Love At First … Word?

Have a listen to this …

Overlooking the incredible talent of the guy speaking … which accent do you find most attractive?

Accents are a funny thing, especially when it comes to first impressions – the very basis of the dating game.  Voices and accents can lead to common misconceptions – a posh voice may lead to assumptions of riches, a more regional accent to assumptions of stupidity.

In the same way we judge people’s dating photos – making assumptions from the way a person is dressed, his friends, and the backdrop of the photo, we also make assumptions when we hear someone’s voice.

Back when I worked in banking, I dealt with a guy who worked on the other side of the country.  We had a weekly conference call, and every time we hung up, all the women in my office would melt – his voice was incredible.  And then one day we met him face to face, and the George Clooney-like picture everyone had painted in their mind, was replaced by a short, bald, aspiring rock-star, with a thin grey beard.  Suddenly we all flirted far less on the weekly conference call!

Similarly, one of my funniest childhood dating stories was of a guy who rang my family home when I was a teenager to ask me on a date.  I was out at the time, and so he left a message with my Mum.  My mother was Romanian-born, and despite living in England for 30 years, never lost her broad Romanian accent.  The next day when I met up with him, he told me he’d ‘left a message with the maid’.  We never met up again!

Like it or not, people make assumptions from the way we speak.  But in a dating world which is moving more and more online, how does that affect the way we date?

Yesterday the dating site eHarmony released the results of a survey they’ve done into dating and accents.  And apparently one in five people admitted to going on a date with someone simply because they liked their accent.  It’s an interesting finding, because whilst I’m a sucker for a posh accent, I would never isolate that as the one reason to go on a date with someone. If anything, I’d have expected more people to admit to NOT going on a date with someone, purely because of their accent!

I’m not going to lie, I certainly agree with the top four of these findings! We all know I’m a pushover for a hot posh boy in a tweed blazer, but I’m equally swayed by Scottish and Irish accents, and whilst I’m not all that fussed by the Aussie accent, I think most girls will agree, that the tan, and general approach to life that tend to go with it are normally a winner! It’s interesting to hear Yorkshire picked out as the most attractive Northern accent – what is it that sets it apart from the other Northern counties?

Interestingly, people admitted that their preconceptions of accents often come from famous people (which I guess makes sense if you have little contact with certain areas of the country).  It was probably no coincidence then that Geordie and Liverpudlian accents are considered the most humorous, when Ant & Dec, and John Bishop were named the most influential celebrities with regional accents.

I’m not quite so sure on this one … is a London accent cockney, or Received Pronunciation again?  If it’s the latter, which would make sense if that’s considered the most attractive overall, then I’m probably doing ok – when I worked in radio, my friends used to tell me I had a voice that sounded like M&S Porn … which I guess means posh and cheeky?! And my sister, who’s currently single in Manchester, can celebrate the fact she’s apparently living in the right part of the country!

So how much does your accent affect your overall attractiveness?  I think what we need to do is send the incredible voice coach from the video above out to a load of different dating events, and see how many phone numbers he gets, when he’s speaking in all the different accents! eHarmony – that needs to be your next experiment!  Track him down 😉

Miss Twenty-Nine xxx