Even if most of us can’t do anything to change how we look, there are still many ways we can raise our attractiveness factor for the opposite sex. Smell good, be funny, and don’t talk about your ex too much. It’s not as complicated as self-help books and relationship blogs make it out to be.

According to science, though, those are only the well-known ones. Many other factors seemingly unrelated to attractiveness secretly influence the success rate of your dates.

10 Food

As to how attractive you are to the opposite sex, you’d think that the only effect of food occurs when you show up on a date with visible food stains on your clothes. Beyond that, what you eat shouldn’t affect attractiveness at all. If it did, we’d spend as much time choosing meals for upcoming dates as we spend on clothes.

According to one study, food can influence your sex appeal in other ways, though only in the case of women.^[1] Researchers at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota found that women find men 20 percent more attractive immediately after the women eat something spicy. The study authors say that it’s because of something called embodied cognition, wherein our sensory feelings affect what we feel even if those two are otherwise unrelated.

9 Color

Preference for color is assumed to be subjective in nature. While some women may immediately ask you to take them to bed after seeing your blue shirt, others may not even answer your calls after the date. It depends on how much they like the color blue. Although that is true in general, one color is unanimously considered to be more appealing—at least on women. Red.

Quite a few studies have found that men tend to find women dressed up in red—whether it’s the color of the dress, bag, or lipstick—to be much more attractive than other colors. It’s perceived to be an indicator of sexual willingness, which may have something to do with the female body’s natural mechanisms to indicate that they’re interested.

Ever notice that your female partner blushes a lot, has fuller cheeks, and is just generally a lot redder than usual during the fertile phase of her menstrual cycle? Yup, that’s directly related to why men find the color red so hard to resist.^[2]

8 Being In A Group

Entire books and gossip columns have been written on how to approach someone at a bar (or any other public gathering). Apart from facial cues and the type of setting, many other minor factors influence whether you’ll be getting the person’s number.

We’ll leave the full analysis of all elements to the experts. But according to science, we know of at least one factor that will increase your chances—being in a group.

In research conducted by psychological scientists from the University of California, participants were asked to rate 100 people on attractiveness. The pictures included people in a group as well as alone, though they were spaced out enough so that the participants didn’t notice any repetition. Overall, people in groups were found to be more attractive than those who were alone.

It may sound counterintuitive, but the researchers believe that it makes perfect sense. When you’re in a group, your face is seen in comparison to the other members of the group. This makes it more average than it would be usually.

You may think that being average would immediately lower your rating, though that’s only true for conventionally attractive people. For the rest of us chums, being in a group hides our otherwise unattractive features as they’re perceived in comparison to others.^[3]

7 Fear

Even if we don’t know the scientific reasons behind it, a lot of us have intuitively used this at one time or another. Ever wondered why your dates at horror movies have a higher chance of succeeding than, say, at rom-coms?

Common sense would suggest that watching romantic scenes together would give you a higher chance of succeeding than staring at ghastly entities out to devour your soul. But we all know that’s not the case. So, what gives?^[4]

According to many studies, the answer is simple. We tend to mistake feelings of fear for arousal, and it almost always works. In psychology, it’s creatively known as the misattribution of arousal. When we’re scared, our body exudes symptoms—like increased heart rate and shortness of breath—that are very similar to the ones we have when we’re sexually attracted to someone.

6 The Side Of The Body

It’s common knowledge that the left and right hemispheres of the brain work in wildly different ways. Even if the extent of the difference between them and how it affects our overall personality is still not perfectly understood, we know that each side is responsible for a different type of brain function. What we don’t know, however, is that it also influences your chances of success while talking to someone in a public gathering.^[5]

According to one study, if you approach someone at a loud club and speak into their right ear, you have a much higher chance of making that person listen than if you speak into the left ear. The researchers actually tested this in a club instead of a lab.

Their findings suggest that we’re much more receptive to things on our right side. We’re not entirely sure why it happens, though you could certainly use it to your advantage on your next visit to a loud concert.

5 Scars

A huge part of the cosmetics industry is aimed at exploiting our insecurity about visible scars, especially on the face. Admittedly, different cultures have different opinions on scars. In Western society, they’re largely seen as indicators of unattractiveness. However, that’s only because we’re listening to the cosmetics industry and not actual science.

Studies have found that facial scars—at least in the case of men—are considered to be more attractive for women seeking short-term relationships. Even if we don’t hunt and fight for survival like we used to, women still associate scars with bravery on the battlefield and with survivability.

They also instinctively indicate higher levels of testosterone and genetic qualities, though the study was only conducted with short-term relationships in mind. Women may still want men without scars for longer-term commitments as that suggests that the men are more caring and empathetic.^[6]

4 Sweat

Sweat isn’t considered to be an attractive trait in any culture around the world as it comes with unpleasant side effects like body odor. People who don’t sweat a lot are still thought to be better mating partners than those who do for the simple reason that no one wants someone else’s bodily fluids in their space any longer than necessary.

According to science, though, sweat may actually make you more attractive. In a study published in The Journal of Neuroscience, researchers found that male sweat contains a pheromone known as androstadienone. It raises the levels of the cortisol hormone among women, which is responsible for sexual arousal and the activation of certain regions of the brain.^[7]

Now we’re not saying that you should show up for your date in your sweaty gym clothes as personal hygiene is still an overpowering attractiveness factor. All we’re saying is that you’re much more attractive to the ladies at the gym than you realize.

3 Ambiguity

It’s no surprise that people tend to be more romantically attracted to you if the feelings are mutual. That works the other way around, too, as someone who’s not attracted to you will eventually make you lose interest in them. (However, that may also have to do with having no choice in the matter.)

It gets a bit unclear when you can’t tell if someone is interested in you. Anecdotal evidence suggests that it should make them much more attractive to you, and science confirms it.^[8]

In one study done by researchers at the University of Virginia and Harvard, female participants were found to be attracted to men whose intentions weren’t clear. Surprisingly, the level of attraction was even higher than with men who had obviously shown interest in them. This suggests that the best course of action in a romantic pursuit is keeping things confusing.

2 Drinking Too Much Or Too Little

Ask anyone in college and they’ll tell you that drinking a lot of alcohol is the best way to find another person more attractive than he or she usually is. While we have no doubt about the veracity of that—despite a lack of scientific evidence—not much is known about how it works the other way around. How does drinking affect your own attractiveness for others?

If one study is to believed, the trick is to have just the right amount of alcohol. If you have too little, you’re (understandably) perceived as “no fun.” But having a lot isn’t good, either, as it’s associated with risky sexual behavior. According to the study at least, the perfect amount is somewhere around 250 milliliters (8 oz) of wine for an average-sized individual.^[9]

1 No Smiling

Popular wisdom says that smiling is a sure way to be more attractive than you usually are because it indicates friendliness and social adeptness. It makes sense, too, and conventionally unattractive people—like a lot of us online writers—have to resort to factors like that. According to science, though, we’re doing it all wrong.

At least for men, smiling is actually perceived to be a less attractive trait by women. It ties into the conventional stereotype of the brooding types being more appealing. But it also has to do with smiling being seen as a feminine and submissive trait. On the other hand, men find smiling women to be more attractive than their ever-serious counterparts.^[10]

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, or get in touch with him for writing gigs.

Other than the handful of people born with conventionally-attractive features, most of us don’t know what makes us attractive to the opposite sex. It can be something as minor like how we do our hair, or something obvious like how recklessly we drive.

The same is true for our unattractive features; things that negatively affect our attractiveness with a potential partner. While we can’t do anything about most of these, we can take some comfort in the fact that physical appearance isn’t the only thing making us unattractive.

10 Smelling Similar To You

Many studies have confirmed that smell plays a crucial role in social interactions, especially those of the romantic kind. How you smell directly influences the outcome of your dates, as smell is intrinsically related to health and hygiene. Bad odor indicates that you’re more prone to bacteria and parasites, which lowers your rating as a prospective mate.

That’s not it, as smell affects attractiveness in other, less obvious ways, too. Many researchers and scientists have found that we tend to find people who smell similar to us to be less attractive. While it may sound weird, it makes perfect sense. We’re evolutionarily designed to avoid mating with someone from the same genetic lineage. It’s an evolutionary mechanism to make sure that you don’t accidentally get it on with a distant cousin.^[1]

9 Eating Certain Things (Like Bread)

We don’t assume food to have any effect on attractiveness, other than whatever you end up eating on the date. Even then, the only way it can have any effect is if you have a piece of it stuck in your teeth, which may put some people off.

If one study is to be believed, what you eat affects attraction in other ways, too (at least in the case of women). It found that men who ate a lot of vegetables and fruits smell better to women than the ones with a lot of processed carbohydrates – like pasta and bread. Moreover, men with a meat-heavy diet weren’t found to be any more or less attractive than others.^[2]

8 Happiness

Instinctively speaking, being happy sounds like a definite positive in the dating scene. It tells a potential partner that things are going well in your life, as well as indicates mental and financial well-being. If we were to conduct research on the subject, most of us would assume that happiness would be found to be directly related to attractiveness.

According to science, though, that’s really not the case, at least in case of women. One study by researchers at University of British Columbia found that on first glance, men who come across as happy or smiling are much less preferred than those with a more brooding appearance. Surprisingly, it’s the exact opposite for men, who find smiling women to be more attractive than others.^[3]

7 Contracted Appearance

We’ve known that our body posture and how we physically present ourselves affects many parts of our life, like job interviews and showdowns with beasts of nature. Appearing bigger and more expansive than we usually are indicates strength and confidence, and it may just be the factor that gets you your next job (or keeps you alive in a gruesome jungle encounter).

While we don’t think that the same should apply when it comes to romantic pursuits – as the dynamics are totally different there – studies have found that it does. In one study, they found that Tinder photos with expansive body language score much higher than those with more contractive features. Surprisingly, the results were uniform for both men and women.^[4]

6 Confidence

Online blogs and dating magazines have been telling us the benefits of appearing confident since they’ve been in business. Confidence suggests that you know what you’re doing and aren’t afraid to ask for what you want, both important qualities to sustain a relationship.

If some studies are to be believed, however, confidence may not be such a desired trait. It’s not just one study, either, mounting research on the subject suggests that people find humility to be more attractive than outright confidence. We’re not even talking about overconfidence; test subjects have routinely preferred humility over any level of confidence, as it indicates that you’d treat your partner well and be more accommodating in the relationship.^[5]

5 Low-Pitched Voice

Apart from people who obviously sound annoying, how we sound shouldn’t affect our attractiveness. It’s highly subjective for most people, too, as everyone finds different types of voices to be more attractive.

While research on how our voice affects our dates has been limited, there have been some studies that prove that it’s not as subjective as we thought. In one of them, researchers found that men prefer women with a small body size and high-pitched voice than others. Conversely (and unsurprisingly), women find men with a lower pitch to be more attractive, as it indicates a bigger body size and higher strength.^[6]

4 Being Young

It’s no surprise that older men are popular among young women. They’ve had more time to accumulate resources and desirable traits than their younger counterparts, as women instinctively look for the ability to provide in a romantic partner. Where it gets unclear, though, is when the women are older, too.

Common sense would suggest that older, more successful women would go for the younger guys, for the simple reason that they no longer have to give up on the attraction of youth for the ability to provide for their family. Surprisingly, that’s not the case. According to one study, older men are overwhelmingly preferred among older women, too, even – and especially – in the case of high-earning women.^[7]

3 Symmetry

Common wisdom says that symmetry is an attractive trait to have. It’s associated with low levels of parasites and genetic problems, which should make people with perfectly symmetrical faces and body structure better partners. It makes sense, too, as symmetrical faces – on paper – sound like they’d be more attractive than asymmetrical ones.

If you look at studies on it, though, you’d find that symmetry isn’t all that it’s hyped up to be. Research has found that less-symmetrical faces are rated to be more attractive, which presumably came as a surprise to them. They think it’s because asymmetry gives your face more character and range of emotions, as opposed to one-dimensional symmetry that may make you seem unemotional.^[8]

2 Too Much Or Too Little Facial Hair

Exactly how much beard is attractive has varied over time. Everything from completely clean-shaven to growing your beard out to look like you live in the jungle has been in fashion at some point or another. Unanimous opinion on it, however, has eluded us till now.

As a study found, almost all of us are doing it wrong. The amount of beard found to be the most attractive was neither a full beard (Instagram would disagree) nor a completely clean-shaven look. It was somewhere in the heavy stubble area. Men, on the other hand, found fuller beards to be the most attractive. Both men and women, though, agree on clean shaven being the least attractive look.^[9]

1 Cosmetic Surgery

Cosmetic surgery has earned some bad rep over the years, mostly due to those horrible Botox jobs we keep seeing on TV. We may not realize it, but it has revolutionized medicine, too, as corrective surgery also helps people literally get their faces back after accidents (to an extent). It has also allowed us to finally have the tech to fix our natural flaws – like bad looks. A well-done nose job – say – is indistinguishable from the real thing, as long you keep it at that and don’t get multiple surgeries.

While you’d think that people would find it more attractive, studies have found that it’s not the case As a researcher from Massey University discovered, women find models with facial surgery to be less attractive than others. According to them, it may be due to women instinctively perceiving other attractive women as evolutionary competition. Unsurprisingly, whether or not the models had any surgery had no effect on the men, who found them hot regardless.^[10]

It’s absolutely no piece of breaking news that being attractive provides you with quite a few advantages in life. Many studies have shown that attractiveness is, as we’ve always suspected, associated with a better quality of life, and it definitely makes encounters like interviews and court hearings easier to breeze through than for the rest of us uglier folks.

What isn’t as widely known, however, is how conventional attractiveness can be a detriment in many other areas of life, where being a bit less attractive would give one an edge over good-looking peers. In case it needs to be said, we absolutely believe that all of our readers are beautiful, though for those who are a bit more beautiful than the others, here are some ways that attractiveness may be working against you.

10 Attractive Couples Are More Likely To Get Divorced

In a time of rising divorce rates and more and more people choosing to stay unmarried, the traditional institution of marriage has definitely taken a hit. Nevertheless, many people do go for the ultimate commitment, and unless they’re doing it to win some convoluted and ridiculously drawn-out bet, chances are that they want the marriage to stick. What they don’t realize is that commitment and willingness to make it work aren’t the only factors that decide the success of the relationship; there’s also how pretty they are.

Many studies have found that more attractive people have higher divorce rates than the rest, even if you’d expect it to be the complete opposite. In one study, researchers looked at the yearbook photos of men from two high schools in the US and rated them on attractiveness. They then matched them against their marriage and divorce records through ancestry.com and found that the most attractive ones of them had a much higher rate of divorce than the others. The researchers also tried this on celebrities and found the results to be the same.^[1]

9 Attractive Women Are Less Likely To Be Hired

We always assume that attractiveness has a part to play in the hiring process and that more conventionally attractive people must have an edge over other applicants, for obvious reasons. After all, that is one of the many benefits attractiveness is supposed to provide you with, like having hotter sexual partners and being able to skip the queue at nightclubs. While that may be the case for men, it’s not for women, at least where job hunting is concerned.

In a study done in Israel, researchers sent 2,656 pairs of resumes to job openings across the country, each including a copy with a picture of the applicant and one without. They found that the more attractive males were more likely to get a callback than the less attractive ones, but for women, it was the complete opposite. Less attractive women were more likely to be called than prettier ones, and the reason may just be good old evolutionary competitiveness. They found that the difference was particularly stark when the hiring professionals were largely female—which is usually the case in most corporate human resource departments. The researchers concluded that the HR women instinctively eliminated female applicants they perceived as competition.^[2]

8 Women Are Happier With Less Attractive Spouses

Attractiveness is often an important factor in whether a relationship will work. It generally helps if you find your partner to be physically attractive, regardless of other factors like sexual compatibility, level of commitment, and squad chemistry in video games. It’s not the same for both genders, however, as studies have found that women tend to have more satisfying and fulfilling relationships with men who are less attractive than them.

A number of studies have shown heterosexual women with less pretty male partners tend to be happier and more satisfied. One study found that men who are less attractive tend to do other things to make up for that shortcoming, like taking the partners out on more dates or being better in bed, which translated to higher satisfaction for the women.^[3]

In another study, women were found to have more of a tendency to diet and try to look better if their husbands were more attractive than them. The surprising part is that this is not the case for men at all, which may tell us something about how looks disproportionately affect women in our society.

7 Attractive People Are Less Cooperative

Being humans, we’ve found that cooperating with one another is one of the best ways to survive, another one being swiftly and mercilessly eliminating other factions fighting for the same resource. With the help of cooperation with each other, humans have gradually conquered the world, even if that cooperation is largely limited to our own immediate groups.

Apparently, though, cooperation doesn’t come as naturally to the more attractive among us. In a study done by researchers in Spain, they put people of varying attractiveness in a prisoner’s dilemma kind of an experiment, where it was necessary to cooperate with each other to pass. They found that people with more symmetrical faces—one of the most universally accepted traits associated with attractiveness—were much less likely to do so than the others. On top of that, the pretty folk were also less likely to expect others to cooperate.^[4]

6 More Personality Disorders And Lower Life Satisfaction

It’s a question many of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives, especially those of us who aren’t the most gifted in the looks department. Would we be happier if we were a bit more attractive? Sure, it would be pretty inconvenient to be hit on all the time, but having a better-looking partner, an easier time during interviews, and potentially earning millions with a successful modeling career can’t hurt, right?

While this question is too broad and complicated to answer with a single “yes” or “no,” the vague answer would be a hard “no.” A study done by British researchers on models—who are obviously more attractive than your average person—found that they’re much more likely to suffer from personality disorders and an overall lower sense of well-being than the others. It may sound surprising on the surface, though it makes sense if you think about the fact that models are generally known only for their looks and not any particular skill they spent effort on cultivating.^[5]

5 Attractive People Are Definitively More Boring

You may have heard the assertion that conventionally attractive people aren’t as interesting to talk to as uglier folks. Of course, stereotypes are rarely true. Unfortunately, science is not on the side of attractive people on this one, as according to research, the stereotype holds up.

According to a study, beautiful people don’t tend to put in the inner work for improvement as much and are more inclined toward conformity than self-improvement.^[6] The more attractive people are, the less likely they are to do something to stand out, and the more likely they are to simply go with the flow.

4 Attractive Scientists Are Assumed To Be Dumber

Being even moderately attractive in the scientific and academic fields is sort of a complicated situation to be in. It’s not a regular office environment, where being pretty might help you get a promotion and climb the ladder, even with additional skills to back it up. In the scientific field, the only way up is being good at the skill you’re hired for and nothing else; no one is going to give a hot geologist a pass for their bad research just because they score high on the looks department. In fact, according to a study, the reality is the exact opposite.

Researchers took photographs of certain scientists and showed them to a group of people, asking them for their opinion on the quality of the scientists’ research. Surprisingly, the people deemed the unattractive scientists to be better at their jobs based on their photographs alone.^[7] While it may have to do something with the fact that scientists are more publicly visible now than ever before, the study suggests that we may be using attractiveness as a parameter for quality of performance in fields where it shouldn’t matter at all.

3 Less Attractive Men Are More Fertile

Fertility is assumed to be intrinsically linked with attractiveness. Surely, being better-equipped to pass on your genes is the whole point of being attractive, or why would evolution even bother with it? According to research, however, women are much more likely to conceive if they go for a less attractive partner over a handsome one.

That is, of course, assuming that attractive men sleep around with more women than their uglier counterparts, which is a pretty widely accepted fact around the world. According to the study, the number of sperm released during sex decreases with every subsequent partner when a man is having sex frequently. So the more sex a man is having, the lower the chances are of him unloading (so to speak) enough of the stuff that actually matters when the time to make a baby comes around.^[8]

2 Unanimously Attractive Women Are Less Likely To Find A Date

In the world of online dating, it seems obvious that more attractive people would have a higher chance of scoring a date than less attractive ones. After all, it’s all about looks on dating apps, and even if personality may win once you do get to meet, the first matches are usually made purely on how conventionally attractive your potential date is.

While the data is pretty straightforward for men, for women, it’s a bit more complicated. As OKCupid found in their research, men are more likely to go for women who aren’t unanimously attractive. In other words, guys not being able to agree on whether a woman is attractive or not increases her chance of getting a date over women everyone finds attractive. Surprising, right? You might even doubt OKCupid’s credibility to carry out such research. Nevertheless, that’s what the data showed.^[9]

1 Women Prefer Men With Less Masculine Features For Long-Term Relationships

When it comes to traditional standards of attractiveness for men, there are a few features that are considered to be universally masculine and good-looking. A pronounced jawline, a big smile, and a broad chest are some of them, and it stands to reason that women who end up with a partner with most of those features would be happier in committed relationships. Too bad for attractive men, then, that it’s really not the case, as research has indicated that men with more feminine features make for more ideal partners than their macho counterparts.

In a study done over a period of 15 years, a researcher from Glasgow University found that while women opt for more masculine men for casual flings and hookups, they tend to prefer men with moderately feminine traits for long-term relationships. There were certain conditions to the findings, like the self-perceived attractiveness of the female subjects, though overall, the findings suggest that men are better off toning down on the masculinity if they’re out to find a mate for life.^[10]

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, get in touch with him for writing gigs, or just say hello to him on Twitter.