Choose your opening chat-up lines very carefully.

The rise of e-mails, texts, wall posts and tweets, means there are now many ways to communicate with someone without actually opening your mouth.

Thanks to these advancements of technology, we can pursue all the heartbreak and happiness of romance without having to leave our computer chairs.

But like with real-life relationships, there are certain etiquettes and rules to follow in online dating when trying to talk the talk.

So what words are more or less likely to garner a response from your potential online lover?

The results of a recent survey show that men who use words of a modest nature, such as “sorry”, “awkward” or “apologise” were the most likely to get responses.

Furthermore, men who tried to connect through mutual interests had a close to 50 per cent chance of receiving a positive response.

Surprisingly, however, immediate physical compliments did not do so well. Results showed that users were between seven and 15 per cent less likely than average to garner a response if they used words like “very pretty”, “sexy”, or “beautiful” in their opening message.

These results come curtsey of online dating site OkCupid.com, who ran the survey across their database of 500,000 users.

But how successful can relationships be with someone you’ve met from the Internet?

Lloyd Jones, 21, a fine art student at the University of Lincoln, explained how he’d met a long-term partner thanks to Facebook.

“A mutual friend was telling me about this person, who they thought I’d really get on with,” he said.

“We lived in different cities though, so I made the first contact with a message over Facebook. We got talking, and developed a connection, and so I invited them down to come and see me.

“I didn’t want to come on too strong, so I tried to forge some kind of mutual ground by talking about interests we both shared.

“We clicked straight away. Thanks to talking online, there was no awkward tension. We were together for five months, before having an amicable split. We still talk often.”

Liz Grashoff, 24, an administration assistant from South Hykeham, said that she was an avid user of online dating sites.

“It’s good to keep your options open and have a profile here or there. You never know what might come along,” she said.

“But sometimes you get those messages through that just put you off completely.

“If you were at a club on a night out, you wouldn’t want someone coming up and propositioning you for sex out of the blue.

“Well, the same goes for online dating. There are certain rules that need to be followed so you don’t come across as some sleazy creep.”