In one's professional life, it may be better to have broad appeal. But in dating, the goal is to find people who find you extremely attractive. The goth guy sacrifices his mean attractiveness to increase his attractiveness variance (and thus the frequency of very positive responses), and this works well for him in the dating scene.

In an analysis of online dating profiles and message rates, OkTrends concluded that "a woman gets a better response from men as men become less consistent in their opinions of her." Their advice to women is: "Take whatever you think some guys don't like — and play it up." Many potential partners might be uncomfortable being seen in public with a girl dressed in a full cosplay uniform, but a few people are strongly attracted to that look. The same goes for tattoos.

Though, Hugh adds:

It's a great OkTrends article, but they have the heuristic backwards: don't take what you think some guys don't like, and play it up... take what you think some guys do like and play it. The search space of things people don't like is large and includes things you want to stay away from. Instead, focus on something that people like, and just don't worry if it turns other people off.

High-variance strategies like this are a good way to filter for people who are strongly attracted to you, and thus avoid wasting your time with potential mates who are only feel lukewarm toward you.

Great post, though it seems the exact same advice is useful for career success too. You want to find an employer who is very invested in your particular skills/personality/values/culture. A high variance approach is more useful for this than trying to display mean characteristics. I think this is why a lot of people end up unhappy with their jobs. They settle for average employment criteria.

Lastly, I dislike all this mention of things like fashion and common/social behavior. Those are specific things that function as detractors for me. I want to wear what I like to wear, behave how I like to behave, and have someone be attracted to me for that stuff by default. If I happen to be at an extreme end of some distribution in either of those categories, oh well. Better to be satisfied with infrequent relationships than force myself to live in a category that I don't like. Fashion as wealth/value signaling is to me like a sink full of water is to a cat.