Is Seeing Actually Believing When Online Dating?

Like my cell phone, my dating knowledge needed an upgrade.

I have been doing lots of research on how dating and meeting people today in the world of online dating works. I have also been asking my single friends who use these sites about what they like and don’t like as well as problems they see with them. One of the most outstanding issues I have noticed is the culture of acceptable lying on these. 

Back in the day when I hung out at NYC bars and clubs there were the common lies, like “Give me your number and I will call you sometime” or “Wow, you are the first girl I have met tonight who I can really talk to.”

It was easy then to weed out the BS; nowadays how do you know who is lying online and who is not? 

One common online lie seems to be lying about one’s age. They shave off a good five or even 10 years. I am 41 years old (and that is the truth, I swear) but you can’t tell me the guy who claims he is 43 with a full set of dentures is really 43. How would a single person know someone is lying about their age? They would have to go on a date and find out when they get there or do an online people search which appears to be an online truth serum for the chronically “underaged."

Another common lie is claiming to be divorced when you are either a) separated for about 24 hours or more and b) actually still married (I hear option b is more
common than you think.)  Apparently, being only separated is a major turnoff so if you’ve signed, sealed and delivered your divorce papers you are in like Flynn. 

My friends have also reported the common use of the touched up or out-dated photos. This is the old bait and switch where they post a photo from their skinnier and/or younger days and show up with the middle-aged gut or facelift. Not that there is anything wrong with cushion or plastic surgery; we all pretty much all have one or the other, but this is just false advertising. 

After hearing about all this acceptable and apparently common series of white lies, I started to think to myself at what point is a lie about one’s self a deal
breaker?

What if the person seems really great and you are attracted to them and enjoy their company, will these lies be “OK”?  For the people who have lied, at what point in a relationship do you do the big reveal and fess up that you are actually 53 not 43, that you are slightly married and you used your old college photo for your dating profile? 

On my dating site, www.friend2friendnetwork.com, I hope to minimize this culture of lying since friends are the mediators for making matches. Your friends know how old you are, if you are married and what you look like today. Your friends also know how great you are and what you have to offer. It's such a better way to put yourself out there.

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