The survey, conducted in 16 countries by Canadian romance publisher Harlequin Enterprises, asked men and women on six continents about traits they liked or disliked and how they went about trying to meet Mr. or Ms. Right.
The poll revealed differences between countries in the way people tried to impress the opposite sex.
Australians and British men frequently admitted drinking too much, while about half of German and Italian men said they had lied about their finances. Spaniards were the most likely to use sex to catch someone's attention.
Eighty percent of Brazilian and Mexican men said they had lied about their marital or relationship status, as did 70 percent of German women, the survey said.
When it came to meeting that special someone, a majority of respondents preferred to rely on friends for introductions. The Internet was not a popular hunting ground except in Portugal, where about half the surveyed men and women opted to find people online.
Both Spain and France suffered a gender gap. Thirty percent of Spanish men, but no Spanish women, looked for love online. In France, 40 percent of men but only 10 percent of women attended parties, bars and clubs to meet someone, but they did have one thing in common: both sexes rated looks as more important than their counterparts in other countries.
When it came to that first meeting, a majority of men polled said beauty was more important than brains, while women put a sense of humor at the top of their list.
Physical attraction was the top priority for men in France, Brazil, Greece, Japan and Britain. And while 40 percent of Portuguese men rated intelligence over looks in a first encounter, no Australian men did so.
In the United States and Canada, humor was considered the most important trait by both men and women, getting 63 and 73 percent of the vote respectively.
中文：
男人喜歡美麗的女人，而女人則鍾情於幽默的男人，這幾乎已成了眾所周知的真理。而加拿大日前公布的一項大型調查結果則更加明確地證實了這一點，並且更為詳盡地向您闡述了各國男女的戀愛心經。
據路透社1月27日報導，加拿大言情讀物出版商Harlequin公司日前著手進行了此項調查，所涉及的對象分布於世界6大洲的16個國家。調查人員向這些來自不同國家的男男女女詢問了他們對於異性所具備的各種特點的好惡態度，以及他們在選擇自己意中人時所採取的具體行動。
調查人員發現，在不同國家之間，人們在試圖博得異性好感時所採取的手段存在著一定的差異。比如，澳大利亞和英國的男性通常會主動承認自己常常飲酒過量；大約有一半的德國和義大利男性表示他們曾在自身經濟狀況上撒過謊；而西班牙男性則最有可能運用與性有關的手段來贏得女性的青睞。此外，調查還顯示，80％的巴西和墨西哥男人表示曾在自身婚姻及戀愛狀況上欺騙過別人，而70％的德國女性也有過此類行為。
在被問到會以何種方式來找尋自己的夢中情人時，大部分被調查者表示他們還是偏愛朋友介紹的方法。網際網路目前在很多國家尚未成為一種廣為流行的交友平台，但葡萄牙是個例外。在接受調查的該國男女中，約有一半的人選擇通過網路來尋找意中人。另外，在西班牙和法國的男女之間存在著頗為明顯的性別差異：30％的西班牙男性在網上尋找戀人，而該國女性則幾乎沒有人會這樣做；40％的法國男人會通過頻繁出入各種聚會、酒吧以及俱樂部的方式來找異性朋友，但僅有10％的該國女性同樣精於此道。但在法國，不論男女有一點是高度一致的，即與其它國家的人相比，他們都更為注重對方的外貌。
在談到與異性朋友的首次約會時，大部分男性被調查者表示，他們更看重女方的容貌而非頭腦；而女性則將幽默感置於其對男性的各項要求之首。在法國、巴西、希臘、日本及英國男人的眼中，女人身體的吸引力是他們最為期待的。而有40％的葡萄牙男人認為在初次見面時，女性的智慧比外表更重要。在美國和加拿大，人們普遍認為幽默感對於男女來說都是一種最為重要的品質。