July 13, 2012

• Height and the online dating world

  If you recall, I created a blog about Call Me Maybe and online dating.  Well, here’s one with height.

  Methodology: 203 profiles were viewed across ages.  Preferred height differentials were recorded from my saved search parameters, people who viewed my profile, and mutual searches.  Data was compiled in two batches of about 100 each.  Women who listed height preferences 5 foot upward to 7 or 8 feet were classified as not having a height preference.  None of the women counted were taller than 5′ 8″ and only one was under 5′ 0″.

  Results:

  Don’t care: 24

  -1: 2

   0: 12

   1: 17

   2: 26

   3: 39

   4: 34

   5: 22

   6: 14

   7: 11

   8: 2

  Total: 203

  Of course these results are only a reflection of my searches and as “random” as I can make them.  They are still however, women’s preferences because they listed an ideal height for a man.  I wish I could have done a histogram to show you a nice bell curve, but alas my stats program is on another computer.  Just looking at women who did care, the preference was 3 or 4 inches taller, accounting for 36% of the data.  While an average height of women sampled would have provided a mean measure to judge relative tallness in potential men, the height of the woman did not appear to be a factor in determining height differential based on a small sampling (data not shown), so regardless of height, 2-5 inches taller was the preference, accounting for 60% of the data.  Taller men were a clear preference since women who did not care, could go shorter than their own height or at least at their height, accounted for only 19% of the data, nearly half the amount who preferred 3-4 inches taller.

  Discussion: There are some caveats to this “experiment.”  The first is that data was compiled in two batches.  The first batch mixed in “mutual” matches, which means that both parties matched each others height specifics.  As data was collected, I noticed that “mutual” matches tended to have more women who did not care about height.  In fact, after tabulation, the “don’t care” category had the largest number.  Thus, a second tally with a preferred search parameter was done to see if there was any difference.  While the overall pattern was the same, there was a drastic reduction in the “don’t care” category that shifted to the 3-4 inch taller preference.  These results suggest that certain parameters can affect height preference.  More research will be needed to be done in order to parcel out the affects of search parameters.

  • 4:37 am
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