Despite checking our phones every twelve minutes, new research reveals we’re not making the effort to reply to messages, even when trying to find love. Mobile phone insurance provider, Insurance2go, polled the British public to find the most acceptable ‘gap’ in response time when it comes to keeping the romance alive.

Photo: PA

Photo: PA

So, how cool should you play it when messaging a potential date? It turns out that men are less likely to play the waiting game, with 28% replying within 20 minutes. However, women tend to keep love interests waiting a little longer, with 32% getting back in touch within the hour, and a quarter waiting up to 12 hours to reply to a potential date.

Time spent waiting for a new flame to reply really does add up, with many of us spending almost two months of our lives doing so. That’s 59 days spent by the phone, waiting for that ‘ping’ notification that might never arrive!

With one in six considering it rude if they don’t get a reply within the hour, it seems that people need to speed up their response times instead of playing hard-to-get.

If you’re hoping to slide into someone's DMs for a chance of getting to know them a little better, don’t get your hopes up too high, as it turns out many of us will read and ignore messages sent by someone we don’t know.

But how many of us have fallen victim of reaching out and never hearing back at all? A huge 90% of people surveyed admitted they have sent a message which never received a reply.

Brits revealed the most annoying texting habits:

1. Reading a message and not replying (38%)

2. Replying only with an emoji (13%)

3. Replying with a one-word answer (12%)

4. Replying with multiple messages rather than typing it all out in one message (9%)

5. Spamming with photos and GIFs rather than an actual message (8%)

Duncan Spencer, Managing Director of Insurance2go comments on the country’s text-etiquette: “Nobody wants to seem too keen when it comes to dating, but it seems that the nation is playing a little too hard to get, often leaving a love interest waiting twelve hours for a response. Gone are the days when texting or calling someone were the only ways to communicate over the phone, with so many social media platforms and messaging apps on offer, it’s no wonder people don’t always find the time to reply.”

To find out more about the appropriate texting-etiquette you should follow when messaging a new love interest, visit: https://www.insurance2go.co.uk/media-centre/2019/01/28/improve-your-textiquette-do-s-donts-of-the-texting-world/