Spark Networks – owner of ChristianMingle.com, JDate.com, BlackSingles.com, and more – has released financial results for the first quarter of 2015.

Revenue in the first quarter of 2015 was $13.5 million, a decrease of 19% compared to the year ago period and a 5% decrease from the prior quarter. The decrease was primarily driven by a 25% drop in average paying subscribers, particularly in the Christian Networks segment.

Direct marketing expenses in the first quarter of 2015 were $6.1 million, a decrease of 47% compared to the year ago period and an 18% increase compared to the prior quarter. Much of the decrease resulted from a new marketing strategy for Christian Networks.

You've agonized over every single detail in your profile. You've wondered if you should add an inch to your height or shave a year off your age. You've wondered if your tagline is witty enough. You've worried that saying you're looking for a relationship makes you look desperate.

In all that agonizing, you probably never worried about this: your profile picture may be too hot.

Yep, just when you thought you'd worried about everything you could possibly worry about, researchers have come up with yet another thing to stress out about. Ain't science grand?

A team from the University of Connecticut conducted an experiment to determine how people construct judgments using online dating profile pictures. They showed 305 volunteers between the ages of 17 and 36 a photo of a man or a woman. Some of the photos were casual – average lighting, no special makeup or hair treatment. The other photos were enhanced with makeup, hair styling, and strategic lighting.

Participants were then asked a series of questions to determine the profiles' physical attractiveness, similarity (to the participant), trustworthiness, and their desire to date the person featured.

The researchers found that men considered the beautified pictures more attractive, but also considered them less trustworthy than the non-beautified pictures of the exact same woman. Women, on the other hand, found the beautified male profile picture both more attractive and more trustworthy than the non-beautified picture of the same man.

Study co-author, Rory McGloin, explained the findings in a news release: “This finding suggests that even when men suspect that a woman may not look exactly like she does in her profile picture, they are willing to take the risk and pursue a date with her. In our sample, attraction seems to be more important than trust.”

McGloin also suggested that the mistrust of enhanced photos could come from the increasing spread of the catfishing phenomenon. "This finding provides an empirical highlight to the concept of catfishing and the larger phenomena surrounding online dating,” he said, “in which it is both normal and acceptable for individuals' to mislead or deceive their potential suitors."

The study – colorfully called "Too Hot to Trust: Examining the Relationship Between Attractiveness, Trustworthiness, and Desire to Date in Online Dating" – will be presented at the 65th Annual International Communication Association Conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico, 21-25 May 2015.

Can a profile picture really be “too hot to trust?” And if so, what does that mean for apps like Tinder that rely so heavily on photos?

I'm the optimistic sort, but in the face of online dating, even my normally unshakable optimism can start to quiver.

It's not that online dating is bad – far from it – but it isn't always easy. If you've been slogging through dead-end date after dead-end date, online dating might feel like a quick fix for a dull love life. You basically just put up a profile and go shopping for a significant other, right? How hard can it be to swipe until someone tickles your fancy?

Optimist Me says you might get lucky. You could come across someone who's perfect partner material right away and be an instant online dating success story. On the other hand, Realist Me knows those stories are rare, and you'll probably have your fair share of dating fails before you meet your dream date.

The hard part is not getting discouraged when you're in the failure stage. If there's anything that guarantees you won't be an online dating success story, it's giving up on online dating. It will have its hard moments, but it will also have its rewarding ones. Set your expectations accordingly by accepting these 4 online dating truths:

1. Eventually you will run into someone you know. Even in a big city, this feels like an inevitability. It could be a Facebook friend. It could be a co-worker. It could even be a sibling. Try not to feel too awkward and move on. It's pretty much a fact of modern life that this will happen and everyone just has to get used to it.
2. You will be ghosted. You've met someone you're into. You share a few messages back and forth, things seem like they're going well, and then... the person disappears, never to be heard from again. Is it polite? No. But is it the price of doing online dating business? Yes. It will happen, and when it does, you have to let it go and move on.
3. Photos will lie. Everyone knows this is a risk with online dating, yet we still act surprised when it happens. Most people online are genuine, but there are plenty who use filters, strategic angles, careful lighting, and years-old photos to appear younger or more attractive. You'll get burned at some point, and the only response is to pick yourself up and carry on.
4. A 99% match could be meaningless. Fancy algorithms sound like the key to Dating 2.0, but at the end of the day it's just guesswork. No algorithm (yet) gets it right all the time. Chemistry just isn't quantifiable. Dating sites do the best they can, but don't let it get you down if a person you thought was perfect on paper doesn't hold up in person.

Are you on Tinder? Chances are, you’re also a member of a traditional online dating site – and many of you are paying for the service. According to a recent survey by Global Web Index, 70% of Tinder users also use an online dating site – and the majority are accessing all dating sites through their phones (58%).

Tinder has changed the online dating market in a big way – more people are participating, simply because Tinder has helped online dating lose its stigma by providing a low-intensity, game-like experience. It’s much easier to swipe left and right according to potential matches' looks, and have Facebook and Instagram photos populate your profile without having to do much. It takes the pressure off of the whole experience, plus it’s free unless you upgrade to Tinder Plus.

However, many people who use Tinder want to add to their online dating experience, and therefore join paid sites like Match.com along with other online dating sites, paid or free (although most free online dating services are moving to a tiered premium service model to create more revenue).

Global Web Index found some interesting statistics in their study – including the fact that 31% of those surveyed used an online dating site in the last month, but only 1% used Tinder. Six percent used a location-based dating app, which means people are looking for other alternatives to Tinder, even in the dating app market.

Obtaining revenue from Tinder Plus could be an obstacle for the company. According to Global Web Index, only 14% of online dating site users as a whole pay for a service, while 24% of Tinder users pay for an online dating site (which makes it seem likely they wouldn't also pay for Tinder). And more than a third of dating app users say they use ad-blocking software, which means premium services like Tinder Plus have to come up with compelling features to attract paying clients, in addition to promising an ad-free experience. Perhaps this is why the company is placing limits on its free service, restricting the number of profiles a user can look at each day – to get people to invest in the paid service.

One last interesting statistic from the study: men outnumber women on Tinder 6 to 4, so ladies are definitely at an advantage using the app. However, although half of Tinder users are single, a substantial amount (30%) are married, and another 12% consider themselves in a relationship – even though they are on Tinder.

So if you decide to use Tinder, it’s a safe bet that your online dating experience will be enhanced if you decide to invest in another service as well.

Luxy, a new dating app for rich people, seems to like provocative gimmicks to attract new users to their service. First, they launched their app in 2014 describing it as “Tinder without the poor people.” Now, they have taken their brand to the next outrageous level by offering $3.4 million to rename the celebrity enclave of Hidden Hills, California after their own app – Luxy, U.S.A.

Hidden Hills is an exclusive suburb of Los Angeles, home to celebrities Jennifer Lopez, Miley Cyrus, and the Kardashians. The app is trying to tie in its own service with the rich celebrity lifestyle.

According to an article in CNN Money, the app so far has 135,000 active users, including its latest member – an actor from Californication. (Luxy is apparently using this bit of celebrity news to help promote the app, too.)

To qualify to use Luxy, members must prove they make at least $200,000 per year – by providing income tax statements.

At this point online dating is pretty much inescapable. It seems like everyone has tried it, or knows someone who tried it, or has at least thought about it. For some of those people it's intuitive. For others it's... not.

Let's get this out of the way first: it's totally ok if you don't “get it” immediately. There's a learning curve, and learning means taking a few tumbles before you can run a marathon. An online dating marathon. Or something (just go with it).

Some of those tumbles you'll have to take on your own, but here's a quick guide to getting it right with as few scrapes and bruises as possible. Avoid these all-too-common online dating mistakes:

1. “Hi” is not a conversation starter. “How are you?” isn't either. And something obscene most definitely isn't. A conversation starter is supposed to – breaking news – start a conversation, which one boring word or easily answered phrase most definitely won't do. Pick something you found interesting in the profile and ask specifically about that.
2. 2^nd grade spelling tests do matter. Yes, they were a pain when you were a kid, but you took them for a reason. Not knowing the difference between “your” and “you're” as an adult is not a good look. Brush up on grammar rules and spell check before you send anything.
3. Try, try again does not apply here. If at first you don't succeed, it's probably a sign. You might be able to get away with one follow-up – it is possible your message got lost, or that its intended recipient was too busy to get back – but don't relentlessly message someone who doesn't respond. As Elsa would say, let it go.
4. While you're at it, don't get nosy or rude about a lack of reply. No one owes you an answer. In a perfect world we would all be brilliant communicators, but sometimes silence is all we've got. Don't ask why they didn't write back, and don't harass them about it. Accept it and move on.
5. It's not all about you. It's not not about you, but it's not all about you. What it is about is balance. On one hand, there's something in particular you're looking for – you have wants and needs that should be met. On the other hand, so do the people you're trying to date. It's ok (and encouraged) to share things about yourself, but you also have to ask about the other person. Selfishness is not sexy, period.

That should get you started. Now tumble away.