Some people lie online, for sure. But it looks like the word is getting out that it doesn’t make sense to lie if you are looking for a long term relationship.
Online dating liars: Why they do it
By Jason Hanna, CNN
Those who tell you what you want to hear in real life will tell you the same online, a study finds.
(CNN)— Worried that the 27-year-old man making $70,000 as profiled on an online dating service isn’t so young or taking home that much cash?
Chances are he’s telling the truth if the site is geared toward long-term relationships.
But if he’s lying, he’s probably a people pleaser—the type of person who’d try to put himself in the best light even if you’d found him offline first, according to a University of Kansas researcher.
In professor Jeffrey Hall’s survey of 5,020 men and women who belonged to an undisclosed Internet dating site, most respondents indicated they wouldn’t lie. But those saying they were most likely to lie generally gave answers to other questions indicating they were people pleasers, or “high self-monitors.”
Such people have an acute sense of what others like and control their own behavior accordingly for social ends. Because they want to be liked and fit in, these people, whether online or off, may lie about weight, age, income and interests, Hall said.
“The type of people who misrepresented themselves online is the same type of people who do so face-to-face,” Hall, an assistant professor of communication studies and the study’s lead author, said by phone Thursday.
In the study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, respondents were asked to rate on a 10-point scale the likelihood that they would misrepresent their education, income, relationship goals, personal interests, weight and age to a potential date online. An answer of 1 indicated “not at all likely;” a 10 indicated “very likely.”
“On average, answers were close to around 2 for the most part,” Hall said.
Men indicated they were more likely than women to lie in every category except weight, according to the study.
However, the differences between men and women were small, Hall said. For example, men led women 2.01 to 1.83 when it came to lying about education and income. Women led men 3.24 to 2.37 in lying about weight.
The strongest predictor of lying wasn’t gender, but high self-monitoring, Hall said.
“Personality makes much more of a difference in how much people lie,” he said.
Hall wouldn’t name the dating site to which the respondents belonged, but he said that people interested in long-term relationships “tend to be the users that are attracted to this site” and that the site didn’t commission the study.
Hall said it added to other research showing that—particularly for people looking for long-term relationships—the amount of lying is usually small, because people want an anticipated face-to-face meeting to go well.
“Online daters shouldn’t be concerned that most people are presenting a false impression of themselves,” Hall said in a news release before Thursday’s phone interview. “What influences face-to-face dating influences the online world, too.”
The study also was authored by professors Namkee Park of the University of Oklahoma, Hayeon Song of the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and Michael Cody of the University of Southern California.
Why lie? Seems like more and more people are realizing it just doesn’t make sense.
Online dating as honest as real life
By Alan Mozes
HealthDay Reporter
THURSDAY, March 11 (HealthDay News)—For the millions looking for love on the Internet, the nagging question remains: Is my virtual paramour the person they say they are?
A new survey of more than 5,000 U.S. online daters finds that the answer to that question is—by and large—‘yes,’ or at least as honest as they would be in face-to-face dating.
The study also found that when fibs do occur, men and women appear equally guilty.
“The concerns people have when dating online are very similar to the ones they have in their face-to-face lives. And we found that dating behavior is very similar as well,” said study author Jeffrey Hall, an assistant professor in the department of communication studies at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.
The study appears in the March 8 issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships.
The new study comes on the heels of recent work by German and U.S. researchers indicating that users of friendship-oriented social networking sites, such as Facebook, offer up realistic self portraits when posting online profiles.
But is this true for the online dating world, where the emotional stakes are higher?
To find out, Hall and his team administered an online survey in 2007 to more than 5,000 American adults—all patrons of a “large [unnamed] online dating site”.
Participants averaged 40 years of age, more than 80 percent were white, and nearly three-quarters were women. More than half said they were single and had never been married, while just over 40 percent said they were divorced. A little over two-thirds said they were not currently involved in a romantic relationship.
After collecting demographic information, the participants were asked how likely they would be to misrepresent themselves online with respect to their personal attributes, relationship goals, personal interests, personal assets, and/or past relationships.
The researchers also ranked participants in terms of how neurotic, extroverted, conscientious, agreeable, and/or open they were.
The online daters also completed a questionnaire to assess to what degree they were capable of putting on a “social performance” and/or altering their behavior during face-to-face meetings, simply to suit particular people and changing circumstances.
As a whole, those who indulged in such behaviors—generally driven by an interest in being liked, fitting in, and/or looking good—were characterized as “self-monitors”—people who are predisposed to stage-manage the impressions they make on others.
According to the study, patrons of the online dating site were no more or less likely to lie about themselves than people who find dates the old-fashioned way via work, recreation or friends.
It was an individual’s personality that seemed to determine whether they would lie or bend the truth in the virtual world.
For example, being “adventurous” and “open” to new experiences lowered the likelihood of lying online, presumably because such individuals felt they were interesting enough to begin with.
On the other hand, while extroverts were less likely than introverts to misrepresent their personal interests, they were more likely to lie about their prior relationship history online. The authors speculated that this could be a function of extroverts having had a more “active” past then their introverted colleagues—a fact they might prefer not to highlight.
People who tended to shift their behavior to create more favorable impressions in “real-world” meetings—so-called “high self-monitors”—were most likely to try to deceive others online, the team found.
“So when these kind of people are online and looking to date they’re going to make their pictures better and their profile more exciting,” noted Hall. “By comparison, low self-monitors are going to present themselves exactly as they are in all circumstance—in person and online.”
Being a neurotic personality seemed to have no bearing one way or the other on honesty in online dating, the team found.
Demographics also played a role in online deception. Not surprisingly, older online daters were more likely to lie about their age than younger daters, and men were more likely to shave years off their age than women.
Overall, however, “we found that the differences between men and women online were very small,” Hall stressed.
“Yes, we did find that women were more likely to misrepresent their weight,” he added. “And men were more likely to misrepresent their personal interests, and more likely to misrepresent personal assets like job and money and personal attributes, like how nice and polite they are. But these latter differences were really very small.”
Hall stressed, however, that levels of online deception might change depending on the context.
“The survey was about people more interested in establishing a single romantic relationship,” he noted. “But there are sites that are exclusively dedicated to the hook-up—the short-term, casual sex experience. And in that case, you don’t really need to present yourself in a fully authentic way, because the purpose is just to enjoy yourself in a one-night stand. And a survey of that kind of online group might find very different results.”
Eli Finkel, an associate professor of social psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., said the study results came as little surprise.
“These findings lend empirical validation to my longstanding assumption that the typical person using modern dating approaches doesn’t differ much from the typical person using traditional dating approaches,” he said.
“There was probably a time when people using dating services were different in important ways from the general dating population,” added Finkel, “but that seems to be less and less true as modern dating approaches become increasingly popular. Online daters, speed-daters, and the like seem to be just like the rest of us in most ways. That this intuition extends to truth-telling among online daters is important validation of that general point.”
Now Forbes magazine weighs in. They touch on something I hadn’t thought of: What if two people who hired out their online dating prelims bumped into each other, that is, their virtual assistants made the dates for them, without either of them knowing that they were not dealing with the actual person?
A Surprisingly Simple Way To Date: Outsource It
Joan Indiana Rigdon, 06.03.10, 4:30 PM ET
“I wouldn’t dare speak to her, I don’t have the brains. The way people speak and write nowadays makes my head hurt. I’m just an honest, simple, terrified soldier.”
With these words, French soldier Christian de Neuvillette convinces Cyrano de Bergerac to help him pitch woo at the lovely Roxanne, whom Christian fears might be an intellectual. Christian is a man of very few letters: only four that spell “fool,” as Cyrano might say. But he is smart enough to turn to a sharper wit to help him win a woman’s heart.
Now, in the world of online dating, Cyrano-style services are for rent to any fool—er, guy—with a valid credit card. Busy guys, guys who can’t write, shy guys, guys who fear online rejection, guys who haven’t dated in years or guys who just find the process leading up to the date “really repetitive” can now pay virtual impostors to get dates for them. (Women use these services too, but for now it’s overwhelmingly a guy thing.)
These services write dating profiles, fish for prospects and perform the initial online flirting required to set up a first date. The first time a guy has to deal with his date is when he meets her in person.
Freelancer writers and companies like e-Cyrano have been offering profile-writing services for years. Dating Done for You, based in Toronto, takes it one step further by offering the services of a female staff member who will role-play a date with clients over the phone, and then give feedback. Virtual Dating Assistants is one of the few who offer initial flirtation.
What kind of guy goes for this?
Let’s be kind, and imagine a man who’s logging 70 hours a week. He has time for his career, golf and Twitter, but online dating is just too time-consuming.
There’s no village matchmaker, so he hires Virtual Dating Assistants. They get to know him and craft his perfect profile. They fish, they find, they flirt. They set up a time and place to meet. They fill him in on what exactly he said during the flirtation process, so his target will be none the wiser, unless he chooses to confess. They even tell him what to wear.
But why stop there?
For an additional fee, a dating service could offer on-site assistance, perhaps in the form of a woman who arranges to dine at the next table, so she can eavesdrop on how the client is doing. She could text him real-time advice, which he could read, say, when he excuses himself to go to the men’s room.
That’s not as romantic as Cyrano whispering lines under cover of night and foliage to a beautiful woman on a balcony in late 19th-century France, but it could work.
On their FAQ, right under the question about whether virtual dating is dishonest, services that offer on-site dating operatives could explain that all this isn’t as creepy as it sounds. They are, you could say, just like the friends their clients don’t have, who are trying to help out in any way they can.
For more money, hired dating operatives could listen in on the follow-up phone call, texting advice in real time.
Eventually, someone will figure out that this is just the tip of a virtual iceberg. If an automated dating service for busy women mated with an automated service for busy men and they could enter a virtual world where people interact through 3-D avatars to date each other in virtual bars ... what a lifeless dating world it would be.
Here we go again, another piece about outsourcing everything until the first date. This article zeros in more closely on the sense of lying and trickery.
Outsourcing Online Dating: Are We Really Okay With This?
Dear God. Single men (and a few women) are now paying strangers to find suitable dates for them online. According to a recent article in the Washington Post, they don’t have the time—or the will—to do it themselves.
So add relationships to the list of things that can be outsourced, along with cleaning your condo, detailing your car and buying and delivering your groceries.
One web-based company that provides this service, Virtual Dating Assistants, employs 45 freelance writers to pen and submit a suitor’s profile. Replies go to a writer’s inbox, thereby sparing the would-be suitor the embarrassment of not getting any responses or having to wade through, ponder, perhaps respond to, any he does receive.
The writer decides whom to answer and if a woman responds favorably, a “closer” sets up time and place.
Think about this from the point of view of the woman—and there’s a good chance it’s a woman since 80 percent of Virtual Dating Assistants’ clients are men. She is charmed by the person she reads about online and more intrigued once she starts receiving emails she presumes are from him. Does she know he’s not the sincere, soulful man he seems but actually some corporate suit who can’t be bothered to put a little thought and time into deciding whom he takes to dinner? Nope.
Say she sets aside several hours in her busy schedule to get dressed and joins him at a swanky restaurant, then by the second glass of Chardonnay realizes what a jerk he is. This could happen on a traditional first date too, of course, or on a date arranged by partners online who portray themselves as better-looking and smarter than they actually are.
But misrepresentation by surrogate seems somehow worse. Colder. Harder to detect. It has a kind of “I’ve been lied to” feeling times two.
Additionally, as my son Jeff, 26 and single, points out, the third-party setup may diminish any sense of responsibility a man might feel for making a date work.
The guy “hasn’t invested anything emotionally,” Jeff says. “So I wonder if it’s then easier for him to just get out early if there’s something that doesn’t work with the person he’s dating, rather than try to work through it. If I’ve spent a lot of energy trying to get a date with a girl, I’m likely to forgive minor eccentricities in the interest of the bigger picture. But if someone just hands me a girl that I didn’t have to work for, who knows?”
In the Washington Post story, reporter Ellen McCarthy quotes a 27-year-old man named Luke who outsourced online dating to his receptionist. Otherwise, “you have to go through 10 conversations to get one date,” he said.
Imagine having to actually communicate directly with people you might be interested in. What a concept.
Another plus in Luke’s mind? He doesn’t have to watch his online advances being turned down or worse, deleted without being read.
“Emotionally, I feel a little small pain of rejection every time that happens,” he said.
Of course it can be tedious to sort through overtures from people whom you have no interest in, and rejection is never fun. But isn’t it worth preserving some sense of personal connection to the selection?
No pain, no gain, I say.
Third-party matchmaking has been around a long time. Think of the village elder, priest, rabbi, parent.
But unlike the relationship concierge, these people of the past usually knew the couple in question and, in many cases, cared deeply about the couple’s well-being. Sometimes they were paid for their matches, but often not. The concierge, on the other hand, is in it only for the money.
The whole thing makes me incredibly sad, and reminds me of a book I reviewed last year. In A Vindication of Love, Cristina Nehring wrote:
“We inhabit a world in which every aspect of romance from meeting to mating has been streamlined, safety-checked and emptied of spiritual consequence. The result is that we imagine we live in an erotic culture of unprecedented opportunity when, in fact, we live in an erotic culture that is almost unendurably bland.”
People are not rental units or luxury sedans or oven-ready chickens and—forgive the cliché—many times in a relationship of any consequence, it’s the little things that mean the most. I can’t help thinking that regardless of how the surrogate-arranged dates turn out, these men, and the women they take to dinner, can’t possibly be getting their money’s worth.
Here’s more discussion about outsourcing your online dating work. These comments come closer to my sense that this amounts to a form of trickery, like lying, that should not be engaged in at all. If you can’t find the time, etc., to lay the groundwork, why should you get the intimacy?
Digital Cyranos: The Strangeness of Online Dating Surrogates
By Alex Eichler
A recent Washington Post trend piece describes the rise of “online dating assistants,” writers-for-hire who correspond with singles on matchmaking sites on behalf of their (mostly male) clients. Here’s how it works: Say you want to meet someone on Match.com or eHarmony, but are too busy, or otherwise disinclined, to write a profile, sort through potential partners, and exchange e-mails. You hire an online dating assistant to do all of this for you, under your name—and once the date is set up, you go out to meet someone in real life whom you may have never actually communicated with, and who thinks they’ve been talking to you all along.
Sound odd? More than a few writers think so:
* Basically Lying, is the opinion of Jared Gordon, a blogger quoted in the Post story. “It is! It’s awful! You’re misrepresenting yourself. You’re lying about yourself,” Gordon told Ellen McCarthy, the author of the story. McCarthy goes on to note that “in Gordon’s mind, it’s tantamount to having someone else write your college term paper, or putting a picture of a more attractive stranger on your online dating profile. ‘You’re going to fall in love with someone because of their honesty,’ he says. ‘And some people might say, ‘Who has the time to write a profile?’ But if something is that important to you, you make the time to do it.’”
* Equates Dating With Shopping At Slate, Amanda Marcotte muses about the attitudes that might underlie such a practice. “Hiring someone to pretend to be you, feigning interest in looking up and chatting with women through a dating Web site, isn’t cheap, of course. The customers of this service largely seem to be privileged but busy men, which only adds to the creepy sense that they see dating as a form of shopping, and shopping as a chore that can be delegated to the help.”
* Imagine How the Other Person Feels! Jezebel’s Sadie Stein lingers on a quote from one of the men in the Post story who uses an online assistant because he feels “a little small pain of rejection” when a woman doesn’t show interest. Fair enough, says Stein—“but as a woman, I can tell you that for most of the women I know, finding out we’ve been courted by a surrogate is going to lead to a much harsher - and more personal - form of rejection.”
* Sucks the Romance Out of It Mark White of Psychology Today is skeptical about the whole idea of virtual courting. “Generally, there’s just something detached and clinical about online dating, with or without an assistant. I may be a hopeless romantic… but I still cling to the ideal of two strangers meeting each other’s gaze across a crowded room while the world melts away, a la Tony and Maria in ‘West Side Story.’ The internet can be a wonderful tool to enhance our lives and expand our social networks, but it seems to me that some things are just not the same if they aren’t done in person, and meeting the love of your life (or even of this month) would be at the top of that list.”
* Another Possible Explanation What might drive people to use assistants? National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez gets in the best zinger. “I guess if you grew up with shortcuts to winning Super Mario Brothers, it’s only natural?”
We’ve had a new wave of innovation in the online dating sphere lately: paying someone else to do your work on the dating site—Scanning for prospects, writing the first and subsequent email, even setting up dates. Without informing the recipient. The next few postings will be reprints of pieces I have found on the wire. Let me know what you think.
Online dating assistants help the lonely and busy
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Max Hartshorn has pretty much mastered online dating.
It took awhile, but the 24-year-old now knows exactly what kind of message to send to pique a woman’s interest. The Montreal research assistant will come home from work, sit down with his laptop and bang out dozens of e-mails to attractive, eligible women.
He’s never needy—always charming and a little flirtatious. He keeps his missives short and usually includes a question or a subtle challenge. He’s witty, a touch aloof and not overly complimentary.
And when he gets the woman, it’s not his heart that flutters. It’s his bank account.
Hartshorn is a hired gun, ghostwriting correspondence on behalf of single men unwilling, too busy or too inept to do it themselves. His online dating is done on commission for Virtual Dating Assistants, one of the first full-scale Internet-dating outsourcing companies. For $600, Virtual Dating Assistants guarantees clients two dates a month; the “executive service” package promises five dates a month for $1,200. [that’s PER MONTH—editor}
“I get paid for each woman who writes back positively,” explains the modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac. “It’s very analogous to sales . . . like a cold-caller or a telemarketer.”
A telemarketer who toils anonymously in pursuit of love for the lonely. Darkly romantic, no?
No. “I don’t care that much if it becomes a date or not,” Hartshorn admits. His job is “lead generation” only. Sealing the deal is up to the company’s “closers.”
And going out on actual dates? That, unfortunately, the men have to do all by themselves. And the women never need know who hooked them.
* * *
The great promise of online dating is this: You sit on the couch in pajamas, click through sparkling profiles of nearby singles, fire off a few quippy e-mails or a nonchalant “wink” and—ta-da!—a series of romantic rendezvous is instantly on the docket.
It’s love through a high-speed line, a model of amorous efficiency.
For Scott Valdez it worked, but the endeavor required just a little too much effort. He was working 70 or 80 hours a week in sales for a start-up technology company and traveling constantly. Every time he tried online dating, he met interesting women, but he found the process leading to the dates “really repetitive.” So he decided to outsource it.
“Why not just teach my secretary to do it?” he thought.
She didn’t have the time (or maybe the stomach?) to tend to his Internet love life, so Valdez hired a recent college grad who could write e-mails in English and Spanish. Soon he was going on five or six first dates a month.
“It worked for me,” he says. “And I knew so many people that could use the service.”
Last June, Valdez, now 25, founded Virtual Dating Assistants—a company that “specializes in making the dating dreams of busy individuals come true.”
Author Timothy Ferriss popularized the concept when he wrote about outsourcing his online dating accounts to teams of competing writers in his 2007 book, “The 4-Hour Work Week.”
Valdez’s Atlanta-based firm is hardly the only outfit to offer such services. Dozens of profile-writing shops such as Arlington County-based TargetLove have popped up in the past few years, and dating coaches are increasingly managing their clients’ online pursuits. Not to mention the well-intentioned friends and relatives who have taken over the process for the hapless singles in their lives.
But Valdez and his team of 45 freelance writers, including Hartshorn, do it all: write a client’s profile, pick out potential matches, send introductory e-mails and message back and forth until a date is confirmed. Then they turn over the correspondence and tell the lucky fellow where and when he’s meeting Madame X. (And it’s almost always that gender dynamic; 80 percent of the firm’s clients are men.)
Richard, a 39-year-old marketing executive who uses the service, would like to say, for the record: “It’s not like I really have a lot of problems dating people in the real world.” It’s just that he’s busy, splitting time among four cities, including Washington and Miami, and he figures it’s best to meet as many people as possible.
Online dating has worked for Richard, “but it’s all time-consuming,” so when he heard about Virtual Dating Assistants, it seemed like a convenient solution for an on-the-go guy. “Just from a cost-benefit analysis—me spending all this time on doing things that are purely almost secretarial doesn’t make any sense for me,” says Richard, who asked that his last name not be used because he doesn’t want colleagues or potential dates to know he uses the service.
After a lengthy phone interview three months ago, the company’s writers drafted a profile, let Richard tweak it and then started fishing for potential dates. Richard says they soon zeroed in on his preferences in terms of a woman’s looks, education and interests, and he feels satisfied that he’s being represented authentically in e-mails written on his behalf. (This has not been the case for everyone: Valdez described one client who came back from a date saying that “we maybe made him look a little too cool online.” From then on, prospective dates were given a heads-up that the man was shy.)
Richard doesn’t usually tell the women he dates that he didn’t write the e-mails they received. But when one woman wondered why he was constantly active on the site through which they met, he told her the truth: “Look, it’s not exactly like that—somebody’s actually doing this stuff for me.”
Ask Jared Gordon, the 30-year-old editor of A Bad Case of the Dates, a blog that collects dating horror stories, and he’ll tell you the practice is awful: “It is! It’s awful! You’re misrepresenting yourself. You’re lying about yourself.”
In Gordon’s mind, it’s tantamount to having someone else write your college term paper, or putting a picture of a more attractive stranger on your online dating profile. “You’re going to fall in love with someone because of their honesty,” he says. “And some people might say, ‘Who has the time to write a profile?’ But if something is that important to you, you make the time to do it.”
Richard knows some perceive it as callous outsourcing, but he feels he’s being represented authentically by his Virtual Dating Assistant. “These guys are really good at getting to know who you are,” he says. And he adds that the one time he confessed to using the service, his date didn’t seem to mind. “Once you have chemistry with somebody and they know you’re a genuinely good person—that’s really all that matters,” he says.
Mark Brooks, founder of Online Personals Watch, a site that tracks Internet dating trends, says this type of outsourcing is an ethically questionable form of “misrepresentation.” Still, he expects the field to grow.
Professional matchmakers often charge $5,000 or more a year and have a limited pool of matches. Online dating sites are populated with countless singles but can require more attention than some users are willing to devote. “It may look like instant gratification, like you dive into the pool and instantly come up with a fish, but it doesn’t really work like that,” Brooks says. “You’ve got to tap, tap, tap on the keyboard quite a lot to get anywhere.” (One site, OkCupid.com, found that a third of all first messages garner a response, though that doesn’t mean they are positive or that they lead to dates.)
But for many, it’s not just their time that’s at stake; it’s also their egos.
Luke Chao started having his receptionist send online dating e-mails for him after realizing that there was not enough administrative work for her at the hypnotherapy clinic he manages. It was a win-win, he thought, because “online dating is tedious—you have to send out 100 messages to get 10 responses. You have to go through 10 conversations to get one date, and that’s just the first date.” (Dianne Nubla, who writes Chao’s e-mails between her other tasks, says it’s “a good diversion” that she doesn’t mind.)
Chao, a 27-year-old Toronto resident, was soon dating one or two new women a week. In truth, he says, he has the time and writing ability for the task. But by having Nubla take over, he’s sidestepping the worst part of the process: being routinely rebuffed.
“Most women you e-mail don’t respond. Some look at your profile and don’t even read your message before deleting it,” he says. “That’s just the nature of the game—intellectually, I know that. But still, emotionally, I do feel a little small pain of rejection every time that happens.”
It astounds me how short-sighted people are when it comes to telling the truth online. Just about every one of my older clients asks me if it is okay to lie about their age. Of course, no one wants to lie about being older than they really are. They all say “Well, I look a lot younger that my age and I feel younger. And the men/women I am attracted to are a lot younger than I am too.” Isn’t that interesting? Just about everyone I know looks their age. And what if they do look younger? Isn’t that a wonderful statement about their good genes or how well they have taken care of themselves? Rather than worry about being caught in a lie, how about being respected for telling the truth? Here are some right-on thoughts about lying and truth-telling, underlines are mine.
‘White lies’ are a dating no-no
By KRYSTLE LAUB AND ERIN OUTERBRIDGE
Everyone tells a white lie now and again. Telling someone they don’t look horrible when they are clearly having a bad day is actually a nice thing to do and, in our eyes, acceptable. However, when you are out there dating, lying is one of the things you should avoid.
We are both single, and we find ourselves navigating the wide, wide world of Internet dating and the ever-popular blind date. “Don’t lie?!” you say? “Well, how will I ever get someone to date me?” We suggest the truth and being proud of who you are. This column is, in short, a guide to how the opposite sex is not stupid, and how lies are not a great way to start a new relationship.
The very first guy that Krystle met in person from Match.com was a teacher from Brooklyn. He drove all the way out to Hackensack to meet her at the Cheesecake Factory. That day she had scrolled through his profile for one last gander: six feet, brown hair, “athletic build.” When she arrived, the man in front of her had blond hair, and the top of his head barely reached her 5-foot, 9-inch height. Did he really think that she wouldn’t notice the obvious difference? Recently she met a guy at a bar that she had contacted on Match, only to find out that nearly everything he told her had been untrue. Everything: the town he lived in, his job, the types of cars he drove. Everything was false.
Last summer Erin experienced a similar situation. She went on a blind date with a guy who said he was 5 feet, 11 inches. This seemed to be the perfect height difference as she is 5 feet, 3 inches. Well, it was the perfect height difference until he walked in. When retelling the story to friends, Erin was generous and said he was 5 feet, 5 inches, but being honest, they were the same height. He was a great guy and the date went well (minus the mouse scurrying across the barroom floor), but his “white lie” and being more than 15 minutes late really put a damper on the chemistry.
Women are just as shady when it comes to dating. We decided to ask our guy friends for instances of dating horror stories. One friend told us about a first date with a girl in which he was really interested. During the conversation that night, they agreed that they both loved James Bond movies. On the second date, he cooked her dinner and they watched their mutually-agreed-upon favorite James Bond movie. Before the credits even finished rolling, she was berating him for choosing to watch this particular movie and lecturing him about how James Bond movies are demeaning to women.
Another guy friend told us about a woman who would say anything to him to seem open-minded. If you are a vegetarian, tell him before he recommends a steak house!
While we are all insecure about different things, being dishonest about anything is never a good idea. The whole concept behind dating is to find someone who loves you for you, not to trick someone into dating you.
Finding the special someone you want to spend the rest of your life with will come so long as you are honest about who you are and your intentions. Whether it’s big or small, about appearance or interests, fibbing isn’t going to get you anywhere with the other person. They will eventually find out the truth, and it will hurt your chances at a serious relationship.
So be brave, lay the cards out on the table, and tell the truth!
E-mail your questions to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Who do you turn to when you need advice? If a neutral sounding board is what you need, e-mail us! We are here to help you keep a level head and an open heart on life’s bumpy road to happiness.
Everyone tells a white lie now and again. Telling someone they don’t look horrible when they are clearly having a bad day is actually a nice thing to do and, in our eyes, acceptable. However, when you are out there dating, lying is one of the things you should avoid.
We are both single, and we find ourselves navigating the wide, wide world of Internet dating and the ever-popular blind date. “Don’t lie?!” you say? “Well, how will I ever get someone to date me?” We suggest the truth and being proud of who you are. This column is, in short, a guide to how the opposite sex is not stupid, and how lies are not a great way to start a new relationship.
The very first guy that Krystle met in person from Match.com was a teacher from Brooklyn. He drove all the way out to Hackensack to meet her at the Cheesecake Factory. That day she had scrolled through his profile for one last gander: six feet, brown hair, “athletic build.” When she arrived, the man in front of her had blond hair, and the top of his head barely reached her 5-foot, 9-inch height. Did he really think that she wouldn’t notice the obvious difference? Recently she met a guy at a bar that she had contacted on Match, only to find out that nearly everything he told her had been untrue. Everything: the town he lived in, his job, the types of cars he drove. Everything was fasle.
Last summer Erin experienced a similar situation. She went on a blind date with a guy who said he was 5 feet, 11 inches. This seemed to be the perfect height difference as she is 5 feet, 3 inches. Well, it was the perfect height difference until he walked in. When retelling the story to friends, Erin was generous and said he was 5 feet, 5 inches, but being honest, they were the same height. He was a great guy and the date went well (minus the mouse scurrying across the barroom floor), but his “white lie” and being more than 15 minutes late really put a damper on the chemistry.
Women are just as shady when it comes to dating. We decided to ask our guy friends for instances of dating horror stories. One friend told us about a first date with a girl in which he was really interested. During the conversation that night, they agreed that they both loved James Bond movies. On the second date, he cooked her dinner and they watched their mutually-agreed-upon favorite James Bond movie. Before the credits even finished rolling, she was berating him for choosing to watch this particular movie and lecturing him about how James Bond movies are demeaning to women.
Another guy friend told us about a woman who would say anything to him to seem open-minded. If you are a vegetarian, tell him before he recommends a steak house!
While we are all insecure about different things, being dishonest about anything is never a good idea. The whole concept behind dating is to find someone who loves you for you, not to trick someone into dating you.
Finding the special someone you want to spend the rest of your life with will come so long as you are honest about who you are and your intentions. Whether it’s big or small, about appearance or interests, fibbing isn’t going to get you anywhere with the other person. They will eventually find out the truth, and it will hurt your chances at a serious relationship.
So be brave, lay the cards out on the table, and tell the truth!
Most of us are easily findable online now. Some of us are so much online that we need to keep track of what is being said about us or someone else who has the same name. If you are dating online, you need to be aware that your date likely is googling your name as soon as they know it. So Google your own regularly to find out what your date may be finding out about you. See this advice below for managing your online reputation.
Protecting Yourself.com
Here are some tips for defending your reputation online:
* Find out what people are saying about you. Search for yourself on search engines weekly and set up Google alerts and Twilert (for Twitter tweets) on your name.
* Sign up for free Web sites that allow you to create a brand for yourself, such as LinkedIn, Ziggs or Naymz.
* Buy the URL for your name from a site such as GoDaddy.com.
* Don’t respond online or in email to anyone who has said something bad about you on the Internet. This will only feed the fire.
* If someone has defamed you, check out the code of conduct regulations for the site where the comments were posted, and report the comments if they are a violation of the site’s abusive language policy. Copy the relevant regulation in your complaint.
* Create a blog and keep it updated. The goal is to make sure this new, accurate content rises to the top of a search of your name.
* If all else fails, hire an online-mangement service such as ReputationDefender to manage your reputation online.
I’m the grand champ of “tell the truth, never lie,” with anything that has to do with finding your true love online. Lying is just plain dumb and short-sighted. You’ll be found out, and then be branded a liar. It is not worth the risk, believe me. And it is becoming more risky all the time. Ways to find out whether your date is lying are becoming more and more available. Don’t let yourself be on the receiving end of some new lie detector service like the one described below.
The PeopleFinders Network Announces Lie Detector Applications for the iPhone
The PeopleFinders Network, the premier provider of online and mobile people search services, today announced the addition of Stud Or Dud and Are They Really Single iPhone applications and Websites to its portfolio of services. The applications arm singles with the only tool they need to find true love: their Apple iPhone.
Stud Or Dud and Are They Really Single provide today’s singles with quick, easy-to-view reports that can help them make important decisions about potential love interests. The reports are based on background information including age, marriage and divorce records, criminal history, business ownership, property ownership, evictions and more. With Stud Or Dud and Are They Really Single, people in the dating scene now have the tools they need to determine if Prince Charming is really Mr. Right.
“Stud Or Dud and Are They Really Single provide a new line of defense for people to protect themselves against those who misrepresent who they are, or who they aren’t,” said Bryce Lane, president and COO of PeopleFinders. “In the time it takes to order a beverage, people can easily run a comprehensive background check on their iPhone using our new apps. It’s a quick and easy way to weed out any white lies or half truths that sometimes pop up in conversation when you first meet someone.”
Stud Or Dud a.k.a. “Stud/Dud”
To conduct a Stud Or Dud search, users simply enter a name, age, date of birth, phone number, email address, city or state. The application quickly performs an extensive search through PeopleFinders’ proprietary database of public records and publicly available information, and formulates a comprehensive profile on the person of interest. Based on criteria such as stable address history, real estate ownership, business records, professional licenses, bankruptcies, criminal records and evictions, the application helps users determine whether the person might be a “stud” or “dud.”
Are They Really Single a.k.a. “Single?”
Are They Really Single, known as “Single?,” helps users confirm that a potential love interest is, in fact, single. To get started, users enter a name, age, date of birth, city or state. The service then searches through information pertaining to marriage, divorce, spousal and other domestic relationships, and creates a list of people who have or had long term relationships with the person. The service then compares the gender, age differences, last names (current and maiden) and other relevant data to find existing relatives or spouses, resulting in a relationship indicator report.
Pricing
Consumers can purchase each application for $0.99. This allows users to order an unlimited number of Stud Or Dud or Are They Really Single reports. Both services are also available online where users can purchase a single report for $9.95 or an annual membership with unlimited reports for $24.95.
Availability
Both Stud Or Dud and Are They Really Single are available online at http://www.studordud.com and http://www.aretheyreallysingle.com. Consumers can also download the applications to their iPhone by searching “Stud/Dud” and “Single?” in the iPhone App Store.
About The PeopleFinders Network
The PeopleFinders Network provides consumers and businesses with a collection of online and mobile people search services. Each service produces comprehensive reports based on the company’s propriety database of public records and publicly available information. The PeopleFinders Network is the only company that can search billions of records spanning the last 40 years, making search results more comprehensive and accurate than competitors. The PeopleFinders Network was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Sacramento, California. For more information, visit http://www.peoplefinders.com.
Wow. I’ve got Internet dating author’s Eric Fagan’s book “Cast Your Net” right on my bookshelf. It was one of the first books on Internet dating techniques to come out, and a good one. I still use some of his ideas. And now it seems that he has been arrested for a murder back in 1989. Preonline dating days, I suspect. But that he was both looking for love online, found it, and then wrote a book about it… and now THIS???
Calif. attorney pleads not guilty to 1989 murder
VICTORVILLE, Calif. — A Southern California attorney accused of killing his girlfriend’s daughter 20 years ago has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge.
Eric Fagan, who has written a book about Internet dating, also pleaded not guilty Friday to an attempted murder charge in San Bernardino County Superior Court.
He is charged with killing Cathy Paternoster and wounding her boyfriend Carl Fuerst outside their home in 1989. Fagan is being held on $2 million bail.
Authorities say Fagan shot the couple so his girlfriend Betty Paternoster, Cathy’s mother, could gain custody of her granddaughters.
Fagan is due in court November 2.
A bugaboo since the dawn of Internet dating has been how easy it is for people to stretch, fudge, or bend the truth—let’s be blunt: Lie. What folks have a hard time understanding is that whatever you put in your online dating profile will eventually be checked out in reality, on that first coffee date and beyond. Now, not only is it left to the wits of the individual to figure out if their date is lying or not. Resources are popping up all over the Net that allow you to check out the veracity of anybody. Google was the first biggie. Now it is routine to Google a date. Then background checks. And now, even your smartphone can do the job. See the article below for “The future is now.”
Is your date a ‘stud or dud?’ Ask your phone
By Doug Gross, CNN
If that dreamy blind date seems too good to be true, or the guy at the bar with a martini and a pencil-thin moustache looks a little sketchy, the truth about them—or at least some of it—could be found on your phone.
Designers at a pair of companies say their new applications for smartphones can tell you in real time whether someone is married or divorced, has a criminal record, has filed for bankruptcy or has any number of potential red flags in their past.
Using Google to search for information on a prospective romantic partner is standard practice for many single people in the digital age. But these new apps, combined with the growth of smartphones and wireless networks, now allow for quick background checks on the go, potentially before a date is even over.
The lighthearted iPhone apps Stud or Dud? and Are They Really Single?—from online information broker PeopleFinders—have far-reaching potential for convenient snooping, and not just on potential dates. Their makers say that in today’s society it’s increasingly important to check out people’s backstories.
“There are more and more strangers in people’s lives,” said Bryce Lane, president of the PeopleFinders Network. “There’s this digital awakening where people are in online communities—they’re meeting people they don’t have information on.
“We think that’s a problem. Yes, there are a lot of opportunities to meet great new people, but a lot of people are misrepresenting who they are.”
Meanwhile, another data company, Intelius, is offering a similar app called DateCheck for the Android and BlackBerry, with other platforms in the works.
Marketed with the slogan, “Look up before you hook up,” the application has such features as a Sleaze Detector, which checks for criminal offenses, and $$$, which uses property ownership records to gauge someone’s financial assets.
DateCheck offers some less-serious information, too. Its Interests feature trolls for information on educational background, social networking activities and professional history while Compatibility compares the subject’s horoscope and astrological sign with the user’s.
With Stud or Dud? the user punches in as much information as they have on their subject. Results can range from past addresses, real estate ownership and business and professional licenses to bankruptcies, evictions, criminal records and what the company calls “possible relationships.”
Are They Really Single? scans marriage and divorce records.
Accurate searches also require a date of birth, which may be tricky to extract tactfully from someone on a first or second date.
Lane said all information comes from public records that are available to anyone. But PeopleFinders, which has been collecting data for more than 20 years from sources all over the United States, pulls it all together into one database.
“We’re hoping they’re fun apps and they’re helping you learn about the people that you come into contact with,” Lane said. “They’re easy to use and we’re pretty hopeful that they’re going to be popular.”
Both PeopleFinders apps will only return results on people 18 or older.
Advocates of online privacy say they see some problems.
Paul Stephens, a director at consumer group Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the main danger lies in thinking you’ve dug up dirt on someone when you’ve actually found someone else.
“If you only have limited information about the individual, it’s going to be culling from various sources that may or may not [find] the person you’re trying to investigate,” said Stephens. “You need to take the information with a grain of salt.”
While the iPhone apps are aimed at dating, the information is bound to be used in other ways, he said.
“In the case of a person not dating somebody, it’s not that big a deal,” said Stephens. “But we’ve had cases where somebody might not get a job because of an inaccuracy [from online information brokers], so it does become a big deal.”
He said his group, based in San Diego, California, would like to see more organizations regulated by the same federal laws that monitor fair and accurate credit reporting.
Lane, whose PeopleFinders Web site offers detailed background checks on people for a fee, said he’s providing a public service by making legally available information more accessible.
“We feel very strongly that it’s educational, it’s informative, it’s actually helping the public,” he said. “It’s what you don’t know about people that could potentially hurt you.”
He said the applications clearly show when results include multiple people and tell users that the more detail they provide, the more likely they will get an exact match.
Lane said anyone who asks can be removed from the company’s database, but he suggested that most of those who do have something to hide.
“Criminals ... of course they don’t want this information out there,” he said.
In a column on technology Web site Gizmodo, editor Rosa Golijan described the PeopleFinders apps as fun and joked that it was depressing to find out how many of her ex-boyfriends were “duds.”
She also noted at least one apparent glitch, when Are They Really Single? told her that a former high school sweetheart might be married to his grandmother. (In fairness, the app did say it was unlikely.)
Golijan dismissed privacy concerns, saying most of the info on the apps could be found “from a few clever Google searches.”
“I don’t think there’s reason to panic about privacy due to this app,” she said. “The same information and searches have been available for a long time.”
Since Google and the Internet has made it so possible to learn everything and anything about anybody, lying seems pretty pointless these days. Remember when a blind date meant that you knew nothing about who you were meeting? Just as it is routine to do a search about who you are about to meet, it is a good idea to do the same searches on yourself to see what others might find out about you. And then be ready to explain it.
The Blind Date Meets the All-Seeing Internet
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Has it happened, finally? Has the Internet killed the blind date?
Given a first and last name, Google will often reveal where a person lives, how much they paid for their place, what they wrote in their last letter to the editor, possibly what kind of unsightly sandals they were photographed wearing at each stop on their last cross-country adventure.
And if their Facebook profile isn’t private, as Jeanna Brown, a 25-year-old single woman from Mitchellville, knows, “you can find out a whole lot.”
Web searches for background intel on prospective dates have been undertaken since the dawn of cyberspace, but only in the last few years—with the advent of Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and the like—have our online identities grown so rich that they routinely precede in-person introductions.
“First impressions have changed,” says Dan Schawbel, a 26-year-old personal branding consultant. “For me a first impression could be a Google search, a search on Facebook or MySpace. . . . You can do research beforehand and know whether or not you want to go through with the date.”
On more than one occasion, Brown has found out that men who represented themselves to be single were actually married, sometimes with children. The Web, she says, often reveals the discrepancy between “what they say they are and what they really are.”
Nancianne Sterling, a 32-year-old Arlington woman who runs TargetLove.com, a service that coaches clients through the Internet dating process, understands the temptation to scour the Web for information on a person in advance of a date with them. Before meeting her current boyfriend, she used to do it all the time, looking for résumés, school associations, blogs and anything else she could dig up.
But she advises clients to skip the preemptive search.
Scattered bits of online info color the way people look at their prospective dates—and not usually in a good way, she says. “We make determinations about somebody, whereas if we met them and we liked them, it wouldn’t be as big a deal.”
In this region in particular she often hears from clients who found that a potential date donated to a candidate of a political party different from their own and then decided it was game over.
“People come up with all these reasons why somebody’s not going to be good, before they meet them,” she says. “It’s almost like you’re looking for quantitative information to make a decision without emotion—and when you do that, you don’t allow yourself to feel for that person in the way that you might’ve if you hadn’t looked up any of the information.”
Plus, she adds, it kills the fun and mystery inherent in allowing a person to reveal themselves organically over time.
That’s not going to stop the author of DC Dating Adventures, a blog written by a 29-year-old District woman who asked that her name not be used because she blogs anonymously.
She once Googled the e-mail address of a guy who’d asked her out and found it registered on foot fetish message boards. A quick search saved her from having to find that out in person, she says.
And even as she uses the power of the Internet to research others, she’s tried to reduce her own Web trail. She made her Facebook profile private, deleted her entire MySpace page and regularly Googles herself to make sure nothing strange comes up.
That, Schawbel insists, is something everyone should be doing. Like grooming before an actual date, he says, people should be aware of how they’re presenting themselves online. “In person it’s much easier to control the way you’re perceived—people can get to know your personality. The Web sort of lacks that,” he says. “You need to put effort to the way you put stuff online.”
Brown agrees. A Web presence might not be the full measure of a person, but what’s up on a social networking site, she thinks, is “what you want to be seen. And if that’s how you choose to represent yourself, then that’s truly who you are.”
And despite Sterling’s entreaties, people like Brown aren’t going to resist the urge to do a quick pre-date Google search. “Why not? If the information is available, you might as well take advantage of it,” she says.
Be a Cyber Treater
How to be a Cyber Treater:
1. Look like your photo.
2. Tell the truth, especially about things a potential mate would want to know (relationship histories, children and families, disease or disabilities, or financial difficulties, for instance). If you have a secret that keeps you from dating, you need my article “Do you have a secret? How to tell your Sweetheart Your Worst”
3. Be polite, kind, responsible, and prompt in your communications. Kindness and courtesy cost nothing.
4. If you are not interested in pursuing contact, say so in an email. Be tactful. This process is hard enough on everyone. Rude and nasty need to take a hike.
5. Do not continue contact or date if you know that this person is not for you, just because you don’t know how to say “no” or don’t want to hurt the other’s feelings. It is cowardly, not kind. Exit graciously and free your date up to find someone who truly would appreciate them.
6. Take your share of the responsibility in keeping communications going and building a relationship. Dare to initiate contact, offer plans for meeting, and be ready to share expenses.
7. Show by your behavior that you treat the possible relationship as important. Groom and dress for meetings—neat and clean go a long way, as does freshly barbered or hair-styled. Show up when you said you would. Offer to help pay.
8. Try to relax and don’t push yourself in an attempt to impress. If you are interested in your date and ask questions, that will help you feel less in the spotlight.
9. Avoid alcohol and drugs, one drink at the most. You need your senses totally sharp so that you can decide whether you want to see this person again. And no one is more attractive drunk or high.
10. Expect and insist the same respect and honesty from your date as you are willing to provide for them. If your date misbehaves or you find that you have been lied to or misled, you are not obligated to see this person again or even endure the rest of the date.
Despite the “Trick or treat?” of Halloween, most of us want the treat part and would just as soon skip the trick. No one likes feeling tricked. If you’d like the option of a second date, improve your chances dramatically: make yourself into a treat.
P. S. If you are unsure if you are a “Trick or treat?” you could use my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” [ www.YourLoveTripPlanner.com ] It will take you through all the ways I could think of that singles undermine themselves in their search for love, and help you design your solutions. There is nothing like being ready when the right person shows up. “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” will get you readier than you can imagine.
Trick… Or Treat?
Anyone who has done any online dating or listened to other singles knows that dating horror stories abound. What you hear less of is the successes, and there are plenty, believe me. I’m one of them—I met my husband online. If people like me weren’t finding love online, Internet dating sites would have gone out of business years ago.
But if there is ever a time for horror, it’s Halloween. If you need a few lessons on how to scare the willies out of your cyber sweetheart, try some of these Trickster Tips. You won’t even need to yell “Boo!”
How to be a Cyber Trickster:
1. Lie—about your age, weight, height, or marital status.
2. Post an old or deceptive photo. (Most men have learned how far a “glamour shot” is from reality, but not all…)
3. Start writing/talking about sex in the second email or first phone call.
4. Neglect your personal hygiene. Do not have your teeth cleaned in recent memory. Or take a bath. Or clean your nails. Or have your hair cut. Or your gray roots dyed.
5. Treat your first date like a trip to the Laundromat. Dress accordingly.
6. Expect the worse and make it happen.
7. Take your time. Be late. Very late.
8. Forget your wallet.
9. Show up drunk or high, or proceed to get that way.
10. Say that you will call or email and then don’t.
Scary, huh? Well, if you’d like to more of a treat and less of a trick, avoid the boo-boos that so many others have made before you.
I made some money the other day from a little writing I did in response to a question posed on the Online Dating Newsletter: $5 for the best answer to an online dating dilemma. Here’s the predicament and then my answer. What would you have written?
http://www.onlinedatingnewsletter.com/youmakethecall/391/onlinedatehaskids.html/comment-page-1#comment-558” title=“From Online Dating Newsletter”>From Online Dating Newsletter:
You go out on a second date with someone you met online. The first date was great and the second date is confirming the chemistry you felt on the first date. However, midway through the second date you learn that the person you are with has two kids. It’s something that he/she said nothing about in his/her profile or on the first date. What do you do?
Not revealing that someone has children is a pretty blatant omission. Did they forget their parenthood, perhaps? More likely, they did not mention the kids in order to be more marketable. It’s possible to lie without saying anything — this is a lie by omission. The receiver of this information probably will feel tricked: they thought their date was childless and now it appears they are not. If your date will withhold such a big piece of information, what else could they be holding back? I’d first ask, “Why didn’t you tell me this beforehand?” and then listen very carefully to the answer. If the presence of children is a deal breaker for you, then you will know what to do. On the other hand, if you are neutral on the issue, then you will want to evaluate the whole of the situation, bearing in mind that this person withholds what you might need to know. Then again, children might be seen as a wonderful addition to the mix. But there is still the question of the withholding…
Now, just to try out your problem solving capabilities, how would you behave in the following dilemma, again from Online Dating Newsletter?
You’ve had great chemistry online and on the phone with a person you are about to meet for the first time at a coffee place. When your date arrives, he/she is wearing wrinkled clothes (not ugly, but definitely wrinkled) and a mismatched outfit. To top it off, he/she smells pretty bad. What do you do?
This one is a toughy. Send me your best solutions, and I’ll do at least as well as Online Dating Newsletter. Hmmm. What will the prize be, do you think?
You know, I have NEVER had a single tell me that they looked older than their birthdate would warrant. But lots tell me that they look younger, thinking that gives them some kind of special license to lie. People are incredibly good at deceiving themselves about their own marketability and who would actually agree to go out with them. Look below at some real life experiences of attempts to match young women with much older men, and young men with much older women.
The myth of Ashton
By Meredith Goldstein
Maureen Trickett, an event organizer for 8minuteDating.com, had an idea based on all the hype surrounding younger men dating older women. She decided last year to plan an event specifically for that demographic - a night of speed dating for women-of-a-certain-age and the boyish men who love them.
Trickett posted the event online, and women quickly signed up. But the men - they were slow to show interest. After only six men registered, the event was canceled.
“I need eight men,” Trickett explained. “If I don’t get eight, the system cancels the event.”
Trickett decided it was worth a second try. She set up another speed dating event for a recent Sunday afternoon at Tommy Doyle’s in Kendall Square, this time for older women and younger men, as well as older men and younger women. The room would be split in half - age-inappropriate on both sides.
But again she had a shortage of younger men. The “cougar event,” as Trickett was calling it, was canceled.
The older men/younger women event went on as planned, but only because Trickett waived the fee for a few women so that they’d sign up and the numbers would be even.
Despite what magazines and tabloids might suggest, Trickett said, despite all the talk of cougar culture, men still want to date younger women, and older women . . . well, their options are limited.
“If I do the age-appropriate [events,] I get tons of women,” Trickett said. “When I do younger men and older women, I get tons of women. When I do younger women older men, I get tons of older men and I struggle to get the women.”
Sure, Demi Moore broke a mold, and I know a few couples - family members and friends of friends - who represent the highly publicized demographic of older women and younger men, but the dating industry will tell you that for the most part that demographic is a myth. Men still seek younger women, especially as those men get older themselves.
“It’s the general rules, what happens when people hook up and go into a relationship,” said Mark Brooks, an online dating industry consultant who runs Online Personals Watch. “With men dating women, it tends to be up to six years younger but it will only be up to two years older.”
And why is that?
“Guys tend to have unrealistic expectations,” said Brooks, who bragged that he is one of the mythical Ashton Kutcher-types (he recently dated someone nine years older than him). “Most men are too busy looking at magazines and not busy enough looking in the mirror.”
HurryDate knows this. The company’s local events almost always skew age-inappropriate to ensure a good male turnout. Upcoming HurryDate events (which like 8minuteDating have twosomes pair off to chat for a few minutes at a time), call for older men and slightly younger women. Tonight, for instance, there are two simultaneous events at Charley’s on Newbury Street, one for 24-to-32-year-old men and 21-to-29-year-old women, and another for 35-to-45-year-old men and 30-to-40-year-old women.
“We have actually tried to capitalize on the cougar trend and it didn’t really work for us,” said Adele Testani, founder of HurryDate. “There really is so much in the media, but . . . people really want that more traditional arrangement.”
Those HurryDate age ranges mirror what most men ask for online. I asked Kate Bilenki, a spokeswoman for Plentyoffish.com, a dating website with 10 million members, if she’s ever seen a male profile call for an older woman. “In my experience, no, I can’t say that I have,” she said.
Bilenki adds another depressing tidbit: “For every 55-year old male, there are three 55-year-old women.”
At the recent 8minuteDating party that had older men hunting for younger women, Trickett joked that she wished she could have hosted the party with the folks who were actually enthusiastic about signing up - the older women and the older men. Maybe they would have shown up, discovered that the younger daters were no-shows, and been forced to go on the speed dates with one another - people their own age.
“I’d love to do that with them all, just to see their faces,” Trickett said.
Me too.
I’ve lost count now about how many stories I have noticed in the NYT’s “Vows” where the couple met online. If you are not a NYT reader, every Sunday they feature a couple with more than the standard wedding write-up. This couple met on Match.com in 2006, an unlikely match if there ever was one. How else would a physician in Vermont meet a musician in Brooklyn? One really bad no-no is that the musician lied about his age—by 10 years! Which made him 20 years older than her, rather than the 10 she was already concerned about. In his case, the ruse worked, but yick. NYT or not, lying about age or anything else is not a good idea if you are dating online. He tricked her into dating him, getting deeply involved before she found out the truth. Who likes to be tricked? He must have an incredible amount to offer to get beyond the lie.
March 15, 2009
Vows Rachel Steward and Peter Lord
By ERIC V. COPAGE
IT took an intervention of sorts to bring together Dr. Rachel Steward, a hyper-energetic physician from rural Vermont, and Peter Lord Moreland, a laid-back musician from Brooklyn, known professionally as Peter Lord.
The elements for their romance began to form early in spring 2006 in the Manhattan apartment of Dr. Steward’s friend Dr. Myrandele Damian-Coleman.
Dr. Damian-Coleman said she “thought Rachel deserved a nice guy” but was meeting all the wrong ones in the wrong places — namely St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan, where both are medical residents.
The two doctors and a male friendtalked about Dr. Steward’s bad choices. But when she went for the door, Dr. Damian-Coleman said she locked it and told Dr. Steward she wasn’t leaving until she joined an Internet dating service.
Dr. Steward, then 27, and for whom online dating carried the stench of desperation, remembered thinking, “Oh, my God, has it really come to this?” But with her exit blocked, Dr. Steward chose the path of least resistance and entered her profile on Match.com. Her first prospect was yet another co-worker, which caused Dr. Steward to tell her companions, “See, even online I’m not going to meet guys outside the hospital.”
Days later, Mr. Lord, a record producer and a founder of the Family Stand, a group that mixes pop, funk and R&B, also found himself motivated to meet people outside his usual circle. Mr. Lord, who has written or co-written songs including “Rush, Rush” and “The Promise of a New Day,” both performed by Paula Abdul, sent Dr. Steward a less-is-more greeting. It read: “A simple hello, and I liked your smile.”
Dr. Steward, an obstetrician and gynecologist, was at work when she clicked on Mr. Lord’s message and profile. She hesitated over his posted age (37) but was intrigued by the photo of him singing.
They began an e-mail exchange. Eventually Dr. Steward and Mr. Lord, who friends say is prone to hum or sing melodies as they occur to him, whether riding in a car or playing tennis, agreed to get together for a drink.
Dr. Steward is worldly, having traveled extensively and becoming fluent in Russian and Spanish, which contrasts with what she described as her “backwoods” upbringing. “We were constantly eating all of my pet cows, turkeys, goats, deer,” she said.
Their first date, a few days after their last e-mail exchange, began with Mr. Lord pulling up to Dr. Steward’s apartment in his black Mustang. As she approached the car, Mr. Lord thought, “She’s beautiful.” She slipped into the car beside Mr. Lord, whose face was obscured by a knitted cap, and was suddenly seized by a realization: “I didn’t know him at all.”
She took a deep breath as they drove to a SoHo bar for mojitos and “a very deep first date,” which included a discussion of Tolstoy’s essay on what is art but “no peck on the cheek goodnight,” she said. “Nothing.”
He recalled being drawn to her intelligence, and her lack of contact with his world was refreshing. “Lots of people who know pop culture are also caught up in its trendiness and superficiality,” he said.
On their next date, when they saw “Spring Awakening,” the musical, “there was some moment I remember resting my hand on his arm,” she said. Not “a desperation grasp,” she said, just comfortable.
Within weeks she had invited herself along on a gig that the Family Stand had in Amsterdam. Despite their growing affinity, it became clear during that trip that they are “extremely different people,” Dr. Steward said. “I was going for runs in the morning, getting up at 6 a.m., and he was sleeping and preparing for the show that night,” she said.
Before heading overseas, she learned their differences went beyond style: he was not 10, but 20 years older than she. “It slipped out when he had told me his sister was the same age as my mother, and that his sister was seven years older than he was,” she said. “I said, ‘That makes you 47.’ and he said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s really how old I am.’ ”
Dr. Steward, now 29, admitted, “If he hadn’t lied about his age I would never have agreed to go out with him.” Still, she said it took her a few weeks to become comfortable with the revelation. “If I am going to build a family with this man and spend the rest of my life with him, I want him to be there,” Dr. Steward said.
In the end, she said, “I was extremely comfortable and trusting of him.” She also appreciated “coming home from the hospital to find the house filled with artists creating.”
His proposal came last November. Mr. Lord, now 49, sang a song he had written especially for her as they rode in a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park.
They were wed on March 7 by the Rev. Joseph W. Tolton, a Pentecostal minister, before 98 guests on the yacht Cloud 9, docked at the New York Skyport Marina on the East River. After the ceremony, Dr. Steward’s sister, Aron, gave a toast in which she encouraged her new brother-in-law to “Dance with her. Always be a little bit better than her on your feet. Competition keeps her around and excited.”
Later that evening, as the yacht glided around Manhattan, the bridegroom, who had described himself as “old, fat and bald,” sought to do just that as he led his new wife around the dance floor with his energetic Salsa moves.
Lying and how to stop it in online dating is THE hot topic nowadays. Here are some suggestions from Online Dating Newsletter:
Telling Lies on Your Online Dating Profile
By Joe Tracy | Feb 20, 2009
Research shows that more than 50% of online daters tell lies in their online dating profile. This alarming number is starting to take a toll, with more and more people becoming fed up about others fibbing. There is an assumption when online dating that what you see is what you get. You expect a person to look like their picture when you meet them. If a person says their fit, you don’t expect them to be overweight. If a person says they are 6′0 you don’t expect them to be 5′8″.
It happens everywhere. And stopping it begins with you. Here are our two recommendations:
1) Be 100% honest in your profile and only post a photo that is 1-2 months old at most.
2) Wear an outfit on your date that you wore in one of your online dating photos. Between the time of the photo and your date don’t make any major changes to your appearance (i.e. new hairstyle, new hair color, etc.).
3) If you go out on a date with someone and see they have clearly lied, call them out on it. You don’t have to do it in a mean way. You can even do it as a question/conversation:
You: Didn’t you say you were 6 feet tall in your profile.
Date: Well to be honest, most people won’t date men under 5 feet 8 inches; so it’s the only way I can get a date.
You: And you don’t feel that is deceiving people?
When people aren’t held accountable for their actions (like lying) they find it easier to tell more lies.Also, when you go on a date, you expect the person you meet to be who he/she said they were and you expect them to look like their photo. Remember, if you’re caught in a lie on your first date, your date will wonder what other things you lie about. Don’t let this happen to you.
It’s not very often that women have a chance to get the real story from real guys about what is going on in their minds and lives in reference to women. Six Boston men recently sat down and talked. The women though had to be cautioned to be nice… See below the coverage in the Boston Herald, I underlined what I thought was particularly interesting.
‘Man Panel’ lets ladies grill guys about sex, dating and relationships
By Lauren Carter
Ladies who dream of putting men on the spot finally have a place to do just that.
“The Man Panel,” a monthly series started by Boston writer Laura Warrell, rounds up six men of various ages and relationship statuses and lets an audience full of women bombard them with questions.
Friday’s session, “The Sex: Let’s Talk About It,” promises to be X-rated. In terms of conversation, anyway.
But January’s theme was a bit tamer: online dating. Panelists included regular Joes (and Marcs and Toms) of the single and taken variety, as well as Sam Yagan, CEO of megadating Web site OKCupid.com.
Ladies of various ages feeling the pre-Valentine’s Day pressure rounded up their posses and came out to the United South End Settlements building to learn how to snag a dude in cyberspace.
For a $10 fee they got snacks, drinks, pre-panel old-school jams, a chance to win some choice giveaways and, of course, answers to their burning questions.
Apparently women aren’t the only ones in need of a little online love guidance. A healthy number of men turned out, including lifestyle dating coach Thomas Edwards, 23, of Boston. Edwards jumped in the online dating waters a few months ago for practical reasons.
“You get to meet people you wouldn’t normally meet on a regular basis, so it kind of improves your chances,” he said.
Before asking the panel some prepared questions, then opening the floor to the audience, Warrell put the crowd on notice: These panelists are not your boyfriends and they’re not representatives of the male species, so be nice.
The men talked of doing “crush research,” (also known as online stalking,) on their potential dates. One panelist, an engineer, revealed that he creates a spreadsheet giving his dates grades of As, Bs and Cs.
Then it was onto the Do’s and Don’ts of creating a profile: Don’t make your profile too short or too long. Avoid the disclaimer “I’m only trying this because my friends told me to.” Forget cliches such as “I love long walks on the beach.”
Other tips: Honesty is key, and so are recent pictures that don’t involve you being visibly intoxicated or hanging on the arm of some mystery man. Nix the pics of the sunset (without you in the picture) and don’t post the one of you in your bikini.
Remember to stay positive - you don’t want to seem like a downer with issues. Do provide hooks or nuggets of unique information that someone can easily respond to. Do provide a body shot, but not a weird angle (mirror pics, anyone?).
Yes, ladies, guys will Google you, and no, you shouldn’t lie about your age.
“If you’re going to put yourself out there in a certain way, be prepared to back it up in person,” said Jesse, 33, a single guy from Boston who works in sales and marketing.
There were no definitive answers, only opinions, humor and Heinekens. The feel was informal and friendly, but a little too short and structured to offer true insight. Many questions from the audience weren’t so much questions as long-winded recaps of a lifetime of online dating drama. With a few more hours of free-flowing conversation and beer, however, some of the mysteries of the universe may very well have been solved.
There’s momentum building to combat the bane of Internet dating: Those who lie on their profiles. While there are very good reasons never to lie—among them, you’ll make your future date angry, you’ll likely get dumped, and present lies can haunt you in the future, like in a divorce—the sites themselves may be moving towards stricter enforcement of the rules that you agree to when you join, whether you read the rules and find print or not. See the article below, underlines are mine.
Experts warn users to read website terms carefully before clicking ‘Accept’
Posted By James Keller, THE CANADIAN PRESS
VANCOUVER — It’s become a routine of signing up for e-mail, online dating services or social networking websites: casually clicking ‘‘Accept’’ below several pages of dense legalese that none of us ever read.
But these so-called terms-of-service agreements, which outline everything from who owns your Facebook photos to which court you’d need to fly to if you were sued, are binding contracts and shouldn’t be entered into lightly, say online privacy experts.
‘‘The public doesn’t have the time or the knowledge to work through these agreements,’’ said Michael Geist, who teaches Internet law at the University of Ottawa. ‘‘But yet they unquestionably set the framework for the rights that a user has if they use a website.’’
The issue was highlighted last month when Missouri mother Lori Drew was convicted after she created a phoney MySpace profile in a hoax that apparently drove a 13-year-old girl to suicide.
The 49-year-old was essentially found guilty of conspiring to violate MySpace’s terms-of-service agreement, which forbids fake names and harassment, even though her lawyer argued that no one actually reads them.
While it was an extraordinary case, it served as a reminder that running afoul of the sometimes-burdensome language inside such agreements could land users in trouble. And you might be surprised at what’s in them.
Users typically retain ownership of the pictures, videos and text they post, but they often grant the sites a broad licence to use the content in pretty much any way they want.
Facebook, MySpace and Google all require legal disputes — whether against users or the companies — to be fought in courts in California.
On Facebook and MySpace — as Drew found out at trial — lying about your identity is a no-no.
Anyone caught sending spam or other unwanted e-mail on MySpace could be charged US$50 per message.
Google users must be old enough to form a legal contract — 18 years old or higher in many places.
YouTube bans, among other things, ‘‘ninja assassin training’’ videos.
Adulterers need not sign up for dating sites Match.com and eHarmony, where the fine print requires users to be single.
Some websites and software downloads even include language that allows personal information to be sold or spyware to be installed on users’ computers. And in most cases, websites can change their agreements without notice, leaving it up to users to check back for updates.
While it would take a legal case to ultimately settle the issue, Geist says most Canadian provinces have e-commerce legislation that make online contracts binding.
‘‘It removes the doubt about what does it mean when you click, ‘I agree.’ It means you agree and it’s enforceable,’’ he says. ‘‘By and large, as long as it’s consistent with reasonable expectations and standard industry policy, the person creating the contract can expect it will be enforced.’’
While the courts would likely be reserved for extreme cases, most sites insist they are active at enforcing their terms-of-service agreements, suspending or deleting accounts of users that break the rules.
‘‘I think users should take the terms of use seriously whenever they join a site, and respect those terms in how they use the site,’’ says Simon Axten, a privacy officer for California-based Facebook.
‘‘I would guess that one of the dangers would probably be not having a clear enough understanding of what’s acceptable on the site, and what’s not, which we feel is really important in maintaining this safe, secure environment.’’
But it might be unrealistic to expect users to read every agreement they come across.
A study published last fall by researchers at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University looked at the amount of time it would take Internet users to read online privacy policies, which are often the same thing as terms-of-service agreements.
The study found it would take more than 200 hours per year — or about 30 minutes each day — for average Internet users to read the agreements for every website they visit, which in turn would cost the United States about $650 billion worth of lost time.
‘‘A lot of these agreements are not really designed for readability, most of them are just trying to make it all legal and are taking a CYA (cover your ass) approach,’’ says one of the study’s authors, Lorrie Cranor.
‘‘So if you go back later and say, ’How could you have done this to me, I didn’t know?’, the company can say, ‘Well, we said it in black and white, didn’t you read it?’’’
Boy oh boy, does Annie have it right here or what? Red flags galore, and this guy needs to pay attention!
Annie’s Mailbox®, November 5
Dear Annie: I am a widower and recently got engaged to “Dyann.” We are planning on getting married soon, but a few things have me puzzled.
My wife-to-be told me she had been married and divorced. She had a child living with her who I thought was her only child. I’d been seeing her for a few months when I found out she had three other children who were living with their father. When I asked her why she hadn’t mentioned them, she said she didn’t like talking about that part of her life.
When we applied for a marriage license, Dyann put down that she’d been married twice before, not the one time I knew about. I also noticed she hadn’t been truthful about her age. I haven’t said anything about these falsehoods, but I think they’re odd.
Are these red flags I should be concerned about? — Confused
Dear Confused: Yes. Your fiancee is a liar. There may be understandable reasons for her fabrications, but she owes it to you to be completely honest before you make a legal commitment. You are going to be her husband. If she refuses to answer all your questions truthfully and to your satisfaction, it means she is hiding something from the person she plans to share her life with. This is no way to start a marriage.
Hmmm. Now there might be real consequences to lying on your Internet dating profile. See this posting below by Chris Soghian about an interesting ruling that could effect Internet daters:
MySpace ruling could lead to jail for lying online daters
Posted by Chris Soghoian
The MySpace suicide case concluded last week, with the jury finding Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanor counts of gaining unauthorized access to the popular social-networking site.
While most of the press attention has been focused on the specifics of the case, the more important issue is the potential impact this could have on the Internet in general.
Web site terms of service, which end users universally ignore, suddenly have teeth: violating them is a federal hacking offense, punishable with jail time. The days of being able to freely lie on the Web could be coming to an end. This could mean serious trouble for people who lie about their age, weight, or marital status in their online dating profiles.
Bad cases and bad laws
The specifics of the Lori Drew case are messy and emotional. The important fact is that there is no federal cyberbullying statute, so the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles turned to a novel interpretation of existing computer hacking laws to try to punish the woman. The general idea is that in creating terms of service, a Web site owner specifies the rules of admission to the site. If someone violates any of those contractual terms, the “access” to the Web site is done without authorization, and is thus hacking.
Unfortunately for Internet users everywhere, a jury bought the theory last week and found Lori Drew guilty of three misdemeanor violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, punishable with up to one year in a federal prison and a $100,000 fine for each of the three counts.
Horrible terms of service
Until the Drew case is overturned, terms of service would appear to have the power of federal hacking laws to back them up, at least in cases where an ambitious federal prosecutor is interested in making a name for himself.
Back in March, I wrote about Google’s insane terms of service—which forbid the use of the site’s search engine, free e-mail service, or any of its other offerings by people under the age of 18. The site’s terms state:
“You may not use…Google’s products, software, services and Web sites…and may not accept the Terms if…you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Google.
Under the Department of Justice’s current interpretation of hacking laws, every high schooler who uses Google to do homework is in theory a criminal.
However, it gets even better than that. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation noted in its amicus brief to the court, the dating site Match.com prohibits married persons from using the Web site to cheat on their spouses:
“You must be at least eighteen (18) years of age and single or separated from your spouse to register as a member of Match.com or use the Website.”
Dating site eHarmony takes this even further, forbidding its users from lying in their online profiles:
“You will not provide inaccurate, misleading or false information to eHarmony or to any other user. If information provided to eHarmony or another user subsequently becomes inaccurate, misleading or false, you will promptly notify eHarmony of such change.
All those people who have lied about their age or weight in an eHarmony profile would now appear to be computer hackers. Oh, and if you gain 30 pounds after posting your profile and don’t promptly update your profile—yep, jail for you.
You wouldn’t believe how many men AND women tell me they are “Young looking and acting” for their age, and use that to justify lying about how old they are on their dating profile. Nobody every tells me they look old for their age (much as I liked to hear that when I was 13). You are as old as you are—and so what? Age is a fact, and your date is bound to find out, one way or another. Do you really want to be found out as a liar on the very first date? We usually think of men going unrealistically younger in partner choice. Now women are on the bandwagon. See below.
Older woman, younger man: A match made in cyberspace
By Abigail Trafford
What do older women want?
Younger men.
Online dating services say women of a certain age want the white-haired gent, as long as he’s not too old. Women ages 50 and older almost always tell eHarmony.com that they want a younger man - 10, 15 years younger, sometimes more. And on Match.com, a 50-year-old woman is typically seeking a man who is 48.
“This is going to surprise you,” says Craig Wax, senior vice president and general manager of Match.com North America. “It’s the woman who is going for the younger guy.”
Women have come a long way. Going for the younger guy is perhaps yet another triumph for the women’s movement, which has broken down barriers between the sexes and pushed for equal opportunity in all spheres of life. The change is buttressed by the new biology of aging. Women, according to calculations based on mortality risk, are five years “younger” than men the same age. The 65-year-old woman is the biological equivalent of a 60-year-old man. So it’s sensible, not just fanciful, for a woman to look for a younger guy.
But there’s a problem: The men don’t get it. They are stuck in the old biology of aging. They, too, are looking for younger partners. On eHarmony.com, men 50 and older are seeking women who are six to 26 years younger. On Match.com, the average 56-year-old man is looking for a 54-year-old woman. Seems reasonable, but by the time he reaches 70, he wants a 58-year-old woman.
Gender equality in the search for younger partners is creating a mating gap in gray love. A 70-year-old woman is looking for a 66-year-old man. The 65-year-old man is looking for the 54-year-old woman. And a 56-year-old woman is looking for a man who is 46! How does anybody hook up in later life with these wide differences in what men and women want?
Fortunately, age is not the most important issue in a relationship. At eHarmony, members are matched according to psychological profile and personality characteristics. What are your values? Are you an extrovert? Are you open to new experiences, or do you prefer to stick with what you know?
“The process of developing a successful relationship is the same whether someone is in the 20s or 80s. People do better if they are matched with those who are similar to them on important dimensions,” says psychologist Galen Buckwalter, chief scientist at eHarmony.com. “Age, in and of itself, is not a factor in compatibility.”
When two people find common ground in their values, interests and personality traits, “there is less need to negotiate differences. A lot less emotional wear and tear,” Buckwalter says. There’s “an implicit level of understanding.”
There is also a difference in what people say they want and what they end up finding. On eHarmony, members are encouraged to report when they are dating seriously or are getting married. Of those who share their success stories, nearly one in four involves a partner age 50 or older.
For women with such success stories, the typical age gap between them and their new partner is plus or minus four years, whether they’re in their 40s, 50s, 60s or 70s. For men, the gap inches upward from plus or minus four years at age 40 to plus or minus six years at age 60. That’s a narrower range than what members list as their initial preference.
“Everyone would like to find someone smarter, better-looking, wealthier ... and sure, younger. Why wouldn’t you start there?” says Wax of Match.com. But once you see who is out there, “you’re willing to make a number of different trade-offs. In the end, it doesn’t matter what a person’s age is. It matters how well they connect.”
Newlyweds Ruth Johnson-Mullis, 85, and Leonard Mullis, nearly 87, of Littleton, Colo., met on Match.com. Both had been widowed. Each said they weren’t interested in marriage but wanted “someone to have dinner with,” Johnson-Mullis says. She had a hard time at first with online dating: She e-mailed eight or 10 men and never got a reply. They were all looking for women in their 60s and 70s, she says. “Who wants an 84-year-old woman?”
“I did,” Mullis says. He had to drive up into the mountains to meet her. There were no restaurants, so she made him lunch. “From that point on, I was a dead duck,” he says. After a three-month courtship, they married. “At my age, I don’t believe in long engagements. No use fooling around.”
They have much in common. Both grew up in Florida. They lived through World War II. Both are in good health and go to exercise class twice a week. “We were raised in the same manner. We were raised in the same era. We have so much to talk about,” Johnson-Mullis says. And both had long first marriages.
Experience is an asset in late-life mating. As Johnson-Mullis says, “If a man stays with a woman for 59 years, he’s not going to run away from me if I’m not perfect.”
This is a wonderful set of five online dating commandments. It’s just a tiny bit tongue and cheek, but all right on. Y’all should memorize these rules:
The 5 Ultimate Rules of Online Dating by Tasha Cunningham
According to Tasha Cunningham of dontdatehimgirl.com, there are five-must-follow rules to follow when online dating:
1. Thou shalt not use thy real name, at first. Don’t give out any of your personal information when you connect with someone online. Remember, there are thousands of predators lurking online looking to gain a woman’s trust and become a part of her life to later drain her bank account or worse. Don’t let this be you!
2. Thou shalt meet your online date for the first time in a public place. Remember, a guy you meet online may seem like Mr. Perfect and any girl would want to invite Mr. Perfect home, but remember, you haven’t confirmed that your online love is truly Mr. Perfect yet. That’s a process that’s going to take time, so make sure you meet in a public place for your first date.
3. Thou shalt be aware of fake dating profiles. Remember when your mom told you that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is? Well, it goes for everything including dating profiles. If a man online seems to have every single thing you’re looking for, beware. Remember, the Internet is a place where people can hide behind usernames and passwords and Mr. Perfect2008 that’s caught your eye online may really be Mr.SweetheartSwindler2008.
4. Thou shalt not have a virtual online affair if you’re in a real-life relationship. Here’s the test, if you’ve got a significant other and kids waiting for you at home when you leave work every day, you should not be chatting about sex or other romantic topics with someone online. In essence, you’re having a cyber-affair, so don’t do it.
5. Thou shalt not create an online dating profile if thou art married, engaged, living with someone or in a relationship where you refer to the other person as your boyfriend or girlfriend. Don’t use the Internet to troll for an affair. If you’re unhappy in your relationship, end it with dignity instead of engaging in the deceit of infidelity.
- Tasha Cunningham
Here’s a portion of an article from the Irish press about the advantages of telling the truth:
Is honesty always the best policy?
By Brenda Woods
Tuesday July 29 2008
Little white lies, big fat fibs or down right dirty whoppers: Apparently, they are all ways of trying to make a good impression. But does lying ever really work?
Be honest—when your friend asks you: “Does my bum look big in this?” do you answer honestly? No? Ever lied about your age? Ever told the odd fib or even a huge whopper to impress your boyfriend, or your boss? According to the experts it seems us Irish are becoming experts in the art of Impression Management, whether we realise it or not.
That’s when we use a lie to embellish the truth about ourselves. Whether you have ever shaved the odd two years from your age for a new boyfriend, upped your grades on your CV for a potential boss, or claimed to be young, free and single while the partner was at home, it’s all IM.
But instead of winning friends and influencing people, we are in fact pushing away success and the chance of finding love, say the experts. The US professionals claim the way to go is to ‘fess up, spill the beans and reveal as much about yourself as you possibly can. That way, more people will listen to you, you will make friends for being honest, and ultimately you’ll be happy.
A recent US study by Gibbs, Ellison and Heino looked at the success of members of an internet dating service. They were expecting lots of fibs in an environment where most daters could have been tempted to make up a new identity online by retouching their photos and adding the odd untruth. But surprisingly, they found that the more people disclosed about themselves, the more dating success they had.
Those who won at online dating tended to use large amounts of positive self-disclosure, along with an openness about the type of person they were looking for.
The study found that generally it’s better to be open and honest about yourself. And it’s important to make your intentions clear.
They say people who disclose intimate secrets tend to be more liked than those who don’t.
But it seems some of us are still happy to do a bit of Impression Management. We still want to change the image we put out for other people.
It really adds up to the one thing: lying. However, the experts also say that it is the case that people want to avoid being hurt. We’d rather make up a lie, than reveal who we really are.
“The reason people lie in the first place is to avoid pain,” says Ellen Shilling, Dublin life coach. “It’s another way people don’t want to admit a truth to themselves.
“There are different levels of lie. Everybody does it, but people end up just lying to themselves rather than anybody else in particular.
“You have the lying about the age thing, but then there are the cheating lies and deceptions, where people can be caught up in a whole web of lies.”
Ellen claims most women feel forced to lie because of distorted female images in the media, and peer pressure.
They try to package themselves into the right saleable product.
“Society is telling people, in particular women, that they have to be a size 0, they have to get married, have a husband and the 2.4 children. If you don’t live up to that, some women feel that they have not achieved success and many will do anything to conform and fit in.”
How To Make A Good Impression
Be yourself.
Be secure about your own self-image.
Tell the truth.
Talk about yourself a lot.
State what you want.
Explain how you see yourself getting this.
Now, talk about an up-front and honest profile: He described himself honestly as a smoker with 11 children (ages 8 to 29) from two previous marriages. And he hadn’t cut his hair in 13 years. And he STILL got the girl.
Elopement wraps up romance with a bow
By Joe Blundo
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
BERLIN, Ohio—Keeping marriage plans secret isn’t easy when the bride and groom have 15 inquisitive offspring between them.
Arlene Essinger and Kenny Link, both 49, got it done by eloping this month to a cabin in Amish country.
She wore a cranberry-colored dress and a wreath of roses in her hair. He wore his “dress sneakers.” A minister they’d met just minutes before pronounced them husband and wife, they kissed, and that was that.
It was a relief, the new Mrs. Link said.
“I don’t have to dance around questions my family keeps asking me.”
Their trip to Berlin, about 90 miles northeast of Columbus in Holmes County, had raised plenty of suspicions among relatives.
The Links confirmed them when they broke the news of their marriage to about 30 gathered for a cookout the weekend after the elopement.
“They thought it was an engagement party,” Mrs. Link said. “A couple of family thought it was going to be a wedding.
“So, after a while, everybody got over the initial shock, and I think we all had a good time.”
The couple’s elopement marked the culmination of a three-year romance that began online.
Mr. Link, a Mechanicsburg factory worker who believes in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get approach, ran a Yahoo! personal ad that softened no edges: He described himself honestly as a smoker with 11 children (ages 8 to 29) from two previous marriages.
The ad included a photo showing his hair, which hadn’t been cut in 13 years.
A mother of four (ages 16 to 30) who was living in Marysville, Essinger had recently divorced after 27 years of marriage. She initially considered Mr. Link more of an adviser than a romantic interest.
They chatted online for three months, with him schooling her on the Internet dating scene. His savvy and helpfulness impressed her.
“He’s a very intelligent man,” she said.
They met in person and began dating. Eventually, he cut his hair, although whose idea that was remains a he-said/she-said issue.
Mr. Link, an Air Force veteran, calls himself a “radical conservative”; he’s both anti-war and anti-tax. His new wife said she doesn’t agree with all of his views but she’s learning a lot.
She isn’t a person with strong political opinions or a penchant for speaking out.
They have other things in common, though.
Mr. Link had adopted four children; Essinger, two. He plays the piano; she’s a part-time music director at Hoge Memorial Presbyterian Church in Columbus. She wanted the freedom to pursue her goals; he encouraged her.
Mr. Link isn’t big on formality: He once wore a cardboard tie to a relative’s wedding. So an elopement suited him, although he insisted that the religious ceremony be preceded by a private commitment at which no one else would be present.
“There’s a plethora of symbols in our lives that mean nothing,” he said. “I don’t require a ceremony, but I will acquiesce if that’s what Arlene wants.”
He not only acquiesced but also made her a headpiece of roses and pipe cleaners for the service. And he hummed Wedding March as she made her bridal walk from the side door of their rented cabin to a patio where the minister waited.
The Rev. David Stutzman of Sugarcreek conducted a simple service in which he compared marriage to wine:
“My prayer for both of you is: Just like good wine that’s been sealed and tastes better with age, so will your marriage be.”
They exchanged rings, and the union became official.
“I’m not singing the recessional,” Mr. Link joked afterward.
The couple have different goals: Mr. Link, a Cleveland native, wants to retire from his job in two years and spend one baseball season as an usher at Indians games; then he wants to do service work, perhaps in a hospital. Mrs. Link, who recently completed a vocal-music degree at Capital University in Bexley with a minor in journalism, would like to work as a copy editor.
They’ve promised each other that in marriage they will continue the approach Mr. Link took in his personal ad: Be honest and speak plainly.
Which explains his cleanshaven face.
She asked him to remove a few days’ worth of stubble before the wedding.
“And I believe I said it plainly.”
Here’s a very interesting survey by a British dating site about what singles like about. A whopping 29% lied about the level of their debt! I rarely hear about debt as being of concern. Most folks get angry about lies that concern looks, like old photos or guys who say they are taller than they are. Maybe Brits worry less about being over 6 feet—this survey says only 5% lie about height anyway. What’s the purpose of a lie about height, when anyone can tell on a first meeting? Come to think of it, debt likely is easier to hide.
BeNaughty.com Survey Exposes Britain’s Top Fibs
LONDON—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Britain’s top fibs exposed in BeNaughty.com survey.
1. Debt (29%)
2. Smoking/drinking (28%)
3. Weight (24%)
4. Number of sexual partners (14%)
5. Age (13%)
6. Salary (11%)
7. Fidelity (9%)
8. Hobbies (8%)
9. Job/employment (8%)
10. Education/qualifications (7%)
11. Travel experience (5%)
12. Height (5%)
13. Where you live (5%)
14. Physical endowments (4%)
The number one thing we lie about in the UK is our own personal level of debt, according to a new national survey into our biggest fibs.
The Truth Be Told survey, commissioned by online dating site http://www.benaughty.com, revealed that nearly a third (29%) of the 1,028 people between 16 and 64 that were interviewed said they lied about how much money they owe*.
Running a close second (28%) of the things people lied most about was how much we drink and smoke.
And third in the benaughty.com survey, with just under a quarter of votes (24%), were lies about how much we weigh.
Number of sexual partners comes fourth in the list (14%), while a person’s age is fifth (13%).
Surprisingly, the thing both men and women lied about least was the size of their physical endowments.
Men versus Women – who are the biggest liars?
While just one in seven men lie about their weight, the figure leaps to more than one in three women.
The benaughty.com survey also reveals women lie slightly more than men when it comes to debt (30% compared to 28%), and are similar when lying about their smoking and drinking habits (28% and 27%).
Max Polyakov, EasyDate Ltd chief operating officer, said: “I admit I was surprised by the results of our survey because to be honest I expected most people to say they lied about their age or their educational qualifications.
“People must feel pretty ashamed of their financial situation or how much they drink or smoke if they feel the need to lie about it. These are really important things and honesty between people is really very important for relationships to survive and develop.”
http://www.benaughty.com will offer its website users the opportunity to compare themselves against the survey results, to see how they compare with the various national and regional trends.
Notes to editors
*Research conducted by TNS OnLineBus among 1,028 GB adults aged 16-64.
Interviewing was by CAWI over the internet between 24 and 26 June 2008.
Anyone who reads my blog or newsletter *eMAIL to eMATE* knows that I am constantly harping about safety. While I don’t think scamming is as much of a problem as most folks think, still, you are the only one who can protect you. Being educated is the first line of defense. Reading what I have posted here on this blog is a great place to start your education. I’ve also started developing products to help you get informed, the distilled, “nitty-gritty” about scamming (and lying!) in cheap ($1 each) easy to digest bites: My One Page $1 Wonders.
I’ve also located a great resource for singles concerned about their safety: AssetSearchPros.com Asset Search Pros has offered an excellent deal for my Find-a-Sweetheart readers and clients: A big 25% discount on all their search packages! Yea! We like deals!
To get you to make yourself just that much safer, all you have to do to take advantage of AssetSearchPros.com’s offer is to buy one or more of my One Page $1 Wonders. After your purchase, you’ll get a followup email with a promotional code that you will use on the AssetSearchPros.com’s site for your selections there. Is that a deal or what?
AssetSearchPros sent me the following description about background searches that will help you figure out if they are something you can use. You might want to think about having a search done on yourself. After all, someone you are dating could easily do a search on YOU. Shouldn’t you be aware of what might come up?
The Value of a Dating Background Check
Online dating is the fastest growing method for singles who are looking for compatible partners. Whether a person is in their 20’s and just looking for someone to “hang out with” or is older and seeks a “serious relationship”, online dating is the preferred method of millions of people.
Companies such as Match.com, eHarmony, and PlentyofFish provide information on millions of profiles, and sustain business by enrolling hundreds of thousands of new members every year. While it is exciting to find someone whose profile appears compatible with yours, remember that all information is provided by the member themselves. Each member understandably portrays themselves in the best light. Who hasn’t wanted to shave a few pounds of extra weight off of their waistline or deduct a year or two from their actual age? Doesn’t every 41 year old have a better chance of meeting “Mr. Right” when they say that they are 39?
While it is never a good idea to lie when you are looking to build a long-term, trusting relationship, some convenient fudging might be excusable, like height and weight. But perverts, predators, rapists and murders have equal access to computers and dating sites. While online dating is “safe” and impersonal while you are behind a computer and emailing someone, there comes the time when you actually meet your online partner. How do you know that they are in reality who they claim to be?
A Dating Background Check is an inexpensive method to verify information that you have received. While it can seem minor that someone tries to cover over a few gray hairs or denies owning a herd of cats, information regarding current marital status, financial and legal problems are important, and will be revealed by having a Background Check from a service provider such as Asset Search Pros.
Here are some frequently asked questions and recommendations from our clients.
Q: I just met my date for the first time. We had a cup of coffee. When we discussed jobs and families, he told me that he had just moved to the area and didn’t really know anyone. How do I know he was telling me the truth?
A: We would recommend our Bronze Peace of Mind background check package. It is priced at less than $20 and will verify the name, and possible aliases, as well as current and previous addresses.
Q: I am in my fifties and am just starting to try to meet someone after my spouse died. What kind of things should I be wary of?
A: You need to be protect your personal finances. You may be self-sufficient in the area of money, but in today’s society, many people have had financial reversals. Some of these people are victims and some are guilty of fraud. You don’t want yourself and your children to lose everything to someone who has bankruptcies or court ordered judgments against them. If you should get married, remember, you could become liable for their debts. We recommend our Silver Peace of Mind background check for only $39. It is a small price to pay to discover any public information financial records including bankruptcies, tax liens and property ownership. This package also includes the name and address information provided in the Bronze package.
Q: I am a single mom with two teenage daughters. I just met the most wonderful man. He told me he has children, but doesn’t have much contact with them. How can I know that he is on the up and up?
A: Although it is exciting to meet someone, our children’s safety must be our major priority. Asset Search Pros has access to nationwide criminal databases. We specialize in obtaining names of convicted sex offenders. Our Golden Peace of Mind background check is available for $59 and includes searches for criminals and sex offenders. The package also includes the financials and other information provided in the Bronze and Silver packages.
Q: The person that I have been dating says he has never been married before. He always avoids looking me in the eyes when he talks about his past. He makes good money, but never seems to pay for his share of the expenses on our dates. Things just seem fishy. Any recommendations?
A: Many of us have things in our past that we are not proud of and are reluctant to reveal. Still, it is better to learn as much as you can about someone before a major surprise comes at you unexpectedly. There could be financial problems or a past criminal conviction. He could have been married before and the reason he is not paying for your dates is the fact that he has court-ordered child support garnishments. There are steps you can take to verify the information he provided. One of the simplest, most economical and accurate methods is to purchase our Platinum Peace of Mind dating background check. It is only $89 and will provide information for: Nationwide criminal convictions, sex offender search, previous marriages, maiden name, bankruptcies, tax liens, civil judgments, possible aliases, extensive address history, property ownership and property values, vehicle ownership, professional licenses, and business ownerships.
All of these packages are available by going to http://www.assetsearchpros.com and clicking on the button “Dating Background”. Just click on Dating Background Check packages and you will see the description of each package. There is a convenient shopping cart for your benefit.
In Internet dating, the caveat is always “Buyer beware!” and here is another good example of why. I haven’t the vaguest idea why any millionaire would list on a dating site like MillionaireMatch.com, or why anyone would believe the riches story. But clearly folks do—believe, I mean. Remember the other adage, “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.” Underlines below are mine.
Homeless man gets more than $100,000 from online conquests
By Sofia Diogo Mateus
A homeless man posing as a millionaire was arrested for scamming 13 women for more than $100,000.
Through the website MillionaireMatch.com, Paul Kruger, 50, met and convinced eight women that he was a Grammy-nominated music mogul who had worked with Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones, amongst others.
He met the other five alleged victims through one of the women he met on the website.
Later he said needed money for a CD and DVD manufacturing investment, for which the women sent him a total $102,000.
One of the victims was even shown a false stock reports, the court heard, since the operation apparently involved group investment in stock options.
“He did have a good story,” said one victim, a sales manager in Costa Mesa, Calif., who records show gave him $10,000.
The website, which describes itself as the “number one dating site for succesful singles and admirers”, is free and unregulated and anyone can join and claim to be a millionaire, simply by saying that they win $150,000 or more annually.
Steve Kasper, the marketing vice president of Successfulmatch.com, the parent company of MillionaireMatch.com, both bases in Toronto, said it was up to users to self-police.
“We do tell all of our members on all of our sites that you have to take precautions when you’re on the Internet and looking at people that you’re going to meet,” he said.
Charges were filed in Souderton, Pennsylvania, because that is where he told women to send him money; it is also the address of the home of his ex-wife, authorities said.
The money was used to fuel his gambling addiction, since he had various VIP casino accounts, authorities said.
Mr Krueger declined to comment to reporters as he was arraigned on charges of theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, deceptive or fraudulent business practices and Pennsylvania Securities Act violations.
The Californian woman said she was willing to be a witness but that the experience had not put her off online dating.
“You have to be careful whereever you go,” said the woman, who is in her 30s. “You could get scammed meeting someone at a bar. It doesn’t matter. You just have to do your due diligence, and I didn’t.”
The previous blog posting here about stealing profiles got me to do a little sleuthing around to find out who Hugh Gallagher, the author of the most copied essay, really is. This essay got Hugh into NYU, Wikipedia, won him Scholastic Press, Inc.‘s national writing contest in 1990, and started him on a career as a humorist. All from a college application. See this masterpiece below, in its entirety. But PS, don’t copy it!
Hugh Gallagher’s ‘College Essay’
3A. ESSAY: IN ORDER FOR THE ADMISSIONS STAFF OF OUR COLLEGE TO GET TO KNOW YOU, THE APPLICANT, BETTER, WE ASK THAT YOU ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION:
ARE THERE ANY SIGNIFICANT EXPERIENCES YOU HAVE HAD, OR ACCOMPLISHMENTS YOU HAVE REALIZED, THAT HAVE HELPED TO DEFINE YOU AS A PERSON?
I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I have been known to remodel train stations on my lunch breaks, making them more efficient in the area of heat retention. I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees, I write award-winning operas, I manage time efficiently. Occasionally, I tread water for three days in a row.
I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing, I can pilot bicycles up severe inclines with unflagging speed, and I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru.
Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets, I am the subject of numerous documentaries. When I’m bored, I build large suspension bridges in my yard. I enjoy urban hang gliding. On Wednesdays, after school, I repair electrical appliances free of charge.
I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don’t perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I have been caller number nine and have won the weekend passes. Last summer I toured New Jersey with a traveling centrifugal-force demonstration. I bat 400. My deft floral arrangements have earned me fame in international botany circles. Children trust me.
I can hurl tennis rackets at small moving objects with deadly accuracy. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket. I have performed several covert operations for the CIA. I sleep once a week; when I do sleep, I sleep in a chair. While on vacation in Canada, I successfully negotiated with a group of terrorists who had seized a small bakery. The laws of physics do not apply to me.
I balance, I weave, I dodge, I frolic, and my bills are all paid. On weekends, to let off steam, I participate in full-contact origami. Years ago I discovered the meaning of life but forgot to write it down. I have made extraordinary four course meals using only a mouli and a toaster oven. I breed prizewinning clams. I have won bullfights in San Juan, cliff-diving competitions in Sri Lanka, and spelling bees at the Kremlin. I have played Hamlet, I have performed open-heart surgery, and I have spoken with Elvis.
But I have not yet gone to college.
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