Dating sites, where users are free to shed pounds, up salaries and shave off years to impress prospective mates, seem like the perfect place to lie. Now a study that compared online profiles with real life has found that most daters do fib, but only in moderation.
鈥淧eople were lying strategically. They told small lies that improved how they looked, but not so large that they would get busted if the daters met,鈥� says Jeff Hancock of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. His team weighed and measured 40 male and 40 female New York City daters, noted the age on their driver鈥檚 licences and compared the results with their online profiles.
Nearly 9 out of 10 participants lied at least once, with weight the most lied-about trait and age the least. There were also gender differences: every woman who lied about her weight said she was lighter than she was, while most men who lied about height made themselves taller. The heavier the women were, and the shorter the men, the more likely they were to tell fibs.
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But while lies were frequent, the vast majority were unlikely to be uncovered in face-to-face meetings. The average difference between a profile and the reality was a mere 6 pounds in weight, one-third of an inch in height and just 5 months in age.
It seems that online dating sites get their bad rap from a few really big lies, which are most likely to get talked about. The worst whoppers in Hancock鈥檚 survey were 3 inches in height, 35 pounds in weight and 11 years in age. 鈥淭he big ones are much more memorable,鈥� he says.
