Photo by Clif Burns.

To all the single ladies out there who are crushing hard on some guy, don’t read on to the next sentence until you reach out to him.

Did you shoot him a message or, at the very least, give him a good ole’ Facebook poke? (Yes, you can still poke people on Facebook.) You’re not alone. The District comes in at number four in the top ten cities where women make the first move. The number one city is Wichita, Kansas.

The study comes from online dating service Match.com, so it defines the “first move” as starting a conversation on the site and all of the data comes from hetero interactions.

Perhaps this explains why single D.C. women are the happiest in the country, according to a poll published by the magazine Glamour back in 2012. The survey, also conducted with the help of Match, found that 86.7 percent of unattached District women who live here are pleased with their dating lives.

But wait, you say. Just because these high-powered glamazons are sending out messages doesn’t mean they’re getting responses or dates. Don’t men need to be the aggressors, and all kinds of other ingrained behavioral assumptions based on how we think cavemen may have acted?

Match’s Chief Scientific Advisor, Helen Fisher, says that a whopping 90 percent of single men are comfortable with a woman asking them out. That’s right ladies, nine out of 10 men are actually okay with the idea of someone expressing interest in them. It’s a modern marvel!

(Let’s put aside for a moment the chasm between what men claim to want and what they actually want. Case in point? This study showing that while men rate a hypothetical intelligent woman as a plausible romantic partner, they rated real-life smart ladies as “less attractive.”)

And what about the whole He’s Not That Into You theory, wherein men who aren’t sending out the first message are, well, not that into you? That flawed little axiom makes one killer assumption—that all men are unfailingly confident.

“The conventional wisdom holds that men make the first move, but we know from sociological research that the word ‘move’ is a loaded term,” says relationship expert and sex educator Twanna A. Hines, who holds a masters in sociology. “Women who make glances across the room to signal their interest are arguably making the first move.”

“Online it’s interesting, because it removes the possibility of non-verbal cues,” Hines continues. “So looking at a profile first, clicking on a ‘like’ button, or using your keypad to swipe could all be seen as the first move.”

Some apps, like Bumble, even require that a woman send the first message. This limits the amount of gross messages women receive and neatly cuts out the awkwardness of dancing without a clear lead.

So with Sadie Hawkins Day officially coming this Friday, it’s time to see if this city can jump higher on this list. After all, D.C. is the second best city for singles, based on availability of singles, dating affordability, and social scene. With a 70 percent rate of unmarried people, one of the highest in the country, there’s no shortage of folks who can receive your eloquently written “U up?”

And while you’re at it with those messages, don’t forget to include an emoji. Match calls these images a “new aphrodisiac” in its Singles in America 2015 report, and the accompanying graph shows a shocking correlation between the quantity of emoji-use and the likelihood of having sex on a monthly basis, based on a survey of 5,600 people.

Image courtesy of Match.

The lesson here: save some money by skipping the oysters and going with a shellfish emoji. After all, the reason D.C. was bested by Boston as the best city for singles was its average cost per date—$95.

Hines has a word of caution for surveys coming from Match and other purveyors of relationship research. “It’s important to remember these sites are under no obligation to release their matching data—they’re not the U.S. census. Whatever information they’re releasing is probably in line with their business.”