If waiting three days to call a new partner was giving you hang ups, there’s good news: today’s daters are faster to get in touch with each other than ever before. Here, relationship expert Kate Taylor reveals the new rules of attraction

It’s official! The days of waiting by the phone are OVER. According to the very latest LoveGeist report – a huge study commissioned each year by match.com to find out the latest UK attitudes towards love and relationships – today’s savvy daters no longer wait three days before getting in touch with someone they’re attracted to. The acceptable time to make contact has been slashed in half to just 1.5 days, with some devil-may-care diallers waiting just minutes.

The three-day rule was invented by men and, unlike other famous male inventions such as TV, hair-dryers and chocolate, women never truly embraced it. The standard advice passed to men through the ages was this: when you meet a girl you like and get her phone number, or had a first date with her, wait 72 hours to call. It was meant to throw the girl into a state of panic and self-doubt, whittling away her self-confidence until, when the time was up and the man finally rang, she was so relieved to hear from him, she’d fall on him with delight. In reality, of course, she generally just forgot who he was.

The three-day rule was immortalised in films like Swingers and Clueless, so why has it ended? Partly because of technology. Only 16% of Brits don’t have a mobile phone, and new research from Ofcom revealed this summer that over a quarter of adults and 40% of teenagers now own a smartphone. When the ability to call, text, Facebook and email the girl of your dreams is in your hand at all times, it would take a heart of stone (or a particularly restrictive calling plan) to wait three days.

But also, technology in the way we meet people today has changed our attitudes. One in five people now have tried online dating, and it is now one of the most common ways for couples in the UK to meet. Statistically, you’re more likely to meet a new partner online than you are at work! And this has altered how we think: we are much more optimistic about our chances of finding love these days, as it could be only a click away. So we feel less inclined to follow “rules” in love. If one girl doesn’t like how quickly a man calls her after a date, another one might. And instead of changing himself to suit one person, he’ll just look for a more compatible partner.

Is this good news? It’s *wonderful* news! Finally you can be yourself in love. If you want to wait three days to call, three seconds or three years, you can. It’s all good. Your chances of meeting someone perfect for you have risen dramatically thanks to the internet – and clever matching algorithms used in online dating help widen your search. You don’t have to play games at all or twist yourself into knots trying to please somebody else, you can follow your heart. In fact, with all of us having the opportunity to meet lovely new people, it probably pays to call quickly. So what are you waiting for? Dial!

match.com is the UK\’s best known dating site. Hundreds of thousands of relationships have started thanks to us and we have one simple mission: to help people find love.

http://match.com is the UK\’s best known dating site (http://uk.match.com/). Hundreds of thousands of relationships have started thanks to us and we have one simple mission: to help people find love.

Author Bio: match.com is the UK\’s best known dating site. Hundreds of thousands of relationships have started thanks to us and we have one simple mission: to help people find love.

Category: Dating
Keywords: dating,online dating