From the Side of Both Relationship Initiator and Responder: The Importance of Look and Geographical Distance in Online Dating

Physical appearance is known to influence individuals’ search for a romantic relationship. However, previous studies seldom consider how this factor plays its role at two sides of an online dating relationship formation (including dating and sexual intention). This study leverages data from a photo-based dating app to address this issue and further explore the importance of geographical distance. Due to the app's unique design, we can better isolate the effects of physical attractiveness. In addition, we employ human face recognition techniques based on machine learning to enable efficient and scalable computation of each user's physical attractiveness. Our analyses reveal the following findings: First, physical appearance plays different roles in people's decisions to initiate or respond to a dating request. Second, geographical distance remains an important consideration, but only in some scenarios involving similar or different physical attractiveness levels between the initiators and responders.