In Virtue/Vice, Dr. Christine B. Whelan blogs about news, books, scientific and psychological research and her general musings about virtue and vice in our everyday lives.
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Lying for Love
I’ve blogged about how it’s easier to lie via email than it is when writing an old-fashioned paper-and-pen note, so it’s probably not surprising that, when you want to attract a mate in online dating, people fudge a bit to make themselves look more appealing. But according to a new study, some 90% of people lie in their profiles. Man, I’m glad I’m married.
Men inflate their height, women deflate their weight. From this graph, (read the whole study here-PDF) though, you can see people aren’t lying by much. Just a hair poof here and a Spanx-suction there. The worst bit, of course, is that online dating makes these things really matter-i.e. a partner might use height or body type as a search criteria while, if you met that person in at a party, you’d be more likely to gloss over the difference of an inch here and there.
I’m all for honesty, but this may be one area where it’s OK to fib… a bit. Just get offline as soon as you can and meet in person.
