Monday 18 June 2007

Choosing a good online name

Pseudoscience of love - Choosing a good online nameObviously, you want to attract unsolicited attention when you enter a chat room or sign up to online dating service. Therefore, picking a good moniker for your online romancing is critical. While men will generally click on a large number of female profiles in the hope of establishing angles to instigate conversations, women tend to be far most selective. That's why name choice is more important for a man and this post mostly pertains to them. The first thing anyone will see and judge you by is your handle. Only if they like it, will they bother clicking on your profile. Looking up someone is time consuming, so people often make that decision by name alone.

As the graph above shows, attracting attention is different for the sexes. Men, being the testosterone fuelled, shallow sex machines that they are, are attracted to suggestive names while women are generally repulsed by them. Women who pick names like "Horny_Bird" or "DirtyChick" can expect to be inundated with messages from guys. However, men with names like "UpnWilling" or "BigBoy_2007" can expect to be relatively unloved by the ladies! This type of guy will be too busy hitting on the aforementioned women to notice/care though!

So what is a good type of name for a guy to attract attention? There are several popular choices which have varying levels of success:
  • The nondescript/obscure name: e.g. "JCD" or "John_2007". This type of name doesn't tell anything useful and women will be inclined to gloss over you.
  • The informative name: e.g. "The_Big_Lebowski" or "John_London21". Gives an insight into your personality by the type of music/film/books etc. that you like or gives your basic information. Can lead to women with the same interest/location messaging you. Of course, you could be excluding all others!
  • The intriguing name: e.g. "Mystery_man" or "TooGoodToBeTrue". Women do like an element of mystique! They are also curious by nature, so a bold claim will require further investigation!
  • The clever/humorous name: e.g. "Mr_Darcy" (only chicks read Jane Austin!) or "DoesMyAssLookBig". Who doesn't like a sense of humour or appreciate a good pun/reference?! This type of name can garner a lot of attention from the ladies.
So, think carefully when you choose an online name. Depending on the online service, you may be stuck with that moniker for a long time and it may be too time consuming or expensive to change it. So, why not pick a good name at the outset and maximise your chances of success?!

1 comment:

Aidan said...

Almost all the example online handles used in this post are based on actual names that I saw on various chat rooms and dating sites!

Most were changed slightly to protect the guilty!!!