[SebastianStadil]

Thanks for the advice, Jeff.

I didn't have too much trouble getting to the second or third dates, and you are correct in that the goal of the least bad profile pic was to get myself in a position to have my humor work for me ("personality shine through").

Perhaps the most controversial part of the process was treating dating like a hiring process, kind of like picking a co-founder.

[jeffwass]

Thanks Sebastian for the interesting writeup.

Glad you had many second or third dates. My impression from the article was that most were first-only dates.

I mentioned this in a comment below - given your scientific approach and A/B testing to data, I'd be quite curious to know how it would work out if you tried my suggestion.

Ie - a 'normal' photo of yourself, not intentionally or overly bad, but not a cherry-picked one that tries to hide the features you were worried about.

Someone who responded to me below thinks you wouldn't get any swipes. I have exactly zero Tinder experience, but in my naive opinion I think and hope you'd get at least a few.

And you could rest reasonably assured that those dates that do come through won't care much about those features.

And maybe the knowledge that they swiped anyway would put you more at ease on the date, to let your humour and personality shine through even brighter.