I’ve been scanning the online dating sites lately and frankly I’m shocked. I’m 45 years old and although I can date way younger (seriously) I really prefer women my own age. I see photos of people from the nineties who are clearly in their fifties claiming they are in their forties in the twothousandandsixes. What gives? I’m not an ageist but I am a lie-ist. Anyone have any horrible tales from the trenches where someone grossly misrepresented themselves online in something so basic that they’d get busted on it on first sight?
Yep - my sister’s been picking up dates online & she’s found a couple of outright frauds. For some reason, men don’t want to admit they’re over 35.
It really pays to do background checks. She runs their names through before meeting them.
Men tend to lie about height*, women tend to lie about weight.
My best friend was doing online dating for a while, and she ran into the height thing. Yes, if it’s only a few inches you MAY be able to get away with it if she’s short. However, if you claim to be 5’11" and are in fact not, and meet up with a woman who is 5’11", she will notice that you’re shorter than her. Tall women don’t inflate their height. (Some deflate it, but this is unwise, especially when you take the male height inflation into consideration)
*Except for genuinely tall men. Her experience has been than men listing themselves as over 6 feet are always actually that tall. Perhaps because the liars feel that 6’ is some kind of demarcation line as far as what they can get away with, and men who actually are 6’ would feel no compulsion to lie any higher.
Women lying about weight/body size is so common that both my best friend and I made it a point to have at least one body shot. So guys can see for themselves that “curvy” means hourglass and not “can’t fit into an airplane seat”.
One woman I briefly dated lied about her age…twice. She at first claimed to be the same age as me (41 at the time). On our first date she mentioned where she went to high school and, as it happened, I knew a bunch of people that should have been in her graduating class. When she hadn’t heard of any of my friends, she admitted to lying by one year and laughed it off by saying that “all women lie about their age.”
A couple of weeks later she admitted that she was actually two years older than me. Then she told me about the previous guy that she dated. He was 49 and she had lied to him too. When she told him that she was really 43 he broke up with her because he thought that she was too old. People are fucking nuts.
If more men were like devee and wanted to date women their own age, less women would lie about their age. You’d be surprised how many men on dating sites only search for ages 35 and younger, even when they’re over forty themselves.
The moral of the story for men on dating sites probably is: broaden your search, age-wise. With any cool, beautiful women you’ll find, I guarantee there will be less competition.
A honorable alternative for women would be, when enrolling, to give their birthyear a few years younger, but state their true age in their profile.
The age thing in online dating really amuses me. I’m 35, which is what my profile says, and I list that I’m seeking guys 34-42. Younger than me sorta weirds me out, and well 42 is just such a cool number.
I regularly get emails from kids in their 20s who’re seeking some sort of rebellious Mrs.Robinson deal, sometimes even going so far as to baldly state that they’re aware we’re too mismatched to actually date but that they’d consider throwing it to a soccer mom as a charitable act. :rolleyes:
The other side is the guys in their fifties who see a thirty-five yo as still young enough to qualify for trophy status or whatever. Granted, if I met someone I clicked with, age wouldn’t be an issue, but it’s definitely easier to start out with common ages than not.
Just funny that somehow 35 is old enough to be someone’s Older Woman and young enough to be someone else’s PYT regardless of whatever my own stated interests are. 
Is anyone really surprised? Men tend to seek younger women, ergo, women will tend to lie about their age more.
No one cares about a mans age and women tend to date older men anyhow. Men will, however, tend to lie about their wealth or social status. I’m sure most check the $100,000+ box for salary.
It’s like guys who go out to the bars and tell girls they are investment bankers or something. Unless the girls a B&T moron who’s just jazzed about being in the city, they realize you aren’t a banker by the $10,000 watch and $400 shoes you aren’t wearing (or that you are a first year nobody analyst).
People lie in real life and I’m sure it’s 100x worse on Match.com.
Slight hijack, has anyone else received pix of men’s dix? (dontcha just love my alternate spelling). My sister forwarded me some of them, I didn’t believe her, but it is true.
Which is odd because it’s so easily caught. Either one of us may be able to shave off a year or two. (I don’t. I don’t think men do either. They do contact women half their age and say “I’m immature and age is nothing but a number!” as though either of those things is a selling point.) It may be possible to shave off 5 pounds or so. But if I can see over your head, you are not 5’10".
Lying about the incredibly obvious is just non-sensical.
I have to admit, what astonishes me more is how many women only click the “searching for $150,000+” box. Do that many women really think they’re gonna get somebody in the top 20% of the national income brackets?
I think a lot of single women look for a “resume” instead of someone they truly connect with. They have a mental checklist of what their dream guy should be. These women end up perpetually single for a very long time or in bad relationships because quite often the guys with the great dating resumes know it.
Actually, I may be using non-traditional search criteria, but I commonly see 25K-50K boxes checked. It’s a huge tired generalization that all women are looking to be bankrolled, just like all men aren’t looking for young blonde barbie dolls.
Either way, like amarinth points out, it’s just a waste of everyone’s time to lie about stuff.
Isn’t 150k+ more like top 2% of the national income bracket?
OKCupid doesn’t really have a weight listing, but it does have an endearing little section called “The first thing people notice about you.”
Some poor men, all of them under 6’ tall (that’s 183 cm), have apparently decided that the most noticeable thing about them is their grandiose height. I have news for the poor dears: 6’ is not tall. Under 6’ is for damn sure not tall. Point out one of your actual good qualities, instead of deluding yourself, because you don’t want to look like someone who needs their physical assets constantly complimented for size if you know what I mean.
That said-- I think it would be silly to lie by more than a negligible amount (an inch or 5 pounds, you know, the kind of stuff posture takes care of). Is it better to buy into a system which rewards you with increased mate choice when you lie-- or tell the truth, and gain a partner who values telling the truth?
My younger brother (no spring chicken, trust me) has been married, and divorced, eight times…yep, eight times.
The last three wives were met over the internet, and I have heard from my older brother that he has just found a new woman via the internet and after hearing just a bit of the sexual escapades he related to my older brother, I had to wash my brain with Clorox.
Now, mind you, my younger brother is no prize! Fat, unhealthy, compulsive liar, and Goodwill wouldn’t take his clothing even if there was a disaster. Yet, he seems to get college-educated women to meet up with and have sex. I’m Gay, but if he were not my brother and I met him, I would rather sleep with a woman.
So I guess the internet has made it possible for slime to sucker anybody…and sadly, there appears to be a lot of REALLY DESPERATE women out there!
Why men would tick the 100k plus salary box (true or not) is beyond me. You’re only going to meet evil women that way. And if you truly want a companion, someone your own age who shares your life experiences (watching the moon landing and Gilligans Island vs the shuttle explosion and Saved by the Bell) seems to be the best way to go.
No, people are fucking each other. Nuts are on online dating lying about their age, height, super-alpha-mogul earning power, and the size of their breasteses.
Sorry to nitpick, but while I agree that I don’t consider 6’ very tall, it is taller than average, and in some social circles it is considered tall. Many of my friends in one circle are 6’4 and some are as tall as 6’7. I am definately the shortest one there at 5’9. In another circle of friends, the tallest one is 5’11, and the shortest is 5’6. Since my friend that is 5’11 works in a factory with about 100 guys and he is taller than 75% of them there, he calls himself tall.
Tall has no specific height, at which point it invalidates the term. Most use it in terms of averages. Since average is still 5’10 or so, 6’ could certainly be considered tall. 6’ for a girl is pretty damn tall, and while 5’5 isn’t exactly short for a girl, it is for a guy.
Just because you might be around a lot of guys that are 6’3 or taller, doesn’t make somebody that is 6’ any less tall in comparison to the rest of the world.
…guesses that Epimetheus lists himself as 6,'0" in his personal ad… 
Hur, Hur
No, I list myself at 5’9, but people that think only the tallest can call themselves tall are just as bad as the liars out there. IMO of course. 5’9 according to wikipedia is average. Tall is anything above that, short is anything below that. 6’ is tall. Unless you are on a basketball team, then to THEM you are short, but still tall.