When Ben Ellman, 26, moved to NYC in 2015 and fired up his Tinder and OkCupid profiles, he was expecting to meet a bevy of compatible women. Instead, the 5-foot-9 journalist was swiped left by matches because of his height — or lack thereof.
“It seems like all the women online were going for guys 6-foot-1 and above,” Ellman, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, tells The Post. He estimates that for every 50 women he expressed interest in, only one would swipe right on him. “People can feel worse when using Tinder because it’s such a meritocracy for hot people … People swipe left or right based on your profile picture, and that can make you feel bad about yourself.”
He’s not the only one who faced a drop in confidence after using Tinder. A new survey at the University of North Texas found that singles who used Tinder are more likely to have lower self-esteem and feel unhappy about their looks than non-dating-app users. When it came to gender, male Tinder users reported lower self-esteem than females.
The study’s co-author, Jessica Strubel, says this gender imbalance could be due to a numbers game.
“We don’t know causality of these results, but one possible factor is that there are more male Tinder users than female Tinder users,” Strubel, an assistant professor at the university, tells The Post. “Men also swipe right more than women, so they face rejection more often, which could affect their self-esteem.”
5'9. I've legit heard girls I know say guys under 6 feet aren't appealing. I nearly yelled at one of them who said guys under 6'2 need to hit the gym and get taller. Like what the fuck.
