So I’ve been doing the online dating thing for a couple of months now. Found a few really great prospects for romance and a handful of friends.
One of my prospects, it appears, has lowered his age by 5 years since we first started communicating.
I found this out because the dating site I use sends periodic updates about people you might be interested in. Since he updated his profile, he appeared as a “new” match in this newsletter.
So what do I do? Do I call him on it? How? When?
Some things to consider:
We’ve only exchanged approx 20 emails and 8 photos. No phone calls, no meetups only because I haven’t relocated to that country yet (2 more weeks - whee!!)
I’ve got a dry wit and am a cheeky, casual, emotionally stable kind of person
So I would never come at this from an angle like “How dare you lie to me” or “I feel betrayed” sentiment.
And god no, I wouldn’t move there for some guy! I planned on moving there and did the online dating thing as a way to meet people before getting there. The only person I know there is my sister and she lives in a city 3 hours away.
I should’ve put this in my list… I hate coming off as “womanly.” Obviously, no offense to my Doper sisters - you know what I mean.
What does that have to do with anything? I’m vague because I travel alot. “Alot” meaning every month. And I don’t feel like updating my profile here for the small benefit of others especially since it’s largely irrelevant.
Lying, even about something seemingly inconsequential, is a red flag. To me it says he’s insecure, having a midlife crisis, or maybe has some deeper psychological need to bullshit people.
Hey…I’m married and never on-line dated, but why complicate your life with someone who isn’t willing to be straight with you on the most basic getting-to-know-you facts? Is he going to lie on really big issues? I just wouldn’t bother.
It’s definitely not a good sign, but why not just meet the guy and reserve judgment for the time being? Maybe he had a half-decent reason, like a friend convinced him he had to lower his age. Even if he had no good reason, if that’s the only thing he’s being untruthful about, then I really don’t see the harm. We all tell little white lies every now and then. The only way you’re going to know is to meet him, which you seem interested in doing. The tricky part is to figure out how to broach the subject.
My ex lied to me about his age we first exchanged pictures (we met through an ad in the paper) 15 years ago. And I’m glad he lied.
At the time, I was 22. He was 31, but looked about 25. I got a lot of response-letters from my ad in the paper, and I had to decide with very little info which whom to correspond further and whom to write off. So age was one of my selection-criteria, and I had set it -quite arbitrarily- so that I would not correspond with guys more then five years my senior. If my ex hadn’t lied, I would have written him off, too. That would have been my loss, and a big loss: we have been together for 15 years, and even though we split up (amicably), we’re still good friends.
So I really can’t get worked up about people lying a bit about things like age, height and weight. Plus or minus 5 years, kilo’s or cm, who cares? It’s a fair defense against the superficial selectioncriteria they will be judged against.
Lying on one’s profile? Automatic kick to the curb.
How long did it take him to make this change? If it was significantly less than five years (for example, if you had been aware of him for only a few months), I’d be wary.
I wouldn’t freak out on him or anything, but I would be prepared to cut off communication by saying something like, “The automatic update system tells me that you have changed your age in your profile by five years in the past year. Either you were lying then or you are lying now. I do not wish to have any more communication with you. Goodbye.”
I may be an older man, but by Og I’m not going to hide it.
This is an almost exact parallel of where I am at right now, except I am in my 30s I had already dated someone 6 years older than me. I ended it because I felt the generation gap was too wide to bridge so my age range criteria wasn’t quite so arbitrary. I want a new experience with someone more my age so I put a 5 year max cap on it.
I do grant leeway if the prospect seems interesting, kind or ahem, cute. So no direct write-offs for me.
What sort of gets to me is that this guy was so conspicuous in his deceit. It’s not like I stumbled upon his driver’s license or anything.
So, did you ever bring the lying-about-age thing up? How? And how did you find out?
On the search feature of the site - how does it group the ages together? Maybe he’s trying to widen his scope? If someone was doing a search, would the choices be something like 36-40 and then maybe 29-35 or 30-35?
That’s a possibility for the change. Or it could just be that women see “40” as a cliff of some sort - they’ll go to 39, but 40 is out. I know that at 45, I’m pretty much OVER that cliff as far as most men are concerned. lol
Could it be that when he updated his profile he didn’t set the date lower on purpose? That could be the angle you could come at to find out.
Along the lines of “hey, did you know that XYZ dating service changed your age to the wrong age? those darned things are such a pain to set up some times aren’t they?”
That way, he’ll know you already know. If he’s innocent and it really was some sort of set up error, he’ll fix it.
Unless there is a good reason like it was some kind of glitch, it’s a definite red flag. I’d ask him about it but not in an accusatory way.
I had been recently corresponding with one woman who lied about her age and a few other things in her craigslist posting. In her first email back, she came clean. “Just to let you know, I am 38, not 36…I have one kid, not two…etc.” Then she explained that she didn’t want anyone who knew her to figure out that it was her posting the ad so she did a bit of subterfuge at first. It was totally understandable.
So… he’s a bad lyer. That’s a good thing, no? Or would you rather he put more effort in lying?
He told me, after we had been together for a month or so. I can’t remember really how I felt at the time: it’s been 15 years ago… A bit upset, but that feeling faded fast. After all, he remained the same person.
For all I know you could be moving from Botswana to Azerbaijan.
Or would you rather he put more effort in lying?