Singles looking for love online have turned internet dating into a “Web” of lies!
More than half of people using internet dating sites admit to telling fibs on their profiles, a new study claims.
Pew Research says in its new “Internet & American Life Project” that 54 percent of online daters have “seriously misrepresented” themselves on dating websites — fibbing about height, income and age.
That’s because some dishonestly has always been part of dating, said Dan Slater, an author and relationship expert.
“Life is a series of small and large lies—and a lot of the misrepresentation is in the eye of the beholder,” he said.
Singles tend to tell white lies about whatever they can get away with in order to seem more attractive, he said.
“If I meet a woman in a bar I obviously can’t lie about my height or weight or hairline. But my internship suddenly becomes a promising middle management job,” he said.
He added some online daters don’t actually intend to lie – they may actually truly believe they still look the same as they did in a photo from 2005.
The study also notes people dating online are often disappointed, in part because they tend to create “a fantasy” about another person that doesn’t pan out in real life.
Women are more likely than men to have had a bad experience dating online with roughly 42% of female online daters claiming they were unsatisfied.
Even so, 59% of people surveyed said online dating is a good way to meet people, according to the study.
Pew Center researchers compiled the survey data by conducting phone interviews with 2,252 people, ages 18 years old and up, during April and May 2013.