Ah, yes… The internet really is a perfect place to pretend to be somebody you are not, especially in the online dating world. There are many online circumstances though, that self-misrepresentation is completely harmless. For instance, nobody would really care if your FarmVille avatar is slightly fairer than you are in real life, or if your Facebook profile says you love cooking when in fact, it’s only your microwave that’s doing all the hard work. But when it comes to online dating, where the main aim is to eventually meet that other person in real life, creating a bogus impression is just off beam in every respect.
People who are battling it out in the online dating world strive extremely hard to make themselves look and sound awesome, and surely a lot of users indisputably are. But it is actually very hard for the average browser to tell fact from fiction. So to help you out, let us shed some light on the 5 most common false claims that many online dating users put out.
1) Height and Weight
Research shows that many dating women who are in their 20s and 30s deviously take off five to twenty pounds off their weight because society dictates that men are more attracted to slim women. On the other hand, studies show that 52.6% of men tend to lie about their height online because society tells us that women are more fascinated with tall guys. Blame it on our rigid social norms, but people really take the liberties to modify their self-description so that they can better fit their potential dates’ ideals.
2) Pictures
If you’ve just jumped into the online dating bandwagon, you may want to know that the more attractive a profile picture seems to be; the more likely it is to be, well – ancient. According to studies, more than one-third of the most gorgeous and striking pictures are a year old or more, and the age of the photo tends to increase along with the age of the uploader. A twenty year old man’s photo is a lot likely to be around 200 days old, while a 50 year old man’s picture would be about 500 days old. So if you are about to see someone who is over 30 and has a stunning picture, do not be shocked at how old he or she actually looks like in real life!
3) Salary
It is definitely not cool to be over 25 and have little or no money, which is why a lot of singles in the online dating game lie about how much they really earn. Research shows that your income can significantly affect your dating experience so this really matters a lot, especially for men. Scientific American also states that men claiming incomes over $250,000 got 151% more messages than men claiming to have incomes less than $50,000. Pretty sad, right? No wonder a lot of people go crazy on those digits! But if truth be told, people who are into online dating really are 20% poorer than the claim to be. So next time you come across an “I make over $200,000 a year” sentence in one’s profile, be wary! That might just be another person whose best source of income is his or her imagination.
4) Relationship Status
Yikes! This one is pretty scary! If you don’t want to be entangled on a messy, love affair, you better make sure that your date’s relationship status is not fake. According to an MSNBC survey, 30% of men who are using dating services online are actually married. These scum of the earth are probably just looking for some nice attention they aren’t getting from home, so put your guard up. Keep in mind that you are here to find the love of your life, not become someone’s dirty little secret. Other people lie about having been in a relationship or pretend to have just broken up even when they have never really been kissed since birth. This is probably because they want to project an image to their potential dates that they have “experience” and are actually mature enough to work out a relationship.
5) Habits
Admit it. When in desperate search for that one person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you would want to be that perfect girl or guy parents dream about for their sons and daughters. So when somewhere along your wild and liberated life, you get trapped with nasty habits like drinking, smoking or Xbox-ing until the wee hours of the morning, you would most likely not include that in your pristine online dating profile – and so would the rest of the online dating world.