It seems that there’s a connection between “being good at cooking takoyaki” and “getting lots of love confessions”.

Dating is tough. When your level of attractiveness could be proportionate to how much money you have in your wallet, sometimes it can be hard to compete with the other fish in the sea, especially if your wallet is full of joke bills instead of real ones.

Don’t worry, though; there are a number of ways to improve your “attractiveness,” even for those of us who aren’t rolling in cash, and you don’t even have to go so far as getting a makeover or changing your fashion style. There are lots of little things you can do to boost your appeal to whichever gender you prefer, and according to a recent survey, one possible way to get more dates is to know how to cook takoyaki, or fried balls of batter that contain pieces of octopus in them.

The study, which was funded by Otafuku Sauce Inc., the leading maker of takoyaki and okonomiyakisauces, asked 500 men and women from all across Japan, who were between the ages of 20 and 50, about whether they can cook takoyaki well or not, as well as how popular they were in the dating pool.

Specifically, the survey asked participants how many people have asked them out in their lifetime, which was the determining factor for “attractiveness”. If they had received 10 or more love confessions or date requests, they were considered “attractive”. Then, the survey asked how good they were at making takoyaki, and tried to see if there was a connection between “attractiveness” and “skill at making takoyaki.” The results were interesting.

Of the “unattractive” people, who received less than 10 confessions, 48.1 percent said they were not very good at making takoyaki, while only 25.5 percent of “attractive” people gave the same answer. On the other hand, 23.4 percent of the “attractive” crowd said they were good at making takoyaki, compared to just 4.7 percent of the “unattractive” crowd. So, you might be able to conclude that people who can’t make takoyaki well are not very attractive to others. 

The survey also asked participants about whether being able to make takoyaki created certain impressions about a person, with even more interesting results. 56.2 percent said that someone who is good at making takoyaki seems like they’re “a reliable worker”, while 60 percent of participants said they’re “cool”.

But the overwhelming response of 80.6 percent participants was that a person who is able to cook takoyaki seems like “they’re good at cooking,” which makes a lot of sense, since it is, well, cooking. Overall, however, the survey responses appeared to indicate that being able to cook takoyaki well was a generally positive trait to have.

While this is clearly a corporation-funded study that may contain some elements of bias–we don’t even know if negative impressions were included as options for the respondents–even if the results are biased, it doesn’t seem like it could really hurt to learn how to make takoyaki. After all, it seemed to work for this woman!

So if you feel like you need a confidence boost, buy a takoyaki plate and watch some YouTube videos so you can learn how to make this tasty Osaka dish. Your crush will probably be impressed with your capacity to make a foreign food, but at the very least, you’ll know how to make something tasty for yourself.

Source: Livedoor News via Hachima Kiko
Top image: Pakutaso
Insert Images: Pakutaso (1, 2, 3)