Do You Find More Disappointment When Meeting Singles Online?

Sep 15, 2009 No Comments »

A recent comment suggested that online dating sites, everyone’s favourite place for meeting singles, are full of liars and disappointments. And by suggested, I mean flat out stated. Now that’s a pretty harsh thing to say about something that exists within the utopia we call the World Wide Web, but is it true? Is it more likely that meeting singles online will result in more disappointments and introduce you to more lies?

It’s undoubtedly true that we all seem to encounter more of those types of stories from friends coming back from a date with a guy or gal they’d met on the net, but it’s also likely that those friends simply have more dates that originate on the net. Couldn’t it be that the frequency of the dating that the net allows is leading us to perceive the bad apples as being more plentiful?

Okay, so that’s probably wishful thinking. Why? Because, let’s be honest, the web gives us way more opportunities to lie. It gives us way more chances to exaggerate reality and build someone’s hopes. More than any of that, when you meet someone in person they have little reason to mislead you about anything, except when they are planning to woo you from the start.

What’s the first disappointment that we all have when meeting someone off the net? And don’t lie. Did you say the person’s appearance? Good, one point for you. That’s where most people seem to get letdown because the fact is, no one wants to post photos that make them look bad and instead want to post photos that are as flattering as possible, and it doesn’t take photoshop or a ten year old picture to make someone look better than than normally do; all it takes is the right light, the right angle and, perhaps, the right crop.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve met some people from the net who looked nothing like their photos—a lot of people who looked nothing like their photos—and in almost every case it was for the worse. That’s not to say I wouldn’t have found them attractive in any other circumstance, but that still doesn’t make up for the letdown. Incidentally, I’m not even going to pretend my photos aren’t probably just as misleading as all the rest, though I do try to emulate the angles and lighting of the photographs in real life as much as possible.

As for the other types of lies, there are many. Obviously there are the big ones like “I’m single” or “I’m a doctor,” but there are little ones too. These are things like “I work out,” “I like to dance,” “and “I’m always reading new books.” In real life meetings there’s little opportunity to tell such lies, or at least little chances of getting away with them. On the net though we want to look as good as possible and so we’re willing to say we work out when really we just have an unused gym membership, and we’re willing to say we like to dance when really we just like to watch people dance and maybe join in for a slow song.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m not guilty of some of those lies, but I’m not sure that anyone ever noticed or cared that I don’t actually like to dance. How about you? What kind of disappointments do you experience the most with online dating, and do you think you’re guilty of any of those little crimes yourself? Share your thoughts by simply adding a comment below.

Related posts:

1. Alternative Ways For Meeting Singles Online
2. When Meeting Someone New Goes Bad
3. Blogging Down the Road to Meeting Singles
4. How Can You Standout From Other Singles?
5. Oh the Dumb Things We Say When Meeting Singles