OPW — Sep 26 — It seems many users and a few industry notables are OK with white lies in profiles. Here's my thoughts. Your comments please.
Lies are always good for the short term and bad for the long term. Singles need to hold themselves to a higher standard of integrity. I advise anyone who goes on a date and finds themselves in front of a liar to immediately excuse themselves from that date. "Sorry, I'm not comfortable continuing with this date because you lied to me. It was a pleasure meeting you however. Thanks, bye." This should include lies about age, weight, pictures which are significantly inaccurate/photoshopped. Lies are the BANE of this industry. A huge detriment. I highly, highly recommend site owners to advise their users to represent themslevs in their best possible light within the realms of complete honesty.
One of the reasons services like Great Expectations and The Right One are doing well, and charging thousands of dollars, is because their clients expect to see truthful profiles and know, truly, who they are meeting before their first date. Less surprises, means more value to clients. Higher integrity leads to higher profits…in the long run. – Mark Brooks
Compare this kind of behavior to what happens off-line. Shaving a couple of years off one’s age makes one a “liar” who is undatable? That would make every woman over 30 out of bounds, and that just can’t be right.
People try to make themselves look a little better than they are through a variety of means, in person and online, to attract someone they are interested in. It’s usually cute, harmless, and shows a healthy level of interest in succeeding. Treating that as if they had murdered someone and assumed their identity is a tad excessive.
Mr. Brooks:
I agree with you and I think there is only one way to increase honesty:
* for quality daters: they should take a reliable personality test -like 16PF5- and this must be the main core of their profiles, and not likes&dislikes formularies or leisure_activities&skills tables.
* for quality Online Dating sites: they should need a high reliability personality matching algorithm. Not only users/clients/members trend to overestimate/overvalue their qualities, many Online Dating sites use significantly inaccurate matching algorithms, and this led to a whole precision lesser than users/clients/members can achieve searching by their own!!!
Regards,
Fernando Ardenghi.
Buenos Aires.
Argentina.
ardenghifer@gmail.com
All online daters complain about liars, and yet they still lie themselves. That kind of hypocrisy can’t be stamped out with the simple puritanical petulance expressed here.
People lie because they’re insecure.
People lie because they think that telling the truth will render them invisible or unfit to date.
People lie because telling the truth would sabotage their attempts to get a response.
I’m not defending liars. I’m acknowledging them. Liars are not bad people. They’re insecure and have every right to be, given how choosy people are on the Internet. And ultimately, they will pay the price for their lies, presuming that they turn out to be significantly shorter, fatter and older than initially indicated.
But all this stuff about personality tests, algorithms, dumping your date…it’s missing the core point of why people lie. I don’t care how many things you create to try to enforce honesty – as long as people are insecure, people will lie.
The way to eliminate liars is to provide services that reveal the truth – photos from LookBetterOnline, essays from E-Cyrano, background checks from HonestyOnline, and video chat. By encouraging your members to be unique individuals who are proud of themselves, you’re creating a better environment where the need to lie dissipates. People who are confident in their ability to succeed don’t need to lie.
The problem is that most of them have no reason to have any confidence. Let’s give it to them.
I appreciate Evan’s comments, but insecurity is certainly not the only reason why someone might outright lie or distort a personal description.
Studies on assessment and profiling indicate that people modify their behavior in two primary ways. First, people can give honest but inflated self-descriptions reflecting a lack of insight and an unconscious bias toward favorable self-portrayal (“self-deception”). This is a variation of social desirability bias. While it is important to promote candor and truth in personal profiles and communications, it is important to understand that virtually everyone exhibits social desirability biases to some extent. Here individuals are often acting naturally out of a healthy self-image and are expressing a need to be liked and accepted (as opposed to being insecure).
The second and more serious form of social desirability is what social scientists refer to as “impression management.” This term applies when people consciously use inflated self-descriptions, faking or lying due to a hypersensitivity to situational self-presentation demands. This behavior speaks to Evan’s remarks above.
Both behaviors (self deception and impression management) are likely at work in online dating profiles and communications (as well as in offline dating). I basically agree with Evan that providing tools to online daters — along with supportive education — can help reduce both behaviors. Of course, quality compatibility/personality assessments can be a legitimate part of that process. Social scientists have long documented that the general public is typically horrible at self-assessment, so tests and assessments can help individuals get to know themselves better — and that goes for both the positive and negative. The process of getting to know and accept oneself (all of oneself) is the goal here… and yes…online dating services should be among the first providers of such services if they truly care about helping customers succeed.
Thx,
James Houran, Ph.D.
Research Psychologist
Online Dating Magazine
James, Fernando, and Evan all make interesting points. Unfortunately, people lie… but the answer is not found in allowing a tiny bit of dishonesty followed by damage control further down in the profile. Nor is it entirely answered by personality tests.
At ProfileHelper.com we show our clients a different approach. We help them extract more of what makes them unique and “date-worthy” so our profile consultants can write a new profile that shows them off at their best while still maintaining complete honesty.
It’s true that some of our clients have confidence issues, but the majority of them are just busy people who know the value of having an expert help them create a better first impression than they can on their own. You would be amazed at how many professional writers come to ProfileHelper. They have no problem writing books, plays, or newspaper articles, but they all find writing about themselves to be the hardest task of all. They’re just “too close” to themselves to be able to write something that is as objective as a profile needs to be.
Services like ProfileHelper.com and Lookbetteronline are a great start, but the only real solution here is the dating sites.
During consultations with our clients, our experts make sure to always pass along two pieces of information that we have found are key to true success in online dating.
1. Don’t lie: even if it is just to get around other people’s search criteria, and even if you plan on correcting it later on in your profile. When you use that trick, the people who find your profile will usually feel like you have tricked them into looking at you. That is never a good first impression.
2. Who cares if you don’t come up in someone’s search? You have no control over what boxes they check off before they hit that search button. This isn’t online “sit and wait till someone finds me.” It is Online Dating. It is something you need to actively participate in if you want to succeed. You have a search button too. Use it. After all, who knows what you want better than you? Especially when it comes to issues like age, you can’t expect to come up in all the searches of the men and women you want to meet. However, they will definitely come up in yours. So email them. Let your profile and your first email work together to create a first impression that no one can resist.
The dating sites need to educate their membership on these very points. Always be honest, and get out there and be proactive. If this message was the universal advice of the industry, not only would the issues of dishonesty become far less prevalent, but the sites would actually see more satisfied members and increased revenue from higher conversion rates.
This is also why dating sites need to partner up with profile assistance firms like ProfileHelper.com. Our customers are your members. On any given day we deal more closely with them on issues of online dating success than any customer service department. The biggest thing that online daters need help with is presenting themselves in a way that shows them off to be as good as they actually are. If we can do that, they don’t need to lie.
Regards,
Eric Resnick
Founder
http://www.ProfileHelper.com
**Seen weekly in 250 newspapers around the country in the “Ask The Expert” Dating advice column.***
How timely. Just yesterday I wrote the following posting for my blog (http://www.find-a-sweetheart.com/blog/item/winners_never_cheat/)
Winners Never Cheat
And cheaters never win—have you heard that one? Evidently, not everyone believes it, since cheating of one sort or another is pretty common. One reason people cheat is because they can: Folks are much more likely to lie or cheat if they think they can get away with it.
The Internet (and Internet dating) has oddly made it easier to cheat and easier to get caught. The seemingly private nature of your computer, sitting alone and typing messages onto a machine, encourages people to bend the rules if they think it will suit them. It’s a vicious circle: Online daters hear and experience the lies and distortions of other singles online, so they often feel that they have to lie too, just to stay competitive.
If you are trying to find a mate online, lying is totally a losing game. For absolute sure, don’t say anything in your profile or early conversations that will make you out to be a liar at your first meeting! An out-of-date photo is the most common sort of lie, or shaving pounds off your weight or adding inches in height. People get angry when they think you are trying to trick them, and most do not want to continue a relationship with someone who clearly lies. Do not lie! It is not worth the risk.
People who lie are getting caught in other ways than by sight at the first date. Many folks now know how to do background checks for criminal records, divorce records, house and land ownership, and they do them—routinely. Often my clients tell me things that they have found out about potential dates. Other sources of information are Google (common practice to Google someone’s name to see citations), sites like DontDatHimGirl.com (where women can post “reviews” of men they have dated, using real names and photos), and even dating sites (like Consumating.com, whose charming tag line is “A new way to find people who don’t suck”—read about a Consumating user’s dreadful experience here).
Don’t lie, distort or evade in general, because if you do, you will know it, even if your date/partner does not. You will be worried that he/she will find out, what you will do when they do, and your secret will get in the way of your relationship’s development.
And not only don’t lie: Behave yourself, too. Bad behavior can get you bad reviews. As easy as it is just not to answer an unwanted email approach, on some sites, it can get you branded as rude.
Just as I said at the beginning of this post, people are more likely to lie or cheat if they think they can get away with it. Don’t get lulled into thinking your online (or offline) behavior is private. Not anymore. Folks are watching, even if you can’t see them doing it.
From Your Romance Coach,
Kathryn Lord
Further comment:
We all need to remember that we (and others) are constantly telling others about ourselves all the time — They (and we) have only to be willing to listen. What does it say about us if we lie? Or excuse lying? Or encourage it?
Particularly when we are working with folks who are trying to establish life-long loving and trusting relationships, we need to have an acute awareness of the process of relationship building and the establishment of trust. What does it say about us if we encourage, accept, or excuse behavior that is counter-productive to what people say they want? These people are single for a reason, and MAYBE one of those reasons is that there is a major disconnnect between who they are and who they say they are.
What’s wrong with being 61 and looking 55? Say it and be proud. When your date says you don’t look 61, smile confidently, because you know it is true. You will not have to squirm and wonder when they are going to find out the truth.
And I absolutely agree with Eric Resner: Other people’s searches should not be your concern at all. If someone finds you, it’s a bonus. Do your own work and your own picking. You are much more likely to get what you want.
Kathryn Lord, Your Romance Coach
http://www.Find-a-Sweetheart.com
I would rather admit I’m 49 and have people tell me I look great and much younger than my age, than to lie and say I’m 32 and have them think I look much older!
We’ve had members (mostly men, a few women) who lie about their age (in my opinion, I can’t prove it short of getting a birth certificate and driver’s license. The photo they upload looks fiftyish, but they indicate they are thirtyish. Fact be known, they want women half their age and think if their profile shows up in the search results of the desired age range of younger women, that the women will see them and fall in love!
When are men going to realize that what they see in the mirror just ain’t reality! They are as old, fat, wrinkled, etc., as the women they refuse to date that are also in their age range! LOL
We encourage members to be truthful on their profiles, but have had reports from people who know this person and know everything they say is false. But how can a site owner deal with that? You can’t follow up on every person’s profile and ensure they’ve been honest on age, height, weight, occupation, etc.
We encourage members to use common sense, ask for the pastor’s phone number and church number and actually call the pastor for a character reference. Even that’s not failsafe, we know, but it is a start.
Nannette Thacker
http://www.ChristianSinglesDating.com
Little White Lies Damaging Online Dating Industry
Mark Brooks over at onlinepersonalswatch thinks liars are hurting not only themselves but also the online dating industry. Lies are always good for the short term and bad for the long term. Singles need to hold themselves to a…