Online profiles present people with one of the most tempting opportunities: a chance to “become” someone else. In other words, online profiles are littered with lies. These range from padding physical descriptions to pretending to be single to using old pictures to making up hobbies and interests and everything in between. With each click of the mouse and tap on the keyboard, users of these profiles have the opportunity to revamp their life by embellishing the truth…at your expense.
So what can we do to find love in a sea of falsified profiles? Well, just sit back and hope for the best. Just kidding. Sort of. Ultimately, you have to take every profile for what it’s worth: a mere glimpse of a possible person…a sort of abstract painting. This dating profile is not nor will ever be a full coherent picture until you meet in person, false information or not.
But what can you do to weed out the liars before wasting your time on an in-person meet only to find out they are two feet shorter, twelve years older, and three kids deeper in life than their profile suggests? Well, here is a place for us all to start:
Is their relationship status true? You would hope that a person on a dating site would be single, but that isn’t always the case. Most people do this to gain more interest in their profile for means of flirting, general attention, or even just for sport. This is one of those lies that will eventually come out on its own through time and conversation (ideally they will fess up to the truth themselves). Or you casually Google them and find their wedding registry from a few months ago.
Thinking that the person might be padding (or un-padding) their height, weight, build, etc.? For this one, it might be safe just to assume that they are always going to be off by a little bit. After all, people are not exactly reliable when it comes to self-reporting, and self-image is no exception. This is where the pictures come in handy, so long as they are current.
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