In communities around the world in which there is a surplus, or perceived surplus, of women, men pursue a mating strategy geared towards multiple casual relationships.

With a googol of profiles to get through, 75 per cent of men say they swipe on the basis of only the first photo.

The problem with the minimal-investment approach to seduction – bred by an overload of options on dating apps and infiltrating courtship more broadly – is that it is difficult to drum up desire in the absence of effort.

The social psychologist Eli Finkel, the director of the Relationships and Motivation Lab at Northwestern University, believes the future lies in using dyadic data, observing rather than predicting compatibility from an initial interaction. Non-conscious synchrony emerges when two people are interested in one another: within minutes, pupil dilation,

A study out of Stanford showed that a staggering 80 per cent of single straight adults had not gone on a single date or hooked up in the previous year, leading the researcher to conclude that the main utility of the apps for heterosexuals might be ‘for flirting or for browsing’.

In The Paradox of Choice, the psychologist Barry Schwartz argues that infinite choice – whether of mutual funds, breakfast cereals or lovers – is exhausting to the human psyche and leads to greater dissatisfaction. When presented with too many choices, we are not only stunned, like a kid in the proverbial candy shop, but also less satisfied with th

In a study of the most successful words for men to put on an online profile, ‘physically fit’ upped response rate by a whopping 96 per cent;10 in another, the number-one word for men to use on a profile was – wait for it – ‘6ft’.

Despite the seeming sexual smorgasbord on offer, dating apps are surprisingly short on seduction. Longitudinal studies show that singles are having less sex and fewer partners than a generation ago.

The matching potential of the genome is not entirely without merit: kissing is hypothesised to be subconsciously used by women to gauge the health and genetic make-up of a potential mate through saliva, as well as for eliciting arousal through the exchange of hormones.