Dr. Shahar Madjar

Ed told me, “Scientists found that men and women pursue mates who are 25% more desirable than themselves.

He was terribly concerned: “Doc,” he said, “if Susan is 25% more desirable than I am — and she is — and if she is pursuing men who are 25% more attractive than herself, that leaves a gap of 50% between how attractive I am and the man of her dreams.”

It was time for me to look at the evidence. Because that is what friends do.

Of all the problems facing humanity, love seems to me the most complex and therefore I was relieved when I learned that the article Ed was talking about was written by Elizabeth E. Bruch from the Department of Sociology and the Center for the Study of Complex Systems at the University of Michigan.

She and her co-author, M. E. J. Newman, were interested in questions like: Is there a consensus about who is desirable? And, if a hierarchy of desirability exists, would it affect who would pursue whom and whether they would end up together?

Such information used to be nearly impossible to collect. How could researchers objectively measure one’s desirability? How would they know how many suitors pursue each individual, whose love was requited, and who was left empty-handed? But now, the internet, and more specifically, online dating websites are a goldmine of such information.

Research on data from dating websites had already showed that people tend to pursue and compete for the most physically attractive and affluent partners, while there is a tendency to seek matching partners of similar race, ethnicity and education.

Elizabeth Bruch analyzed data from a large scale popular online dating website. She focused on heterosexual individuals looking for a romantic relationship in New York, Boston, Chicago and Seattle. The researchers quantified desirability by the number of initial messages a person received. Most online love-seekers received only a handful of messages. The most popular woman — a 30-year-old New Yorker — received 1,504 messages, or the equivalent of one message every 30 minutes, day and night, for an entire month. To which my initial response was: sometimes, being popular is just too much work!

The researchers measured not only the number of responders but their quality (determined by their online PageRank). They found that age, ethnicity and education level were important desirability factors. A woman’s desirability drops from the time she is 18 until she is 60. For men, desirability peaks at 50, then declines. Asian women and white men are the most desirable. For men, more education is more desirable. For women, an undergraduate degree is more desirable, while a post-graduate degree would make a woman less desirable.

Bruch found that both men and women were sending messages to potential partners who were 25% more attractive than themselves (men were sending messages to women who were 26% more attractive than themselves. Women were sending messages to men who were 23% more attractive than themselves). The chance of getting a response was also dependent on the desirability gap. Men, for example, were more than twice as likely to receive a response from women less desirable then themselves. And, in general, the probability of receiving a response markedly dropped as the gap in desirability increased.

Ed was right again, I thought. The desirability gap is real. And people are seeking partners more attractive than themselves. What if Susan is more desirable than Ed? More so, what if she knows she is more desirable? Wouldn’t she immediately abandon ship and seek love in more attractive waters?

As I was taking my daily walk, I thought about what I would tell Ed: “Listen, Ed,” I would say, “the study was done online and you live in the real world. The study participants were seeking love among people they never met, and you met Susan in real life, on a Cessna airplane that took off from Ironwood. You fell for her, the real Susan, in high school. They are still seeking love while Susan and you have already found love in each other’s arms. Besides, to me, Ed, you are both attractive enough.”

Somehow, after 5,026 steps, I found myself at the co-op on Washington street. I sat down and drank sparkling water with advertised, yet unnoticeable flavor of grapefruit. And suddenly, I saw Susan, standing next to me holding a cucumber, two tomatoes, and a bunch of parsley.

“Are you going to make a salad, Susan?”

“You have always been very observant,” she said.

“I wanted to ask you, Susan, and I know it will sound out of the blue, if not totally awkward, but how much more attractive than Ed do you think you are?”

“I will tell you, but will you keep it a secret?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said.

“I find Ed to be more attractive than me,” she said, “exactly 25% more attractive.” And we both laughed so hard that I was afraid she will drop the cucumber to the floor.

Editor’s note: Dr. Shahar Madjar is a urologist at Aspirus and the author of “Is Life Too Long? Essays about Life, Death and Other Trivial Matters.” Contact him at smadjar@yahoo.com.