Spelling errors can be sexy? Study shows men prefer dating profiles with poor grammar
When you're browsing online dating profiles, what's your first reaction if you spot a typo in someone's bio? Does it put you off? Well, new research has revealed that spelling errors are actually more attractive than you'd ever imagine.
A study has found that men prefer women with poor grammar and, strangely, are slightly less drawn to well-written profiles. In fact, the results of a survey by platform ProWritingAid, showed that male daters were 10% less likely to initiate a connection.
This is in stark contrast to female daters, between 18 and 34 years old, who were over 300% times more likely to go for a romantic suitor who hadn't made any grammatical mistakes.
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What's more, even among older daters, women were 39% more likely to connect with a man who had a good grasp of the English language.
In order to come up with the findings, 5,000 UK consumers and 7,500 US consumers were presented with dating profiles, with and without errors, but using the same pictures.
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The research found that 63% of women say grammar is important, with 53% of men saying the same – however the latter was at odds with the reality.
Lisa Lepki, head of marketing at ProWritingAid, said: "Our hypothesis was that well-written, grammatically correct profiles would be marginally more attractive to daters, but the results didn't show that at all.
"For one thing, women vastly preferred well-written profiles over poorly written ones. Men got 311% more matches if they used good grammar in their profiles.
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"But, on the other hand, men seemed to prefer profiles that are badly written.
"Do men feel intimidated by women with good grammar? Or do they think they have a better chance with poorly written profiles?"
So, what is the expert take? Tina Wilson, relationship expert and founder of app Wingman, believes there are two possibilities for what could be going on.
She explains: "One is the man is insecure and if he feels the woman has a higher intellect than themselves they would feel superior and more likely to be the dominant partner.
"This should, of course, be a red flag to any potential partner as if someone is so insecure they don’t want an intellectual equal or superior, they need to grow up before they start dating."
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However, Wilson notes that men could also be interpreting it as a sign that women aren't taking themselves too seriously, which might be an attractive trait.
"Perhaps male daters tend to prefer women who are more relaxed and confident within themselves," she ventured. "Although it must be noted, there are varying degrees of bad grammar and spelling mistakes.
"Anything verging on rushed or bigger obvious mistakes that stand out like a sore thumb – such as the word 'definately' over 'definitely' – will likely have a negative impact.
"Many people in this instance find bad grammar and spelling mistakes a 'pet hate' or an 'ick'."
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Moving on to why women prefer men with good grammar and spelling, she explained: "Women on the other hand typically pay close attention to detail.
"According to our own statistics at Wingman, most women who receive a message starting with 'hey how r u?' or any similar shortened words or phrases used in communications or put on a dating profile will firmly land the man in rejection territory.
"Most women want men to appear to be making an effort and it all starts with good punctuation and spelling.
"Women would see bad grammar as lazy and not caring enough to check the profile before posting so could be seen as a red flag for laziness in other areas of life."
