Accuracy in Online Dating Profiles

Online dating profiles are a lousy gauge of someone's personality. Of course, there is no sure way to tell if someone is a good person or not, short of really getting to know them, and even this is not completely foolproof. Still, a dating profile will tell you really next to nothing about who someone is. dating profiles only contain what they want you to think about them and their personality, not who they actually are. This is not to discourage you from using online dating services. They can be a really valuable way to meet people, and make connections in your life. Still, let this serve as fair warning – do not dive too deeply into something with someone you have never met. You might not like the results.

I had been using an internet dating service for about eight months when I met Jed. The matchmaker sent us each others dating profiles, and told us that we were a perfect match, and in the beginning it seemed like we were. We wrote back and forth. He was into all of the same things that I was into: Computer games, Abba, Swedish meatballs, and long walks past the abandoned factories on the south side of town. Still, there was something not quite right about him. I got no sense of it from looking at his dating profile. It was every bit as normal as any of the other dating profiles – there was nothing at all odd about it. But, when we started text messaging back and forth, I got the barest inclination that dating profiles do not tell the whole story.

It was not exactly what he said. He said all of the right things. But that was just it – his responses were all too perfect, almost like he wanted to say exactly what I wanted to hear. I did not consciously pick up on this, and when we set up a date, I only had a bit of unease which I thought was just nervousness at meeting someone who, outside of dating profiles, I had never seen before. But the real world is much different than dating profiles. In reality, he was a total sleaze. I later found out that he had dozens of dating profiles, each geared to lure in a certain type of girl. I never totally fell for his game, but it was a close call. Always remember, dating profiles do not tell the whole story.

_{This page was last updated on Monday, August 28, 2006}