Survey finds women have more success with love if they make the first move

A woman has a better chance of love if she makes the first move, according to a new survey by invite-only dating app The League.

The survey found one out of three successful heterosexual couples were initiated by the woman messaging first.

Data was collected from close to 100 couples in successful relationships on the app.

Taking it offline, women are also likely to initiate dates in the real world, explained dating expert Madeleine Mason in a report by The Independent.

"Men rarely pursue women if they don’t get some signal of interest, whether a smile, nod, flicking of hair," Mason told The Independent. Adding, "It seems to be an innate behaviour in our DNA. It occurs across most societies. So it may not be so different in an online context."

The survey also found people in a good relationship tended to have a three-year age difference and almost 80% had the same level of education.

Mason stresses this information can help people find their true partner, but also acknowledges people have different ways of dealing with love.

"Data helps to reflect on how one is in relation to that and whether there may be things you can change (i.e flakiness), but they are just numbers and do not apply to everyone so need to be taken with a certain pinch of salt, " she explained.