*Cue Barry White voice*

You're on a date, two drinks in, the chat is flowing and they look the same as in their pictures - it's about as well as a first date could be going, right? But how can you really tell? Dating is a bit of of a mindf*ck in that you never really quite know where you stand. We've all had dates that we thought went brilliantly, only for things to completely fizzle out, and dates that didn't go as well but you ended up shifting them anyway because, well, these things happen. Well, according to new research, there is one key way of knowing whether the person you're out with is into you - they deepen their voice. In a study at the University of Essex, 30 straight men and women aged 20 to 40 took part in a round of speed dating. Each date lasted six minutes. After each one, the men and women were asked to mark a sheet indicating whether they wanted to see the other person again. The researchers listened in on each date too. They found that both men and women tended to lower their voice when speaking to someone they were attracted to. They also found that men tended to be more attracted to women who spoke in a deeper tone. "I was a little bit surprised that women also lowered their pitch if they liked a man," lead researcher Katarzyna Pisanski from the University of Sussex School of Psychology told the BBC. "Quite a few studies have shown men tend to favour a higher pitch in women because it is feminine and youthful, while women tend to like men to have deeper voices that are seen as more masculine and linked to testosterone."