Online dating has become a new way for us to find our significant others. With a limited social circle in reality, the geographical distance becomes zero online giving us more opportunities to meet new people. However, because of the inability to communicate face-to-face, it has become popular for online information to contain falsehoods. So what to do?
All kinds of online lies
There is real love on the internet, and there is real love on the internet But before you meet true love and true love, have you also met various liars? Do not know? Then today I’ll let you see how many people have cheated you with exaggerated information on the Internet, please take the right seat!
This is some data from OkCupid, an online dating site that experiments on its users, and they set up a website, OkTrends, dedicated to posting their experiments or findings.
1. “175CM tall.”
Fact: People are actually 5 cm shorter than their claimed height
It’s an odd thing that happens all the time: when they claim to be 160 cm tall, people are usually only 157 cm tall; once they grow to 163 cm, people will claim to be 165 cm. So much so that there is an illusion of being surrounded by people of whole numbers of heights like 160 cm, 165 cm, and 170 cm.
The height thing is actually pretty hard to prove because an online dating site can’t go to a registered member’s house with a tape measure and measure people’s actual height (it’s just nuts to hear it).
2. “Annual income of **$.”
Fact: People actually earn 20% less than what they claim to earn.
People lie about their income all the time, and the older they get, the more they lie.
3. “Here’s a recent picture of me.”
Fact: The more attractive a photo looks, the more likely it is to be an old photo.
OkCupid analyzed the Exif format of users’ photos (where various shooting conditions such as aperture, shutter, white balance, ISO, focal length, date and time were included in the shot) and found that those photos that were considered popular beauty shots were generally older than others The photos were generally taken earlier than others.
Ah, what a helpless human being.
4. “I’m bisexual OR heterosexual.”
Fact: 80% of people who claim to be bisexual are monosexually oriented. Claims of heterosexuality include a lot of homosexuality.
OkCupid surveyed users who labeled themselves as bisexual and found that they generally sent contact information on the dating site only to single-sex people, and only 23% would be interested in both genders.
But it’s also possible that this is because they were indeed single-sex when they used the online dating site, but they may have had different sexual orientations a long time ago.
Should we continue to date online?
Everyone’s experience with online dating varies. Some people’s online dating goes well and results in both parties settling into a satisfying relationship. Some people’s online dating experience is full of confusion and disappointment. In fact, just like any other way of dating, there are benefits and drawbacks to dating someone online.
1) Getting to know each other
Benefits: Online dating gives people more possible dates than they could ever get in their regular lives. This is especially true for people who have specific types, backgrounds, lifestyles, or other special aspects of their significant others.
Downside: The options can be confusing and overwhelming. Without a clear plan, people who date online can get caught up in the endless search for that perfect match and forget that they should start a satisfying relationship.
2) Is it a good fit
Benefit: Many dating sites offer a variety of personality tests and matches, and such matches may help people find a better match for their dates.
Downside: Matching two people is actually a very complicated process, and the test may not be right for everyone. And, people may behave differently in reality, or may change over time. So the matching process can be a missed potential match for a true match.
3) Communication styles
Benefit: Online dating gives people several ways to get to know each other before they meet. This way of getting to know each other through the computer gives people a safe, convenient way to interact with each other without risking or wasting too much time. For busy working professionals, or people with high security alertness, this type of communication is perfect for testing potential matches.
Disadvantage: Communication via the computer lacks the information that human interaction in person can provide, making it difficult to truly test a potential match online. And computers don’t provide those little details of mutual attraction in interactions (like skin-to-skin contact) for people. So communication through computers can be superficial and lacking in emotion.
So there are pros and cons to online dating, so is there any experience that you can take advantage of online dating or not? A few tips for you:
1. Approach: It’s certainly good to have lots of options, but you need to filter. If you want a real face-to-face dating experience, then don’t stay stuck in infinite browsing mode.
You should narrow down your search or choose a few “he has to have qualities” and start an online conversation with someone who meets those criteria. In order to hit the mark with so many options, you need to at least have a general idea of what you want in a date and whether you can meet the traits they want.
2. Matchmaking: Online tests may not give you a perfect match straight away, but they can at least help you narrow down your choices, especially by helping you weed out dates who may not be a good match for anyone. This way you may need to try a few times to know exactly who is better for you. Pairings can also help you avoid those disastrous choices. On top of that, you have to trust your subconscious, like your intuition may help you a lot.
3. Communication: Online communication is meant to be able to start an initial understanding, not to set the tone for the entire relationship. So for initial communication please focus on getting to know some basic things quickly, and then ask for a real meeting, which can usually be done with a few short emails or conversations. Those long email self-briefs can backfire and scare people away, so it’s better to leave those for the date. If you care about time, meet at a coffee shop. If you don’t feel safe, a date in a public place would be better.
In general, remember that online dating is best used only as a way to be able to meet someone for a date afterwards, and keeping that goal in mind will prevent you from getting caught up in endless online dating. So: if you start to feel confused, the next best step is always to agree to a face-to-face date.
If you find yourself with too many options, then you need to find a criteria that narrows it down, and then find a better fit with that.
If you don’t know how to start with a potential match, send them a short message to hook up.
If you’re tired of talking online, offer to meet up.
Keeping this order, you’ll have an easier time finding a date that you’re happy with and can meet.
Online dating only provides a new way to meet people, and if you want to get to know them better, you’ll eventually have to go back to real life. So, let’s say that online dating is just the initial screening, and the rest of the detailed observation and confirmation has to be done face-to-face.