[sophacles]

It may be an artifact of the different city problem in data collection, but assuming it wasn't, I find it interesting that the woman who was 'second most attractive' got significantly more messages than the 'most attractive'. To me this suggests interesting game theoretical stuff going on here. Does anyone know any good research/math on strategies that would optimize for this phenomenon?

e.g. I can see a thought process happening along the lines of "she is too good looking for me, I won't try, rejection sucks. I'll try this slightly less attractive woman who probably isn't hit up as often because my chances will be better, because everyone is hitting up the really good looking woman". Of course if most men follow this, you get the discrepancy I noted.

[allenwlee]

I was not surprised due to this study that I read recently where You see similar nonlinearities http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2009/09/physical-attractiveness...

[planetguy]

Or else men just thought the "second best looking" was better looking than the "best looking" one.

Or else men don't like it when the only photo is a black and white close-up from an odd angle -- makes it look like you're hiding something.