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If you've experimented at all with online dating, odds are you've come across that impossibly perfect profile pic that made you think "Oh great, now I’ll never find a date because this #^@*$ is going to steal them all!”

Not so, says science. Online dating may feel like window shopping for hot people, but it's actually the more unusual looking people who score the most dates. In fact, having some people find you unattractive could work to your advantage.

Hannah Fry, of the YouTube channel Head Squeeze, claims that this seemingly counterintuitive claim makes sense if you take game theory into consideration. Looking at the data, it's definitely not true that good-looking people get the most messages on an online dating website. What's more important than how attractive you are is how much you divide opinion.

Picture two celebrities. The first should be someone, like Halle Berry, who is universally acknowledged to be one of the most attractive people on the planet. The second should be someone, like Sarah Jessica Parker, who tends to be more controversial. If you asked people to rate the attractiveness of both celebrities on a scale of 1 to 5, the majority of people would choose the same number for the first celebrity. For the second celebrity, however, you would likely see a large split between the top end of the scale and the bottom end of the scale. That spread is what's most important on an online dating site.

Online daters are better off dividing opinion like the second celebrity than they are being thought of as objectively attractive like the first celebrity. And that's where game theory comes into play.

Online daters sending messages are probably thinking about their own chances before initiating communication with someone. A user who appears to be objectively attractive will probably receive hundreds of messages from interested suitors, meaning that each individual faces stiff competition. On the other hand, the user whose looks are more controversial means less competition for the suitors who are interested. It's extra incentive for them to get in touch.

Most people, when they set up an online dating profile, go to great lengths to hide the things they think make them unattractive. We leave out certain interests to hide our nerdy sides, or only post face photos to hide the imperfections of our bodies. It seems like a good strategy on the surface, but it's exactly the opposite of what we should be doing in order to have the most success online.

The more you play up what makes you different, even if you think some people might find you unattractive because of it, the more likely you are to attract people who are genuinely into you.

Wondering why you’re not getting many responses to your carefully crafted online dating profile? The first thing to check – because this is the first thing other daters will notice – are your pictures.

As we all know, attraction starts with visual appeal. This doesn’t mean you have to be some kind of Greek god or supermodel to get a few dates, but it does mean that you have to put your best foot forward and show the people who you are. And according to OkCupid who has done a lot of research on this – your best selling point may be the physical feature you find most flawed.

People have different tastes, so embrace that.

It seems there’s a new online dating site every time I turn on my computer. And why not? It’s a billion-dollar-a-year industry and growing, especially now that most sites are adding mobile capabilities, which are growing at an even faster rate.

So to make an entrance at this point with the saturation of the market, you really have to come in with an interesting idea. And DreamCliq has high expectations – dubbing itself as “the Pinterest of online dating.”

Did you look to the most popular kids in high school when you needed dating advice? After all, they must be doing something right!

More often, I tried to listen to the good friends I had that knew me so well, but OkCupid seems to go along with the theory that the most popular kids have the most to teach the rest of us, at least when it comes to dating. So, I wanted to take a look at what they were saying.

OkCupid picked four of the most popular daters on the site (male and female, gay and straight) to provide tips for singles on how to online date.

The most popular straight female is a 23 year-old woman named Lauren who gets a lot of attention from her striking pictures and tattoos that cover her arms and legs. According to a recent interview in New York Magazine, Lauren receives around three dozen emails a day; in the last seven months, she’s received five-star ratings, the highest possible rating, from nearly 8,000 men.

Lauren admits she has an advantage because she is a make-up artist and knows how to create a good photo. Plus, she knows how to work the camera to show off features because guys are most interested in visuals. “I believe in a head-to-toe shot to show what you look like,” she says. “But you don’t need to have your ass hanging out!”

She also notes her love of astronomy, explaining that she likes to show her intelligence as well as her looks, even though guys still will message women based only on pictures (as we saw with a recent OkCupid experiment with the worst profile ever created).

She got a surge of emails she got when she first joined the site by choosing “casual sex” as a relationship possibility, along with long and short term options. This opened a floodgate of lude emails from guys. “I’m not a prostitute,” she tells the magazine. “But they don’t get that.” So she removed this description from her profile.

Some of the most questionable advice came from 29 year-old James Hawver, who said that he could double for Ryan Gosling, which I’m sure if it was true he would be one of the most popular guys on the site. He likes to accept every woman as a potential match, which I admire. When he uses Tinder, he accepts all matches even before looking at them. Same with OkCupid. He wants to know that a woman is interested before he starts messaging, so he only responds to the ones who accept him back, in order to cut down on the rejection. Because this can be time-consuming, he sends out the same generic yet flirtatious email to each of them, and gets quite a few responses.

He also likes to “round out the truth,” especially when it comes to physical factors like height. He is an inch shorter than his 5’10” profile would proclaim.

What does he do with all these matches? He goes on a lot of dates, and he doesn’t seem ready to settle down anytime soon. “A lot of us want the best: the best job, the best apartment, the best significant other,” he says.

So I guess it makes sense to keep on dating. For more on this online dating service you can take a look at our Okcupid.com review

They say variety is the spice of life, but perhaps the truth is even more extreme; it can be a sign of life. As human beings, we’re constantly changing; we do different things with our hair, we age, our face is constantly in motion with a range of expressions to match our varied emotions.

Now consider the type of photos that many of us choose for our online dating profiles. When you’ve experimented with “selfies” long enough, you start to notice that there are certain faces that you personally think makes you look more attractive. There might be certain angles that are more flattering, and proper lighting can make all the difference. Maybe you’ve discovered that some hairstyles work better on camera than others.

On the one hand, all this experimentation is good; if you learn what works for you, you’ll probably have more photos you’re happy with. On the other hand, take a look at the photos you opt to show others; you might find the variety is dwindling.

Do you see the same face, at the same angle, with the same slight smile in all your photos? Might want to rethink that. It’s not just that it’s sort of creepy seeing the same “face” over and over again; it’s that it’s probably not that representative of what you actually look like in person.

Consider how different a face looks when it’s serious and when it’s in a broad smile. Even a fake, “pretty” smile and a genuine, laughing-with-squinted-eyes can be vastly different. Would someone recognize you walking through the door if all they’d seen is one frozen expression?

When choosing the photos you’ll be using on your online dating profiles, consider that variety lends a more genuine, honest touch. Not every picture might showcase what you consider to be your best side; on the other hand, not every restaurant’s lighting is the most flattering, either. By including photos with a little variety, you’re demonstrating that you’re not afraid to be yourself, even when you’re not airbrushed to perfection. The reader will feel more of a connection to you; even better, your date won’t be shocked the first time you crack a different expression.

So, you’re constructing your online dating profile, and it’s time to select pictures. You’ve got a few nice-but-bland shots of your head and not much else, and you want to jazz things up a bit. You want to demonstrate your interests, paint a broader picture of who you are, share a peek into your world. This is absolutely the right track to be on - which makes it all the more disheartening when someone goes astray. And they can, quite easily.

When it comes to choosing pictures, remember two key elements: yourself, and action. Perhaps one photo of some scenery from your trip to Europe is acceptable, particularly if you’re proud of the photo you took yourself, but understand that it’s not going to be incredibly interesting to the viewer; if they want a pretty photo they can find tons of stock images online.

However, a picture of you standing in front of Stonehenge is a horse of a different color! Suddenly you’re telling a story about who you are. You’re sharing a day you enjoyed. You’re proving you were actually there and not just using stock photos. Since it’s candid, you probably look much more natural, more accurate to real life, and even possibly more attractive than a carefully staged “selfie.”

The same two elements apply when you’re talking about a hobby instead of traveling. Sure, you might not think “action” when you think of knitting, but taking pictures of the latest sock you made will suck the life out of it even more. Instead, try posting a picture of you modeling the first sweater you ever crocheted - even if you’re laughing at how it turned out. Maybe especially if you’re laughing.

We want to see you fishing instead of your catch of the day. Maybe you’re being silly, peering around the stacks in the library or over the top of a novel, instead of a stack of what you’re reading. Remember: just because a picture is a hit on your social networking site doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll work for your profile. Your friends and family already know you; they’re content with just seeing your shoes and some fall leaves. Your relationship with a potential match hasn’t progressed that far yet.

So as you choose the images you’ll use in your online dating profile, make sure the picture really is telling a story, and not just part of one. Some stories are best saved for later; in the beginning, the potential match doesn’t necessarily care about the details of your hobby - but they’ll care that you clearly enjoy it.