Spelling's a Big Turn On to Online Daters
Research shows that bad spelling and religion are huge turn-offs
You'll be staring at a blank screen if you start off with words like "hi luv" or "u sexy".
“hi, your pretty beautiful, r u christian?”
If that's how you compose emails, the there's no love for you on online dating sites.
According to a study of 500,000 online dating impressions, conducted by the free online dating Web site OkCupid.com, certain words like “luv” or “sexy” as well as most religious terms are huge turn-offs for users looking for companionship on the Internet.
The study looked at which key words elicited the most responses from prospective daters.
Surprisingly, most religious comments or references to “god” also don’t seem to work when trying to establish an initial contact, unless you’re referring to the ancient Greeks’ most powerful god, “zeus” (that word gets a 56 percent reply rate).
“Mentioning your religion helps you, but, paradoxically, it helps you most if you have no religion,” the Web site wrote on its blog.
In fact, the word “atheist” gets the most responses (more than 40 percent), while “Jewish,” “Muslim” and “Jesus” get little over 30 percent response ratings, a value considered too low for a successful approach.
Male online users might consider using more words like “sorry” and “apologize." Their apparent online vulnerability makes them look less threatening and therefore easier ot approach, according to OkCupid's official blog.
Other tips from the online dating Web site:
1) Be literate and avoid physical compliments: Keep the netspeak and texting lingo out of the discussion and try to stick words like “awesome” and “fascinating”. “Sexy” almost never works.
2) Don’t try to take it outside: Users feel safer using the in-site messaging feature and get really frustrated or scared off when asked to take the discussion out to other online chats. Oh, and never give out your phone number right away. That’s dumb and you’ll never hear back from that person again.
3) An unusual greeting works best: “How’s it going?” seems to be the best option when approaching someone online for the first time. On the other hand, if you start with “hi” or “holla” you’re destined to stay alone.
Posted Wednesday, Sep 16, 2009 - 11:36 AM CST
