At an event in mid-August, Mr Rudder, 39, explained the results to a dumbfounded crowd. 'Women who are, say, 28, find guys who are also 28 about the most attractive. By contrast, women begin to decline in attractiveness - from the perspective of men - as soon as they hit their early twenties. 'It is kind of terrible,' he admitted. 'From the time you're 22 you'll be less hot than a 20-year-old, based on this data. So that's just a thing.'

 

While these status may be depressing, Mr Rudder clarifies that it doesn't mean all women over 22 should necessarily expect to be left high and dry. 'This is just measuring people's opinions, not what they actually go out and do,' he told NPR. 'What you see when you actually look at what people do, you see the realism set in. So these 40-year-old guys... the people they actually have the courage to actually go out and message are a lot older: it's 30, 35-year-old women.'

 

On his blog, OKData, he delves¹ into this pattern even further, explaining that as men get older they tend to search for younger and younger women. 'The median 31-year-old guy, for example, sets his allowable match age range from 22 to 35 - nine years younger, but only four years older, than himself,' he writes. 'This skewed mindset worsens with age; the median 42-year-old will accept a woman up to 15 years younger, but no more than three years older.'

 

Apart from data about age, Mr Rudder's book also details a number of other fascinating ways we interact and perceive each other. 'If there's one thing I sincerely hope this book might get you to reconsider, it's what you think about yourself,' he writes in the introduction. 'Because that's what this book is really about. '

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