someone Else Take Over Your Dating Profile

Have you ever liked a guy and then tried to go show his FB profile to your friends, only to realize he is absolutely HORRIBLE at choosing his own profile pictures?

Your friends start making fun of you for describing the doofus, who's wearing white Oakleys and a horizontal-striped shirt that doesn't do wonders for his figure, as "the hottest guy ever."

You eventually give up on the profile pictures and settle on the "added by others" pictures to really show them a more accurate image of who this dude is. (Obviously, you're never going to live down that horrible profile picture, but this is something.)

Your friends admit he is hot after looking at the other pics, but you can't help but wonder why, with all these hot pictures, he would choose that horrible image as his profile picture.

Well according to a new study, it's because we all suck at choosing profile pictures.

A new study, lead by a team of researchers at UNSW Sydney, Australia, found people tend to get more right swipes on their profiles when they feature pictures chosen by strangers than they do when they use pictures they picked themselves.

According to researchers, people(much like your crush with the weird double chin profile picture) have no skills when it comes to choosing a flattering picture of themselves for their prof pics.

And when those bad pictures are being used for dating apps, this salts your game because people are judging you solely based on that lame photo.

People have no skills when it comes to choosing a flattering picture of themselves.

For the study, researchers asked 102 students to pick two out of 12 photos of themselves that they would most likely or least likely use for three different online profiles: social networks, dating apps and professional networks.

Next, students were told to look through 12 pictures of someone else in the study and choose two profile pictures for them.

Each student was ultimately left with two sets of profiles: one featuring pictures they chose for themselves, and one featuring the photos chosen by another participating student.

Finally, the researchers showed both sets of profiles to viewers they recruited online. The viewers, who initially had nothing to do with the study, were asked to rate these people's attractiveness and trustworthiness, based on how dominant, confident or competent they looked in their photos.

In general, people had more favorable responses when it came to the profile pictures that were picked by strangers.

So, if your online dating game hasn't been super strong, maybe it's time to hand your phone over to a friend.

Even if you don't love the picture she chooses, odds are, other people will.

Citations: When it comes to your profile picture, let a stranger do the choosing (MedicalExpress)