Speak up if you want a second date.

Do women love with their ears? Is charm more important than good looks? Do we want to entertain, more than to be entertained? The answer to this survey could potentially shed light on all these interesting questions, as well as supplying some solid tips on how to behave if you want your next date to be successful. So, cutting straight to it, no less than 78% of all respondents would rather date a talker than a listener.

Perhaps surprisingly  there is only a two percent difference between men and women, with slightly more women preferring a talker. 

Clearly men don't just love with their eyes, they also want to be dazzled by their dates conversation skills.

But age makes a big difference. Things don't get any better for the older listeners among us as the older a member is, the more inclined he or she is to demand entertainment from his or her date. A full 86% of members over 40 prefer a talker to a listener. Under 40s are a little less demanding with only 67% preferring a talker.

We thought it would be interesting to find out whether these same members considered themselves to be talkers or listeners? So we asked a second question in the survey: Do you consider yourself mostly a talker or a listener?  We know that most people want a talker, are there enough to go around? 

The broad answer to that question seems to be "no", there aren't anywhere near enough talkers to go around because most people consider themselves listeners! which means a) Most dates can't be going to well, and b) This isn't going to change any time soon. With most people wanting a chatter and most people admitting to being listeners, daters it seems  are destined not to find what they want. Is this some secret evolutionary device to ensure eternal discontent keeps us moving on, forever expanding our chances of meeting a genetically compatible mate, or a sign that we're spending far too much time in front of the Teli, being passively entertained instead of actively engaging with life (could be neither or a thousand other things of course, feel free to tell me what in the comments section). Do we expect our date to fill in where the TV left off, amusing us while we sit back and just listen?  Anyway Here are the stats: while (as I mentioned above) 78% of Smoochers want a talkative date, only 31% of those same Smoochers consider themselves to be talkers. Most people want a talker, most people are in fact listeners. 

So the message is clear, if you're not a talker you need to sharpen up your conversation skills, but if that seems a daunting prospect, there may yet be hope. There is one component of the average date missing from our results, which we thought could make a big difference to whether people were talkers or listeners. I can be quite quiet (yes I can) until I've had a drink or two, then you can't shut me up (though you're quite likely to want to). I don't think I'm the only one that is more voluble after a glass of white, so the survey would have gone quite differently if we'd given everyone a drink  before hand.

We in the Smooch offices suspected that most dates include a drink or two, but it wasn't enough for us to "suspect", we had to know, so we ran another survey. This time we asked what the chances of a drink being part of an average first date were. 63% of those who answered replied that most of their first dates would include a drink or two. So the good news is that the percentage of "talkers" (albeit artificially enhanced) on a first date should be a lot better than our survey suggests! You can read the results of the entire drinking survey in my next blog post.

Other interesting facts we found include:

1) People who say they are talkers are even more inclined (84%) than average (78%) to want to date other talkers.

2) Men who say they are talkers are even more inclined still (90%)  to want talkers.

3) Unemployed people were more willing to date a listener (46% would), and even fewer of them considered themselves to be talkers (just 23%).

If you're not a member of Smooch.com, click here to join and start free dating. If you are a member, click here to login.

If you have a great idea for dating related research, add your idea as comments on the Smooch blogs. We'll use the best ideas for more research and if we write an article about it, we'll mention your contribution.

Mirror, mirror on the wall. Should I date the fairest of them all?

We’ve all seen one of those couples walking down the street, or in a restaurant and wondered “How they ended up together?” Sometimes they can be the most unlikely pairing and you find yourself staring open-mouthed wondering what they could possibly see in one another; and yet they are happy.

Yesterday, we revealed that 59% of you would date someone much worse looking than you if you liked their personality. But what if the shoe was on the other foot? Would you be happy to show off your hot new piece of arm-candy, or would you be overcome with jealousy and paranoia at the slightest glance?

As promised, we polled over 14,000 members (a big survey this time!) to find out if they would date someone much better looking than themselves and the results are undeniably clear, but maybe not very surprisingly.

85% of those questioned, said yes they would be happy dating someone much better looking than themselves. Whilst just 15% would turn down the likes of Johnny Depp and Megan Fox.

Despite the modern obsession with airbrushing, plastic surgery and the pursuit of perfection, there was very little difference between the age groups. Those aged 51 to 60 were just as likely as those aged 18 to 24 to admit that they would date someone much better looking than themselves (88%).

Confusingly, those who described themselves as ‘very attractive’ were the least likely (75%) to date someone who was more attractive than they were. On the one hand, this could be because they don’t want to share their mirror with someone else. On the other hand, it must be quite difficult to find someone who is more attractive than ‘very attractive’…someone super attractive, someone extremely attractive, someone infinitely attractive. The mind boggles with possibilities.

For those of you that didn’t read yesterday’s blog, we discovered that men were more likely than women to date someone who was less attractive than themselves. Today, I can reveal that men are also more likely to date someone who is more attractive than themselves. 90% of the men we surveyed said they would date someone who was more attractive compared to 75% of women. So it appears that men aren’t too bothered if their date is more or less attractive than they are... so long as they have a date.

Like it or not, looks are a vital part of attraction between two people. Appearances are what we fall for when we see someone across the room. Who has ever heard of someone falling in love at first sound, smell, touch or taste? But once the heady buzz of attraction and chemistry has faded, surely we all look a little deeper.

If you're not a member of Smooch.com, click here to join and start free dating. If you are a member, click here to login.

If you have a great idea for dating related research, add your idea as comments on the Smooch blogs. We'll use the best ideas for more research and if we write an article about it, we'll mention your contribution.

Do you only date princes or princesses?