Finding true love is no longer about seeing a face that stands out in the crowd at a coffee shop or reaching for the same book in a library. It’s an algorithm-driven hunt, thanks to the insertion of dating apps in our lives.
Today, it is a series of left swipes and right swipes that chart the course of one’s love life. What is also part of the deal is the super-scrutinization of one’s bio. Much like personalizing an order of pizza, people have grown used to the idea of hyper-personalizing their partner down to their hobbies, interests, and especially physical traits with the advent of dating apps.
One woman in China shared her dating woes after a man rejected her for being too tall.
Wang Xiaoqing from the Pearl River Delta Region in southeastern China grew up thinking it was an advantage to be tall. Wang took pride in her height of 5 feet 8 inches because she often received compliments for being tall while growing up, especially in a region where the average height of a female is about 5 feet 2 inches.
But Wang’s confidence in her tall stature took a hit after she was rejected by a man who was about 5 feet 9 inches.
“If you were 170cm tall, your stature would be a bit large, and we wouldn’t quite match. I prefer someone who is more xiao niao yi ren,” the man said after adding her on the Chinese social media platform known as WeChat.
The man told the woman her "stature would be a bit large" and they wouldn't match
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Xiao niao yi ren translates to “a little bird relying on people.” It’s also a phrase used to describe cute and helpless-looking women, according to the South China Morning Post.
Wang reportedly deleted the man from her friend’s list after growing furious over his words.
The man’s preference for cute and helpless-looking women is just one out of the plethora of preferences that people keep an eye out for when it comes to dating. Several other people living in China told the outlet about what they look for when they sieve through the dating pool.
Evelyn Guo, a 24-year-old college student in Beijing, told the outlet that she expects men to have an education level that’s higher than hers.
“Guys should be around 180cm tall, and their education level shouldn’t be lower than mine,” Evelyn said.
People’s experiences with dating also reveal how some preferences are understandably profound while some are just superficial.
For 30-year-old Zhang Sicheng, a consultant in Shanghai, it was a material hurdle that made a prospective romantic interest turn him down.
“My sister introduced a girl to me, but she didn’t even add me on WeChat because I don’t own a house or a car,” Zhang told the outlet.
Several others shared their likes and dislikes when it comes to choosing a date
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People’s admissions also reveal how having words like “dog-person” or “likes long walks on the beach” is not enough in a bio. Sometimes, it has little to do with matching hobbies and zodiac signs and more to do with one’s personal insecurities, societal trends, and even socio-economic status.
Being “too much” of a normally good thing, like being too rich or over-qualified, can also be a turn-off for some.
Sophie, a 26-year-old bank manager in Wuhan in central China, said, “I tend to be cautious with handsome guys because they are usually playboys.”
“If the guy’s salary is much higher than mine, I may feel insecure, thinking I’m not good enough for him,” said Maggie, a designer based in Shanghai.
When it comes to dating dynamics, relationship experts have shed light on how physical traits play a significant role, especially height.
Avigail Lev, founder and director of the San Francisco-based Bay Area CBT Center, a clinic that specializes in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), said heterosexual women gravitate towards taller men because of a mix of evolutionary biology and social conditioning.
“Distinguishing between nature and nurture is extremely difficult in many areas, so we don’t know for sure what is more biological versus what is more of a societal influence,” she told Fox News. “There is a lot of evidence for cultural differences in beauty standards.”
"Evolutionary or biological models would say that height is linked to health and strength in a mate or that, sociologically speaking, it is linked to strength, power, the ability to provide and be strong. But we also don’t know how much of this is biological versus societal versus epigenetic,” she added.
Experts say that social conditioning has a big role to play in what we look for in a partner
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The height factor is also associated with the idea of power, according to Nicole Moore, a certified life coach running the Love Works consulting service in California.
“We’ve been sold the idea that taller men are more powerful, and the taller they are, the more power they hold,” Nicole told the outlet.
Traditional gender roles also largely affect men and women’s preferences, Avigail noted. She believes women who seek financial support and shelter from men — such as women in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s — are not too picky about looks.
"Men have always favored looks over a woman’s career, and for women in the past, the career wasn’t necessary," she told the outlet. "Now that women have more access to their own resources, they’ve become pickier with their partners' looks."
Avigail noted how dating dynamics are also affected by society’s general definitions of what counts as "feminine" and "masculine." This can also be seen at play in same-sex couple relationships as well, she added.
Society’s general definitions of what counts as "feminine" and "masculine" can also affect the dynamics between same-sex couples, one expert said
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"Society has conflated femininity with being small, fragile, and petite," Avigail said. "And society has conflated masculinity with strength, power, and dominance, but this is gender, not sex."
Going back to height, some women also associate height with strength and safety, Nicole noted.
Based on her experience, Nicole said most women tend to assume that they cannot be protected by short or slim men. Hence, they tend to pick tall partners because they are convinced their male partners "should be way bigger than them,” the certified life coach said.
“Cultural programming” also plays a large role in propagating the idea that a woman must always be physically smaller than her boyfriend or husband.
"Many of my clients, no matter their height, have shared that they want to feel that their partner could physically protect them if needed," she added.