Only Attractive People are Attracted to Attractive People!?

A long time ago I joined something called thespark.com. It was basically a site you used to make and quirky surveys/questionnaires and do some others had made. Later it changed its name to okcupid.com, and became an electronic dating site. I gave it a chance in this guise (you can still do the quirky surveys) but I’m not really into electronic dating so stopped using it not too long after.

Occasionally I still get email about my profile on the site. Today I received this piece of mail:

We are very pleased to report that you are in the top half of OkCupid’s most attractive users. The scales recently tipped in your favor, and we thought you’d like to know.

How can we say this with confidence? We’ve tracked click-thrus on your photo and analyzed other people’s reactions to you in QuickMatch and Quiver.

. . .

Your new elite status comes with one important privilege:

You will now see more attractive people in your match results.

This new status won’t affect your actual match percentages, which are still based purely on your answers and desired match’s answers. But the people we recommend will be more attractive. Also! You’ll be shown to more attractive people in their match results.

. . .

Suddenly, the world is your oyster. Login now and reap the rewards. And, no, we didn’t just send this email to everyone on OkCupid. Go ask an ugly friend and see.

So great I’m now part of the “elite” :rollseyes. This is the first time I’ve ever seen attractiveness privilege in writing, and I’ve got to say I find this really insulting. Only showing matches of attractive people if you are an attractive person where attractiveness is determined by what the majority of people see on first glance. Ridiculous. They even admit that you could be a perfect match for someone but they wont show them your profile if they are in the top 50% best looking and you aren’t! How screwed up is that?

Is anyone else as ticked off by this notion as me?

The only worthwhile thing to come out of this for me is proof that conventional attractiveness is more fashion than biology. I’ve never changed the photo in my profile, so it is only what people find attractive that has changed.