Hey Michael, thanks for reading and chiming into the conversation.

First, I'll say that correlation does not equal causation.

Where do I begin? I guess I'll just start with the top:

"This paper uses a novel data set obtained from an online dating service to draw

inferences on mate preferences and to investigate the role played by these preferences

in determining match outcomes and sorting patterns."

Selection bias. This only factors in women from a specific dating service. The authors even state such in their abstract:

"Therefore, the match outcomes in this online dating market appear to be approximately efficient in the Gale-Shapley sense. "

Second, we shouldn't conflate marriage with sex, marriage with long-term relationships (even deeply emotional ones), nor should we conflate marriage with attraction. Marriage is a rather archaic institution whereby people take vows to spend their lives together. Counterintuitively, it has little-to-nothing to do with sex or attraction, though there's a lot of overlap between marriage and long-term relationships. Read the following from the abstract:

"Using the Gale-Shapley algorithm, we also find that we can predict sorting patterns in actual marriages if we exclude the unobservable utility component in

our preference specification when simulating match outcomes."

Personally, I think it's erroneous to conflate marriage with any of the above, sex, relationships, or attraction. Another selection bias.

I'm going to paste that one again because there's something else important in there:

"Using the Gale-Shapley algorithm, we also find that we can predict sorting patterns in actual marriages if we exclude the unobservable utility component in our preference specification when simulating match outcomes. One possible explanation

for this finding suggests that search frictions play a role in the formation of marriages."

The authors had to exclude unseen variables in order for the mathematical model to accurately predict outcomes, and the rationale for the findings isn't that height and race = deficits.

Trust me, man, there are plenty of short, broke dudes strung out on Oxycontin without a dime in their pocket who are majorly successful with women.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that for every one super hot, desirable woman dating a wealthy older man for his cash, I can find you ten such poor men with a string of women chasing them around.

What the study is suggesting is that search friction is to blame for online users' inability to find someone they really want. Search friction is the inability of an institution to match two things that both want to be together. In our society, the inability of institutions to match the unemployed with jobs they want, and jobs that want people with those skills (thanks to the time and effort required to match the two groups), is search friction.

"For example, while physical attractiveness is important to both genders, women have a stronger preference for the income of their partner than men."

This actually tracks with the data I mentioned in my article. The different sexes prioritize different things when it comes to long-term partners and attraction takes a back seat. But when it comes to sex, casual flings or short-term relationships that are purely sexual, both sexes are roughly equal in prioritizing physical attraction above all else.

Lastly, and this is important. Even the authors state it, themselves. Online dating is more representative of a marketplace than it is natural attraction. When we engage with others online, we engage with an avatar--not a human being. It's hardly representative of attraction.

"Online dating provides us with a market environment where the participants’ choice sets

and actual choices are observable to the researcher."

It's the in vitro to the in vivo of dating and relationships studies.

Meanwhile, there's a plethora of evidence suggesting that women are attracted to chemistry and how potential partners make them feel inside.

Again, thank you so much for reading, and I sincerely appreciate you linking this study here.

Hopefully this makes everything a little bit clearer.

I think the big takeaway here is that romance isn't the field for economists to try poking their noses, as attraction isn't rational.

Cheers, man.