According to the latest surveys, 11% of Americans say they have
looked online for love. But that doesn’t mean that daters are happy with
what they find.
In the latest Pew Research Center’s online-dating and relationships
poll — the group’s first look at digital dating since its last survey in
2005 — people’s mistrust about their online partners emerged as their
biggest
“One guy I went on a date with used pictures of himself that were
from about seven years ago,” Maggie Klimentova, a New Yorker who used
(and eventually met her boyfriend on) OkCupid, says of her online-dating experience. “When I actually met him, he was 4 inches shorter than me and balding.”
And yet despite rampant misinformation, more people than ever are
logging onto dating sites, thanks to a decline in the stigma of digital
dating over the past eight years. Now, 38% of singles who are “looking
for a partner” use a dating site or app.
And, according to the Pew poll, more daters expect that the people
they meet on the site will lie about themselves. Faking any part of an
online-dating profile, however, may be a shortsighted strategy. Sure,
you may get the attention you want initially, but eventually a match is
bound to discover your lies. And even if the lies aren’t immediately
discoverable — such as not being truthful about previous marriages or a
desire to have children, for example — those types of lies can do
long-term damage to a relationship, says clinical psychologist and
relationship expert Michelle Golland. “People think that it’s something
they won’t have to worry about, but it is a huge problem that’s harder
to overcome later in the relationship,” she says.
So why do people do it? And more important, if so many online-dating
users assume people are garnishing their profiles in some way, why do
they continue to look for relationships on these sites? Golland says
it’s easy to understand why people fib online: “Unless you’re a
sociopath, it’s generally easier to lie on a profile than it is to lie
to someone’s face.”
For some, lying may also seem like the only option for finding dates.
“People who lie on their profiles fear that they’re not worthy and may
never have a relationship because of their job or how they look,” she
says.
That can lead to a desperation with serious consequences; 42% of
women who used online dating felt that they were harassed or contacted
in a way that made them feel uncomfortable, according to the
poll. Klimentova says her bad date harassed her online for weeks.
Understanding why people still find digital dating appealing, despite
its shortcomings, is a little more complicated. For one, having more
options may be a benefit when it comes to finding a match. “I think
having a lot of options is a good thing,” says Golland. Some studies
have found that the plethora of candidates online skews relationships
toward the shallow side, since people have an instinctive tendency to
shop around and not invest time or effort into each choice when there
are so many to consider. And 32% of Internet users agreed that “online
dating keeps people from settling down because they always have options
for people to date.”
But Golland believes that people will stop dating if they feel they
have found the one for them. “When you do, you’ll stop. You won’t want
to keep dating,” she says. And you certainly won’t want the other person
to keep dating.” She could be right. As the poll showed, people are
starting to believe that the hazards of online dating are worth the
trouble: 5% of married and serious couples in the U.S., and 11% of
couples who started dating in the past 10 years, met through online
dating.
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