Daters paired up online fail to click in reality, study finds

DATING sites that claim to match couples based on complex algorithms do not work, as attraction cannot be predicted, a study has shown.

Although many dating apps or websites claim to have found the perfect formula for matching strangers, whether two people “click” cannot be forecast, according to the findings of the report in the journal Psychological Science.

To test whether it was possible to match couples based on traits such as extroversion, ambition, sense of humour, intelligence, political views or religious persuasion, scientists in the US came up with 100 variables by which they rated 163 singles.

They sent the same men and women to a speed dating event to see if their original answers predicted who would hook up. They found that none did.

Prof Samantha Joel, of the University of Utah, said: “We found we cannot anticipate how much individuals will uniquely desire each other in a speeddating context with any meaningful level of accuracy. I thought that out of more than 100 predictors, we would be able to predict at least some portion of the variance. I didn’t expect we would find zero.”

The University of California team found it was possible to predict the overall tendency for someone to be liked by others – but not which two people were a match. “Romantic desire may well be more like an earthquake… than a chemical reaction involving the right combination of traits and preferences,” said co-author Paul Eastwick.