Nightshift

Just arrived late night in Amsterdam and avoiding all public nightlife because a. freeeezing cold and b. reviewing my presentation for the tomorrow’s sales house summit. But Amsterdam and flirting go together so let’s do a quick post on a European research we carried out earlier this year to find out if our Windows Live Messenger users flirt on the internet. Over 30,000 people across Western, Central and Southern Europe took part. The results prove that Europeans from Spain to Finland are heavily flirting online - Internet being acknowledged as the second match maker just after the more traditional-real-life-meeting-through-friends method in all countries, (and number 1 in Austria…).  While some of the outcomes confirm our guts feeling, others were surprising and highlight interesting flirting differences and techniques across European cultures. Let me share some of the findings:

• Online flirting is still a more popular activity for men than it is for women - who favour meeting through friends- although female are catching up fast with their male counterparts
• 54% of all participants across the regions admit to using instant messenger to flirt
• All cultures are more inclined to give preference to instant messenger flirting than real time encounters with the exception of Italians and Russians who find it easier to flirt face-to-face
• The reason for the predominance of flirting with a keyboard? Easiness comes as no surprise as number 1.
• The majority use Messenger to flirt with someone they have never met (Poland comes number 1 on this point)- with the notable exception again of the Italians, Russians and the Danishes
• 53% of Spanish male respondents and 44% of Russian women have used Messenger to conduct a secret relationship. This particular objective though is quite unpopular with Italian men and women and Swedish women.

Now that I went through it again I just realize the most famous European lovers were not part of the study. It might be that the French behaviour would have weighed too much on the results. No offense. I love les French.