London: It’s all in the name, it seems, if you’re hunting for love on the Internet. A new research has suggested that while dating online, people should take care of what screen name they use, in order to maximize their digital appeal.
According to the study, playful and flirtatious names such as ‘fun2bwith’ or ‘i’msweet’ were ranked top by both men and women daters as those they would most like to contact.
Physical descriptors such as ‘cutie’ or ‘blueeyes’ were close behind.
“These names suggest an outgoing or fun nature, or clarify the user’s positive physical appearance,” Times Online quoted Dr Monica Whitty, a lecturer in cyber-psychology at Nottingham Trent University and co-author of the paper, as saying.
These types of screen names may go some way to making up for the major drawback with Internet dating – not being able to see for sure what people look like.
However she advised female lonely hearts to avoid screen names, which attempt to be classy, or show how clever they are.
According to the study, male daters would less likely to contact screen names such as ‘wellread’ or ‘welleducated’, although the research found that women were more drawn to names that suggested men were cultured.
“Less flirtatious names may be more appealing to women because they are wary of men who might be using the site to find one-night stands rather than long-term relationships,” said Whitty.
Straightforward or plain names such as ‘smith24’ or ‘justme’ were also considered less appealing.
But bottom of the heap for both men and women came names denoting wealth such as ‘wealthyandwise’, ‘lovemyporsche’ or ‘entrepreneur’.
“This was a very surprising finding. We believe wealthy-sounding names fared poorly because showing off about one’s wealth from the outset might reflect a superficial personality or deceit,” said Whitty.
The finding will be presented at the British Psychological Society’s annual conference in Dublin.
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