infoTECH Feature

December 14, 2010

Online Mojo: The Lips Have It

There are plenty of sumptuous body parts out there – from legs to hips to rumps and beyond – and it’s long been debated which areas are the most prone to flattery.

But dating website Badoo.com recently conducted a survey to find the real answer, and the winner may surprise you. Women responded best to the compliment, “You have beautiful lips."

And according to Badoo’s director of marketing, Lloyd Price, this may very well be the “Holy Grail” of flirting. But the proverbial, flirtatious Holy Grail was pretty hard to come by – just like its namesake. A lot of research was required to come to the proper conclusions.

Badoo reportedly has something in the area of 87 million registered users worldwide and it used its user base to shamelessly gather information. It analyzed the opening lines from over 200,000 online flirtations (in eleven different languages) and began compiling a “Compliment Success Index.”

Site users wishing to participate chose from twelve different “chat line-ups” that referenced various body parts or aspects of physical appearance in their conversations. Afterwards, researchers measured success by gauging responsiveness and the length of any resulting conversation.

The lips certainly had the majority of the success, but there were interesting cultural trends to be noted.

According to the story at Reuters, American, French, Italian or Brazilian women were more responsive to "You dress beautifully." Brits preferred praise for their legs, Spaniards responded to compliments about their hair, while Germans and Canadians preferred skin praise. Dutch and Portuguese women liked: "You have beautiful ears."

What do the experts have to say about it? Jo Hemmings, a behavioral psychologist from the U.K., felt that women respond best to compliments that seem bold and personal. Hemmings said, "What many women want is for men to take the initiative and not be wishy-washy. A lot of men on dating sites send a sort of generic message and women recognize something that hasn't been customized for them."

Well, there you have it. If you are a fan of the online dating pools, next time, go strong, go personal and go after the lips!

 


Erin Monda recently graduated from W.C.S.U. with a degree in professional writing. She primarily writes about network technologies, including cloud computing, virtualization and network optimization, however she also has a focus on E911 technologies and legislation.

Edited by Erin Monda
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