The guys behind the male-dating advice site Simple Pickup wanted to see what would happen if they matched up their friend Sarah with some dates on Tinder. But instead of showing up as skinny as the way she looked in her bikini photo, she donned makeup and a fat suit to appear 100 pounds heavier.
The idea for the social experiment was triggered by a study that reported that the number one fear for women who go on online dates is that they'll end up with a serial killer. But the number one fear for men is that they'd end up with a fat girl.
As shown in the video that has gone viral on Simple Pickup, sadly, the results of the study seemed to hold up.
Four of the five men who were on Sarah's date lineup found reasons to cut the first meeting short. One man bluntly said he did not appreciate being lied to and being made to waste gas to meet up. Another man excused himself to go to the bathroom and never came back. And another one said he was actually married.
The only guy who stayed joked about their apparent common interest in eating instead of focusing on how different she looked in her photos and in real life. He took it in good stride when Sarah revealed that there were hidden cameras filming the social experiment. When he was told that the other men left Sarah on their dates, he said, "Sucks to be them!"
The men who left the date early also made uncomfortably rude comments about Sarah's weight, with one man even saying that it made him agitated that he was deceived into going on the date.
A bit odd as well, though, that Sarah completely ignored the fact that she looked different in her Tinder photos even when the dates made honest bewildered comments about it. She even feigned complete ignorance by saying her photos were only six months old and perhaps she used a different lipstick, or the angle of the shot made her look skinnier. One can't help if that factored into the dates' negative attitude about being lied to.
Meanwhile, Simple Pickup also filmed a male fat suit version on the social experiment. Like Sarah, their friend Willy lined up dates on Tinder and, with the roles reversed, the results where completely different as well.
Willy's dates commented about the photo discrepancy but all women stayed for the whole date. Only one woman said that they were incompatible, but the three others were willing to go on a second date. One even gave him a smooch as they said their goodbyes.
Matt gave the reason that the photos he used for his Tinder profile were two or three years old when his dates politely mentioned that they did not recognize him at first because he looked "different."
The Tinder dating app makes matches by randomly showing you photos of people within a certain geographic distance. They can either swipe left to reject a photo if they don't like what they see, or swipe right to indicate a like. If the other person likes your photo as well, a match is made and contact details can be exchanged.
Clearly, most of the boys in the social experiment did not appreciate "liking" a photo of a person who did not look that way in reality. Although, they could have been much nicer about it and found other qualities to have in common, like the women did.
