Should you include pictures of other girls in your internet dating profile?
“A man will look at his friend’s girlfriend and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get someone just like her.’
A woman will look at her friend’s boyfriend and say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get HIM!’”
- Chris Rock
In an experiment conducted by Melissa Burkley of Oklahoma State University, two sets of women were shown pictures of men. The pictures were identical except that one group of women was told that the man in the picture was single. The other group of women was told that the man was in a relationship. Only 59 percent of the women shown pictures of single men were interested in pursuing a relationship. But a whopping 90 percent of women shown pictures of men already romantically involved, indicated that they would pursue a relationship with him!
In a similar experiment, women were shown photographs featuring some men standing in front of beautiful woman, and some men standing alone. And which men do you think were perceived as being more attractive? You guessed it. The men photographed standing next to other attractive women were considered more appealing.
So how can this help us?
Men who are pre-selected by women are perceived as being much more sexually attractive. But the trick in online photo usage, is in knowing how to subtly convey pre-selection.
Think of it this way. Suppose a rich man paid a couple of hot girls to stand around him all night and look cute. Well in many ways, this actually makes him look unattractive to women. If the other girls in the nightclub can discern that the only reason these girls are standing there is because they were paid to, then their curiosity might be aroused, but usually not their sexual attraction.
What’s more attractive, the man who walks around the nightclub telling every girl he’s a doctor, or the man who performs CPR and saves someone’s life after they have a heart attack in the middle of the dance floor? Human status and fitness displays come off best when they are serendipitous. But on a dating website, nothing in your profile is serendipitous. You both know that every picture is an affectation designed to convey your viability as a sexual partner. This is why we must be wary of photos we post that contain other women in them. Much like our “rich man” scenario above, women will infer that, in displaying ourselves surrounded by other women, we are simply trying too hard to seek her approval.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re photos feature other girls, then make sure the girls are displaying facial features and body language that indicate that they have a legitimate interest in you. And be sure that that all the shots appear somewhat spontaneous (as opposed to staged).
Let’s go through a few samples:
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Incongruous Body LanguageWhen photographing yourself with other women, it’s important that her body language matches yours. This guy is leaning in and grappling her with his arm. But her body language is much more neutral. |
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Bad facial expressionsFirst, this guy isn’t smiling. Second, if you look at their faces closely, you don’t see much emotion there. It looks like they just met two minutes ago. Remember, women will read the faces of every person in your pictures. And in this picture, neither of them look too happy to be there. |
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Couples Self-PortraitsPictures like this (taken with your hand outstretched) are usually best shared exclusively between you and your friend. On a dating website, such photos look too obvious. |
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Posing with modelsWho knows how this guy ended up in a picture with five hotties. But in any case, ‘showcase’ style pictures like this don’t get you any points. People will just assume you don’t even know the names of these girls. |
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Gender ImbalanceYou don’t get any points for photographs with your shirt off. And you really don’t get any points if you photograph yourself with two other friends surrounding one bikini-clad girl during spring break. |
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Uhm…Where do I begin… Don’t post pictures like this please. Let’s leave it at that. |
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Boyfriend-Girlfriend PortraitsNow usually I advise against “boyfriend-girlfriend” portraits such as this — or any shot where it’s just you and one other girl. However, in this picture, notice how there is congruency in their clothing type, body language, and the general mood of the picture. There’s also a cool background, and his girlfriend is absolutely stunning — with a genuine smile. Be careful with shots like this but I would probably give this one the “go-ahead.” |
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Self-deprecating HumorI like this picture because the look on the girls face is classic. Obviously, this guy is just clowning around with his friends. But, in including self-deprecating humor shots of this sort, you can disarm your target, thereby earning her acceptance of your use of other women in your photos. |
Read the Writing on the Wall
Here’s a great trick I learned after flipping through some women’s glamour magazines. In the below fashion images, note the use of textual blurbs.
Textual blurbs in fashion imagery.
Notice how, from a marketing perspective, these sentences say absolutely nothing about the product. So why are they there? Because they convey a mood, a feeling, a fleeting emotional spike. For whatever reason, women seem to be particularly fond of ethereal commentary. These brief sentences give her mind the freedom to project a mental state onto the image. And she will associate the mental state (hopefully an emotionally jarring one) with the product. Statistically, when presented with a document, people are more likely to read text around a photo, than any other text on the page. So if we’re clever in our textual imagery, perhaps we can scare a few more points with our target.
Now I’m not saying you should take pictures of yourself in front of ridiculously loud backgrounds, and photoshop in text that says, “love me, date me, kiss me!” But I am saying that, as you go about your life, try to be conscious of the following urban monuments:
- bus stop signs
- billboards
- graffiti ridden walls
- curious product packaging
- kiosk ads
- nightclub fliers
- chalkboards
- etc…
Read whatever modern day hieroglyphics happen to be on the canvas in which you find yourself. Then ask yourself if it sounds funny or ironic. Or, if you think it would invoke feelings of curiosity. Here are a few examples of city signage.
Text on signage.
Folksonomy Trick
In his book “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations,” James Surowiecki tells the story of Francis Galton – a statistician who made a curious discovery at the “International Exhibition of 1884″ in London. During the festival, 800 people had signed up to guess the weight of an ox to win a prize. After the contest’s finale, it was revealed that the ox weighed 1,198 pounds. The winner was paid and Surowiecki took home the betting slips that the gamblers used to jot down the ox’s weight. Later that night, he added up all of the contestants’ guesses and calculated the mean. To his surprise, the answer came out to 1,197 pounds – only one pound off from the actual weight!
On the TV show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, contestants are allowed to “ask the audience” for the correct answer to a question. Historically, the audience chooses the correct answer a whopping 91% of the time – which is much better than the average contestant success rate of 65%.
My aim here is to instill in you an appreciation for the wisdom of crowds. When you are trying to decide which group of pictures is your sexiest, you can take your best guess, or you can call upon the intelligence of the mob. Websites like HotorNot.com or RateMyFace.com allow people to rank photos based on how hot they are. This is a wonderful resource to use, because trying to gauge your own degree of sexiness is notoriously difficult. So, you might as well ask the crowd for an opinion, if you’re trying to attract the highest number of girls.
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