The identity of the website, they say, cannot be revealed due to a non disclosure agreement.Įach user was ranked by their desirability based on how many people initiated contact with them, and how popular those people sending the initial message were. Writing in the journal Science Advances, Bruch and co-author Mark Newman, also from the University of Michigan, describe how they untangled the nuances of modern heterosexual courtship by looking at data from almost 200,000 users during January 2014 across New York, Boston, Chicago and Seattle. “This was motivated by a curiosity about that statement and trying to put some kind of scientific teeth around that idea.” And that comes across in all of the sayings we have around dating, one of which is this idea that someone can be ‘out of your league’,” said Dr Elizabeth Bruch, associate professor in sociology and complex systems at the University of Michigan and co-author of the study. “There is so much folk wisdom about dating, but very little hard evidence.