Him: 0 likes in 12 hours. Her: 200 matches in one

An experiment measures the asymmetry of the dating market: 0 versus 200

One man, two profiles and a stopwatch. On the male profile, twelve hours ended with zero likes, zero matches and zero messages. On the female one —same person, image generated with a gender-swap app— less than sixty minutes were enough to rack up 200 matches and 156 likes. Those counters, shared alongside the experiment, have peine an uncomfortable subject: the asymmetry of the dating market is not a subjective impression. It is a measurable fact. And a huge one.

What the experiment really measures

The comparison is crude and yet telling. The reference account claims that an unremarkable woman in a mid-sized or large city can collect between 15,000 and 20,000 likes, while the equivalent male profile gets two or three contacts. The relative gap has been put at as much as 100,000% more matches simply for appearing as a woman.

On that basis, the conversation drifts into economic territory: supply and demand, search costs and an excess of male demand that raises the value of any female profile. Hypergamy —the preference for higher-status partners— is invoked, along with a material shift: independent income and social protection would have made a partner no longer an economic necessity. The harshest thesis holds that the internet broke the market by widening the shop window without widening reciprocity.

Where the calculation gets stuck

The counterargument is just as simple: one profile, one city and one photo are not a sample. The chosen image, the algorithm and the bias of whoever swipes all shape the result, and a digital gender swap does not replicate real experience. Behind the figures lies a disagreement that will not close: whether the imbalance stems from preference, from the app's design or from the economics of those who use it. The numbers are the same for everyone. What is done with them is not.