The Ugly Truth of Online Dating

Blake Johnson
CAS 283 Spring' 15

Why do people lie about themselves online? The author of the article “The Ugly Truth of Online Dating: Top 10 Lies Told by Internet Daters” decided to do a survey to investigate what are the most common deceptions by people when attempting to use online dating websites. We learn from our lectures that users of online dating report that the biggest fault or problem with it is the common use of deception by others in portraying themselves. People lie about numerous aspects of themselves including but not limited to, age, weight, and height. Online communication allows for people to present themselves as however they want and this causes for people to be allowed to sway the way that people present themselves to others in a beneficial or more desirable fashion.

Deception in online dating is common. Greg Hodge suggests in his article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-hodge/online-dating-lies_b_1930053.html) that more than half of online daters lie about themselves in one way or another when resenting their profiles or messaging someone on an online dating website. “Fifty-three percent of American people surveyed said they lied in their online dating profiles. How in the world are you supposed to discover your TRUE match when what is being put out there isn't true?” Without representing yourself in a true fashion, you lose any ethos you have, as well as lessening the ethos of the online dating site. Ethos is how much credibility someone has and given how much credibility someone has, they may be adept to speak on a topic versus someone with less ethos on the topic. Lying about personal qualities or features lowers the ethos of the liar. “The Internet allows us the freedom to represent ourselves in a way we wish people would see us or the way we wish we could actually be”. “Selective Self-Perception” is another aspect to consider as to why people lie about themselves for online dating profiles. The idea is that people will play up the good and leave the rest of their aspects that are not considered necessarily good, out. This presents only the best of their qualities and therefore presents the best of that person, which is then who other interested profiles see.

The survey conducted by Greg Hodge suggests that women lie almost 10npercentage points more on online dating websites than men. The survey compared the top 10 lies men used when online dating versus the top 10 lies by females when online dating. The top lie by men was that their jobs were better than they actually were, while the top lie for females was that they were lighter than they actually were. The second top lie for females was about them being younger than they were. Women tended to post older pictures of themselves when they were younger to their profiles. “The obvious problem here? Most of these are lies their dates can spot in the first few seconds of seeing them. In fact, a third of those surveyed said they falsified their information so much that it prevented them from getting a second date.” This causes the authenticity of the online dating site and online dating as a whole to lose credibility as people realize the obvious possibilities of deception becoming realities.

In lectures we learn that the longer people interact online without having taking the relationship offline and meeting face to face, the easier it is for the relationship to diminish. “More unmet expectations the longer couples are online prior to moving offline”. This suggests that people want to meet with their online counterparts as fast as possible. This causes them to attempt to project their best first impressions as well as best of themselves overall to gain the attention of other profiles seeking in the quickest manner. Greg ends the article by stressing the importance of accurately depicting oneself in an online profile. Eventually to be satisfying the relationship must continue from online into the real world where the deceptions you have made online will eventually come to the light regardless. So in the end you’ll only be hurting yourself.