All opening lines for online dating apps are not created equal. We don’t need to get into the gritty details of how men’s and women’s experiences differ in the world online dating too much, but obviously we know that each responds to different pickup lines. The online dating app Hinge decided to test out different pickup lines, composing over 100 different openers and seeing which ones got a reply. About eight million impressions later, they found some pretty surprising trends. Men generally respond more often to direct messages like “Free this week?” or “Drinks soon?” Women, on the other hand, prefer pickup lines that mention food.
Women are up to 40 percent more likely to respond to messages about food, in fact. And no, they don’t mean invitations to get food per se, but rather just talking about food will do the trick. Looks like that old adage about the way into someone’s heart being through the stomach rings particularly true for the ladies.
Other interesting finds from the study show that women are more patient than men. If a man doesn’t get a response within six hours, the likelihood of them messaging you back drops by 25 percent, while for women, it only drops by about five. San Francisco daters like childhood-related questions, like “What movie scared you the most when you were little?” LA daters, however, prefer Hollywood-related questions (no surprise there). Also, depending on your age range, different styles of questions piqued the most interest.
One thing the we all have in common, though, is a distaste for “Hey” as a convo-starter. Ick. In fact, it got a big old zero percent in responses. But it looks like asking someone what the most awkward movie they watched with their parents got even less of a response — so keep it interesting, not creepy, everyone.
Will you be trying this tactic? Or has this tactic ever worked for you? Tell us in the comments below!
(h/t Business Insider, photo via Hinge + Jamie McCarthy/Getty)
