That's hot.

The geniuses at Columbia University recently completed a study determining that in the world of romance, beautiful people will flock to each other, and in turn, the less attractive among us seek out those who are less attractive. Ooooh-kay?!

Here's the best part:
To complete this study, they used statistics from HOTorNOT.com. (I'm.not.kidding.)

Ariely, Leonard Lee of Columbia University's Business School in New York, and their colleagues looked at information from an online dating Web site called HOTorNOT.com, which allows members to rate others on their physical attractiveness.

They focused on a 10-day period in August 2005 to figure out how an individual's attractiveness rating affected how that person rated others' physical attractiveness on a scale from 1 to the hottest value of 10. Then, the researchers compared the average hot-or-not ratings for each person with the number of dating requests.

On average, participants paired up with others having compatible attractiveness. Compared with the ladies, guys were most influenced by physical attractiveness when requesting dates, but their own appearance ratings had less effect on their date choices.

Wow. I had no idea HOTorNOT's hottie statistics were so scientifically valuable.