The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating

July 7th, 2010 by Christian Rudder

Nerds. As we all know, the Internet is a great place to pretend to be someone you're not. For instance, here's me in Second Life having a great time:

Anyhow, in many online situations, self-misrepresentation is totally harmless. Like, who cares if your Halo 3 avatar is taller than you are in real life? Or if flickr thinks you're single when you're really married? But in online dating, where the whole goal is to eventually meet other people in person, creating a false impression is a whole different deal.

People do everything they can in their OkCupid profiles to make themselves seem awesome, and surely many of our users genuinely are. But it's very hard for the casual browser to tell truth from fiction. With our behind-the-scenes perspective, we're able to shed some light on some typical claims and the likely realities behind them.

Let's get started.

"I'm 6 feet tall."

REALITY: People are two inches shorter in real life.

This whole post was inspired by an amusing graph we stumbled across while trying to answer the question Do taller guys have more sex? The answer, to a degree, is yes, and I'll expand on that in a little bit. But in this case what was more interesting than the sex was the (supposed) tallness of the guys.

The male heights on OkCupid very nearly follow the expected normal distribution—except the whole thing is shifted to the right of where it should be. You can see it better when we overlay the implied best fit below (pardon the technical language):

Almost universally guys like to add a couple inches. You can also see a more subtle vanity at work: starting at roughly 5' 8", the top of the dotted curve tilts even further rightward. This means that guys as they get closer to six feet round up a bit more than usual, stretching for that coveted psychological benchmark.

When we looked into the data for women, we were surprised to see height exaggeration was just as widespread, though without the lurch towards a benchmark height:

On a somewhat humbling personal note, I just went back and looked at my own profile, and apparently I list myself at 5' 11". Really, I'm a touch under 5' 10". Hmmm.

. . .

As for whether it even makes sense for people to make such an obvious and easily disproved exaggeration, the jury is out. We've found that taller people, up to a point, have more sex:

But as far as messages go, shorter women actually seem to get more attention:

These are the average weekly unsolicited message totals by height; you can think of these as the number of times a person is "hit on" out of the blue each week on OkCupid. a 5' 4" woman gets 60 more contacts each year than a six-footerThe genders are plotted on different scales because of the eternal fact that men almost always make the first move, so women get many more unsolicited messages.

It's plain from these two charts that women six feet or taller are either less attractive to men or are considered too intimidating to message. The data also raises the interesting possibility that these tall women are much more likely to sleep with a man who does approach them. Compare the 6' 0" woman to her 5' 4" counterpart: the taller woman gets hit on about two-thirds as much, yet has had slightly more sex partners.

"I make $100,000 a year."

REALITY: People are 20% poorer than they say they are.

Apparently, an online dater's imagination is the best performing mutual fund of the last 10 years. Here's what people are saying on OkCupid, versus what their incomes should be:

Use the slider to watch as people exaggerate more as they get older. As you can see, people advertise disproportionately high salaries for themselves. Just to pick a symbolic amount, there are consistently 4× the number of people making $100K a year than there should be.

Note that in formulating the "expected" lines for each age we were very careful to adjust for OkCupid's particular demographics: we compared every individual against the average not just by age but by zip code. Here a breakdown by gender of the exaggeration rates:

A woman may earn 76 cents on the dollar for the same work as a man, but she can fabricate, like, 85 cents no problem.

As a public service, we've decided to make our income calculations available. The following widget will calculate the statistically expected income of your potential matches; you give it a gender, an age, and a zip code, and it'll spit out a salary. Then you can confront your dates about exactly how much money they probably do or don't make. Fun!

. . .

We did a little investigating as to whether a person's stated income had any real effect on his or her online dating experience. Unsurprisingly, we found that it matters a lot, particularly for men. This is a by-age messaging distribution:

These bold colors contain a subtle message: if you're a young guy and don't make much money, cool. If you're 23 or older and don't make much money, go die in a fire. It's not hard to see where the incentive to exaggerate comes from.

"Here's a recent pic."

REALITY: The more attractive the picture, the more likely it is to be out-of-date.

The above picture, for example, was over two years old when it was uploaded. How do we know? Most modern cameras append text tags to the jpgs they take. These tags, called EXIF metadata, specify things like the exposure and f-stop settings, gps information if your camera has it, and, of course, the time and date the photo was taken. This is how programs like iPhoto know when (and sometimes where) you've taken your pictures.

Analyzing this stuff, we found that most of the pictures on OkCupid were of recent vintage; site-wide the median photo age at upload was just 92 days. However, hotter photos were much more likely to be outdated than normal ones. Here's a comparison (the age of a picture below is how old it was when it was uploaded to our site):

As you can see, over a third of the hottest photos on the site are a year old or more. And more than twice as many hot photos are over three years old (12%) as average-looking ones (5%), which makes sense because people are more inclined to cling to the pics that make them look their best

Another useful (if somewhat unorthodox) way to take in this graph is to follow the horizontal gridlines. If you trace out from "20%", for example, you can see that 1 in 5 average-looking photos is at least a year old, meanwhile, among the hot photos, nearly 1 in 5 is at least two years old.

It also turns out that older people also upload older photos:

The upshot here is, if you see a good-looking picture of a man over 30, that photo is very likely to be out-of-date. Not to get personal again, but my own OkCupid photo shows a Burberry-dressed 27 year-old, strumming away on his guitar. Meanwhile, I turn 35 in a couple months and am writing this post in the same shorts and tee-shirt I've been wearing for a week. Time waits for no man, unless that man doesn't update his personal information.

"I'm bisexual."

REALITY: 80% of self-identified bisexuals are only interested in one gender.

OkCupid is a gay- and bi-friendly place and it's not our intention here to call into question anyone's sexual identity. But when we looked into messaging trends by sexuality, we were very surprised at what we found. People who describe themselves as bisexual overwhelmingly message either one sex or the other, not both as you might expect. Site-wide, here's how it breaks out:

This suggests that bisexuality is often either a hedge for gay people or a label adopted by straights to appear more sexually adventurous to their (straight) matches. You can actually see these trends in action in the chart below.

Again, this is just the data we've collected. We'd be very interested in our bisexual users' thoughts on this single-sex-messaging phenomenon, so if you'd like to weigh-in please use the comments section. Please note, everybody, that we don’t assume that bis should be “into both genders equally.” We only assume that they should be into both genders at all. The swaths of red and blue that you see in these sexuality charts represent people who message only one gender. The purple areas are people who send any messages, in whatever proportion, to both men and women.

In this chart, throughout the teens and twenties, the male bisexual population is mostly observably gay men. By the mid-thirties, it seems, most of these men are more comfortable self-identifying as gay and have left the bi population. By the end of our chart, 3 of every 4 bi males on OkCupid are observably straight. Meanwhile, the proportion of men who message both women and other men holds fairly steady.

The proportions for women are more consistent over time:

12% of women under 35 on OkCupid (and the internet in general, I'd wager) self-identify as bi. However, as you can see above, only about 1 in 4 of those women is actually into both guys and girls at the same time. I know this will come as a big letdown to the straight male browsing population: three-fourths of your fantasies are, in fact, fantasies of a fantasy. Like bi men, most bi women are, for whatever reason, not observably bi. The primacy of America's most popular threesome, two dudes and an Xbox, is safe.

. . .

In gathering data for this last section on sexuality, we found so much interesting stuff that we're making it the topic of our next post. We'll look at the messaging, searching, and stalking (!) patterns of gay, bi, and straight people and see what else we can learn about the sexual continuum. Until then, no lie: thanks for reading.

842 Responses to “The Big Lies People Tell In Online Dating”

  1. Matt says:

    Actually, I’m one of the people who tends to buck the trend the other way. I slightly exaggerate my height and income *down* (well, more than slightly on my income). At 6’4″ and making well over 6 figures, I feel like I’m on the edge of “too tall”, and I’m really not interested in attracting women who are, shall we say, overly impressed by income potential or throw off those that read “I’d rather not say” as “I deliver pizzas on my bike because I can’t afford a car”. As for the photos, I have a mix of older and newer photos (most are from the last year, but a couple are older because I like something about the picture), but my appearance has not appreciably changed in the past 15 years (seriously – my driver’s license photo is from 1997, and it looks like it could be from this year). I can’t really comment on bisexually lying, because I don’t identify as such. :)

  2. Jenna Fox says:

    I list myself as Bisexual on OkC, though I’ve only initiated contact with very few men relative to women, and for a long time had my search settings set to entirely filter out men. The reason for this has nothing to do with sexuality however (I’m actually romantic asexual, but you guys haven’t seen fit to provide that as an explicit option.). In real life dating, I very much treat both genders equally, and am currently dating a very wonderful guy. :)

    The reason for my filtering of males from search, and strong likelihood of ignoring them on here is that a lot of the most obnoxious members of OkC are dudes. It’s just plain and simple: Lots of men come here for sex. I came here for companionship in the Doctor Whosian sense. It’s a worthwhile trade off for me to ignore the entire gender and possibly miss out on the (rare) good guys. It’s unbelievable how many men have messaged me with the strong belief that their particular penis is a magical wand which would cure me once and for all of my complete lack of a sexuality. Hell, I’d block the whole gender from contacting me if I could!

    Men aren’t bad as a whole, but the majority of men who contact me on this website are aresholes. This post was really interesting though! Keep up the graphs! Loving it. ^_^

  3. Nan says:

    I am 5ft 10 inches tall. I used to be 5ft 11 1/2 inches tall but lost an 1 1/2 inches to getting older. I have not lied about anything so far and the pics I took are not a year old yet. The sad thing that i have noticed is that some people have so many choices, they are not sure who they are interested in and what they want. Sometimes too many choices can make things difficult for people.

  4. Lizard of Oz says:

    My profile is pretty genuine. I say im 5′ 8″ because I’m actually 5′ 7.25″. I said I’d rather not say about money because I’m a poor student. The only thing I’m guilty of is having a 2 year old photo up, and I’d have a new one but I can’t afford a camera. Ha! but seriously I put the time all of my photos were taken below the photo. If guys that make a lot of money do better on here than my one unsolicited message every six months, maybe I should change my profession to doctor or scientist and list income at .25 mill.

  5. janna says:

    I bet the “bi people who only message women” are mostly couples looking for a girl for a threesome. It’s so annoying to me when I am looking for someone to message and I keep clicking on married chicks who are nonetheless listed as “available”.

  6. dontstopmenow says:

    I think part of the bi phenomenon is that the OkCupid sexual orientation and gender identity is super limiting. LET US LABEL OURSELVES AS QUEER! Tons of us queer folks identify as queer, pansexual, etc. etc. I mean, lesbian isn’t even an option. When you get to gender, it’s even more confusing, some people might want to self-identify as transgender when they’re on the site. Let us type it in for God’s sake! It’s so much harder for queer and trans people to meet others in person, so I could imagine a disproportionate representation on this site. I feel like I shouldn’t have to write in my profile what my orientation is and who I am looking for, but you just can’t understand it from the choices “male, female, straight, gay bi.” I’m not any of those things.

  7. Ekkaleh says:

    I’m a bisexual, and that’s not a lie.

    HOWEVER.

    OKCupid doesn’t make it easy to be clear about what my bisexuality actually means to me, and to my dating life. OKC demands that I list myself as straight, gay, or bi, and doesn’t allow for granularity in terms of who I’m looking for in general, or right now, etc.

    My bisexuality is a core part of my identity. Even if I were sure I were only looking for men (which I’m not), I can’t list myself as straight. I just can’t. Because I’m NOT. And that’s a huge and important part of me. More than that, my *queerness* is a huge and important part of me. I can’t have a relationship with anyone who can’t understand and respect that.

    I’m about a 2.5 on the Kinsey scale. On average, I’m more likely to find a man attractive than to find a woman attractive. In practice, in terms of individuals, that’s all over the map. But I did a quick head count and the people I’ve been sexually involved with over the years were pretty evenly split male/female.

    But in the 6 years I’ve been a member of OKC, I think I’ve proactively messaged about 10 men and no women. (I’ve replied to women, so I’m not sure if that counts in your stats or not). Yes, this means I’m crazy picky about who I message. It turns out there are a lot more men-who-like-women (straight or bi) on here than women-who-like-women. And that when the availability is filtered through my lens of desirability, not that many people get messaged.

    More broadly speaking, I’m on the leans-to-liking-men end of the Kinsey scale. I’m more likely, I think, to end up in a long term marriage-esque relationship with a man. So when I’m looking for people with an eye to the long term, I tend to gravitate to men’s profiles. This might mean I’m missing a woman who’d be perfect for me, so I check out the women’s listings too. But overall, I guess I figure the odds are higher when I seek out guys.

    Plus, I tend to fall for guys more easily. I’ve fallen for women, but much more often for men. That doesn’t make me any less sexually attracted to women. Heck, sometimes I am much *more* sexually attracted to women. Some periods of my life I identified on the other side of the Kinsey. Maybe it makes me less romantically attracted. I don’t know; sexuality is *complicated*. But even if I *only ever* fell for men, and *knew* that I wanted to meet a man to be with long term, that still doesn’t negate my attraction to women.

    I keep repeating it, because it’s so important: Even if I were *exclusively* looking for men, that doesn’t negate my bisexuality. That part of me isn’t going away. Believe me, people have tried to talk it out of me (ask my mother). Whatever gender I’m with, I’m still going to be attracted to the other. If I’m with a man, I love being able to compare women we find attractive, who we just might consider wanting a threesome with, etc. (even if never acted on).

    And even with a man, the way I approach a relationship is with a queer mentality. Being listed as bi, identity issues aside, is important if for nothing other than weeding out those men who can’t actually deal with having a queer partner. For all the romanticization of bisexual women, a lot of men are actually freaked out when it comes to thinking about relationships instead of hookups. A lot of men worry that a bi woman will leave them for another woman some day, or be unable to be faithful. A man who meets me knowing from the start that my sexuality is what it is has a better sense of what kind of person I am than a man who thinks I’m straight.

    So all those are reasons why I’m listed as bi on OKC, and I imagine there are many more reasons in the diversity of queer experience. But you make a LOT of assumptions about how bisexuality works in this post, and present them as facts. That’s disappointing, and less than I expected from this blog.

  8. kimjongsick says:

    Not unexpected, but amusing nonetheless.

    As far as the income goes, I don’t give a fuck to say I’m flat broke, and anybody my age (21) who posts on their profile that they’re making over $100k annually is a damn-ass liar. 😀

  9. Joao says:

    I’m glad there is a site like this that is open enough to report such interesting statistics.

  10. Undertone says:

    What I’m looking for on OKCupid is not the total representation of what I’m into — it’s what I’m into, want the most right now, and *haven’t already got*. I am a bi woman who leans toward het; pretty much all my searching and messaging is for guys.

    However in real life I’ve got 2 girlfriends already (and 4 boyfriends). And there’s plenty more cute curvy bi women in my social group where that came from, I don’t feel any need to go online and seek them out.

    What I’m having trouble finding in my day to day life is a forever primary, and given my leanings I think that would work better with a guy, so that’s who I’m searching for. It doesn’t make me not really bi any more than searching for steak means I don’t really like chocolate.

  11. James says:

    As someone who makes over 100k a year (and that’s British pounds, not American dollars) but doesn’t state it in his profile, it would be interesting to see how many of those of us who *are* high earners do the same as me. I don’t even tell girls everything I do until several dates usually – no one wants a gold digger. It’s a pity you can’t have people enter their income, but then choose to hide it, perhaps if we saw that then you could see the truthfulness of OKC users :)

  12. NovaRenaissance says:

    And – the trends can work for you – if you buck them…

    I am male – I list my real age, I list my real height, and all. My photo looks like me (as stated by those who are refreshingly shocked when the meet me). And I date in my age range which for a guy my age seems to be unusual. But I like being with someone who has shared my same life experiences.

    So – I do get fewer unsolicited emails and fewer responses perhaps. However, I get a much greater follow through in the communications up to meeting and a much better response when meeting.

    The problem is that, yes, some of the women are also biasing their stats and such – some quite a bit. It helps me decide credibility.

  13. Em says:

    @K:

    “Also, I’m in an environment where meeting women isn’t really a problem, but meeting men is kind of difficult- hence the online dating.”

    I have the opposite issue. I’m male. I like men. I work in a male dominated environment. My coworkers have gay and bi male friends, and it’s a pretty sociable group, so I do _okay_ at dating.

    OKCupid, on the other hand, is a difficult environment to be a bisexual man in. Not a hostile one, fortunately, but I get a lot of purely sexual interest. I hate that. I don’t respond. I’m also uncomfortable with anyone who starts a message with “I’m straight, but…”

    I’m really frustrated with the apparently widespread belief that bi or gay means easy. But that’s hardly an issue unique to this community.

    So I basically only date women from here. I’ve thought about changing my status to straight, except that I want to warn off anyone who’s going to have a problem with my list of ex-boyfriends. Which has been a problem in various non-OKC dating situations in the past.

    The assertion that it’s a pose annoys me on a personal level, but I can see how the data trends that direction.

  14. Prodigeek says:

    I find most of this rather interesting. I notice that the older men get, the more they exaggerate their income. I also

    see also that men receive more messages based on listed income as they get older. I also find the data on bisexuality

    interesting.

    What even more interesting however, are the subtle or not-so-subtle conclusions you suggest for many these findings.

    For example, you have the data right in from of you that women make less than men on average. Without going on too

    much of a tangent, I do of course recognize that the reasons behind that are not as simple as getting less pay for the

    same job description and same work in the same company in the same locale. However, the fact that you take this info

    and (albeit “comedically”) scorn the disadvantaged demographic for exaggerating their income.

    Then in regards to the “recent” picture trends, you mimic the trend of nearly every modern media outlet when it comes

    to your message. Your words at the end graciously admit your own guilt but what gets immediate attention and shoots

    right to the subconscious of the reader is the visual and large print:

    “REALITY: The more attractive the picture, the more likely it is to be out-of-date.”

    You need not look very far on the internet to find just about every male in the teens to mid-30s demographic (and

    beyond) busting all over women for trying to hide the fact that they are “fat and/or ugly” even when they really are

    not, but only fail to reflect the magazine/T.V. “ideal” image (without any mention of the fact that perhaps men are

    being shallow).

    You only need to know a little about the psychology of advertising to know how strongly the subconscious is affected

    by this arrangement. It sets the mental filter for the rest of the message. This just affirms and tweaks that already

    present bias, and gives it a nice little pat on the back.

    Do I think your intention is to deliberately convey this message? Probably not. Do I think your gender biases are

    showing? Absolutely!

    Lastly, with the issue of bisexuality I find your conclusion especially specious. While I expect that your supposition

    is certainly true for some demographic of people, there is no recognition of the fact that we still live in an

    extremely sexually repressed society. How many politicians (especially to the south of Canada where I live) are afraid

    NOT to call themselves Christians much less actually be open about the fact that they are gay or bisexual or other?

    I have still been working on the courage to LIST as bi, much less actually message someone who is male although I am

    undeniably attracted to at least some men. I have no mainstream guidelines for who to relate to another man with

    sexual or romantic interest, and for the most part only the fear of scorn to guide me.

    This issue as with the others you have listed should be recognized as complex and having many factors other than the

    ones we’ve been relentlessly trained to detect by normative social/political pressures, mass media, coffee/locker room

    talk, and pretty much every other source imaginable. The “normal” becomes the invisible baseline from which we operate

    and can blind us from meaningful investigation of the ALL the possibilities in the world around us.

    I challenge you to be more aware of your personal biases and challenge your world view every day of your life.

  15. Bethany says:

    Interesting results! As a social psychology graduate student, I love that you do these kinds of analyses. As a bi woman on the site, I wanted to point something out that I think is extremely important to interpreting the results regarding whom bi women message. Given gender norms and the fact that most people are heterosexual, it is much easier for many bi woman to meet men “in the real world” than women; we can assume most men are straight (and they often hit on us), but it can be more dicey to proceed with women, absent a name tag that lists their sexuality the way OK Cupid conveniently does. For this reason, I imagine that I am not alone among bi women in joining OK Cupid to meet women rather than men. In fact, some “gay” women’s profiles explicitly state that they are actually bi, but are using the site to meet women and so have labeled themselves gay to avoid male attention. Also, I’m not sure if you include reply messages or just initial messages in your analyses, but if you only include initial messages it might be important to keep in mind that on OK Cupid (as in other forums) men tend to message more proactively then women. This means that bi women interested in using the site for meeting both men and women can find an efficient strategy in writing messages to women, and waiting for men to write them. Of course, all of these considerations only further suggest that the “bi” women writing only to men may not be so interested in women, though I would point out that sometimes people might be interested in a given sex at a given time, despite self-acknowledged potential for interest in both.

  16. mycoleptodiscus says:

    I think you need an actual scientist or statistician doing your analysis. Some of your conclusions are highly flawed, but quite entertaining to read!! Keep it up! For example, you attribute greater height of the OK Cupid population to “lying”. People who are online need computer access. Computer access costs $$. People who are taller tend to make more money (all other things being equal) so the online population should have an overall greater average height.

  17. France says:

    It was interesting to see that data on bisexual msg patterns, and here’s my own experience. I identify as a bisexual woman but am rarely emotionally attracted to men, just physically attracted to them. I am very much leaning towards women in my bisexuality spectrum, I’d say my attraction towards women versus men is around 75/25. That said, I don’t feel like identifying as a lesbian is being honest with myself, because even if I never have a relationship with a man in my life, I would still have that attraction. I would be fine with being called a lesbian if that was what I actually was, as it would make dating lesbians easier without them thinking all the stereotypes associated with bisexuals. I personally am not using the label “Bisexual” in order to save myself from being thought of as gay.

  18. Bi the Way says:

    Let’s clear this up. Just because you kiss girls at the bar when you are wasted does not mean you are bisexual or even bi-curious. It just means you’re slutty.

  19. You can't always get what you want says:

    The thing that was not discussed is weight of the person. I find this to be most lied about of all. If you took the average curvy etc and laid out a corelation analysis you would find that OK Cupid is the thinnest group of people on the planet. I am constantly meeting people who have a face shot and say they are average and show up at least 50 lbs over weight but normal BMI standards.

  20. Derek says:

    Wait…maybe I missed something.

    How do they determine “hot” from “average” pics??

  21. Damian says:

    Wow, everything on my profile is true.
    So…is honesty no longer the “in” thing, or are people just too disappointed in themselves to let other people know who they really are?

  22. Mastiphal01 says:

    Interesting article, but I’m hoping that I’m not the only guy on here who actually (gasp) represented himself truthfully…

  23. Oh, really? says:

    Well, well. This would explain all the strange messages from confused people who I’m quite clear about not dating in my profile. It’s not a lenghty laundry list but I have my “bottom lines” too.

    I don’t lie on my profile: I’m not perfect but show me someone perfect trying to date online anyway. No such thing. At least I’m honest about my situation, and expect the same from those who I would possibly date.

    So when you get bored, then drunk/stoned and look at profiles of those who are clearly not looking for your type, don’t message them. If you do, you are perpetuating the “creepiness” factor and making everyone duck online dating.

  24. flesh-and-stone says:

    On the subject of income reporting, I think you missed a selection bias. Don’t you think busy professionals are more likely to both {make more money} and {date online rather than at singles bars} than day laborers?

  25. S says:

    Woot, I’m among the 23% of bisexual people who message both genders!

    I don’t think a poll of “how bi are you” would work very well, if it’s based on messages. I live in a very religious and military centered city, which means I get more messages from guys than I do from girls. There aren’t that many gay/bi girls listed in my area anyway, so of course I would end up being listed as “leaning towards straight” just because I message more guys than girls.

    Also, I can see why there might be some self proclaimed bisexuals who only message the same sex- they probably meet plenty of the opposite sex in real life and only want to use OkCupid to meet the same sex. Of course, they don’t want to list themselves as “lesbian” because they might feel as though they’re lying about their sexuality.

  26. Rissa says:

    Totally agree with Bi the Way. xD Very interesting article. I like it. :)

  27. Stranjer100 says:

    It is a common misconception that Bisexuals are attracted to both sexes equally. In reality most bisexual generally prefer one gender over the other. Some bisexuals find that their attraction to either sex will wax and wane over the course of their life,

    I am bisexual and in my youth, I was primarily attracted to women and now I’m primarily attracted to men.

  28. Its Me says:

    On the matter of persons height, I’m probably 5’11 or something, but i claim 6′ i think, Reason? Its so much easier.

    As a non-american, I’d break it down to 5′, 5’3, 5’5, 5’7, 6′, Having such grainulity in numbers to most of the world is plain strange. Most of use will quote in 160cm, 170cm, 180cm, Its the steps that most people would be comfortable with, some might go to 5cm so theres another 2″ of steps..

    So.. In general, I’d be interested in seeing how non-american users rate compared to americans on the height adjustments, I expect they’ll exagerate a bit, but it might be due to rounding if nothing else..
    (5cm = 2″)

    Oh, also, I just noticed my profile lists 180cm, so 5’10” (Not that i’d have known otherwise), If it didnt ask for cm, i’d have just put 6′ for ease of conversion. But.. Er,.. “5′ 10″ (1.80m).” …Seriously? Meters? I entered centimeters, not meters, display it the same as you accept..

  29. Puro says:

    So basically, everybody is a liar. I knew it. :-)

  30. LaPassionnee says:

    @Dana reddivamama: I know what you mean about experiencing discrimination from the lesbian community for not being “queer enough,” and share your frustration with the amount that the “bi” label gets appropriated by straight women who are trying to appear sexually liberated or something.
    As others have said, I’d personally really appreciate the option to use the label “queer.” It would work better for me as I’m attracted equally to men and women but I’m also attracted to trans and genderqueer people, which doesn’t quite seem to be encompassed by the bisexuality category. People will always have the opportunity to explain in their profiles why they identify with the labels they have chosen, in case their potential matches aren’t sure what “queer” is all about.

  31. A different Sean than above says:

    Ignoring the earlier comment regarding the avg. age of your users and height, have you considered variation by race?

    Example:
    If we assume that your user group has more whites than in the general population, than you would assume that the height distribution would be off; whites tend to have a higher average height.

  32. cat says:

    people lie,as often they loose their self-esteem.They use the visualization technique to create an animated version of themselves, in their perfect Utopia. Without this self fashioned “Eden”, they feel lost…..

    Can I find my way back to Joy?
    Can I find happiness also?
    Let me play piano again.
    Let peace of mind come to me now.

    Melodies I play very well.
    Can I find my way back to Joy?
    Happiness is within my reach!
    Where is my peace of mind these days?

    Brain lesion brings bad news now.
    Piano playing brings light.
    Can I find my way back to Joy?
    Peace of mind I will find in time.

    Flute is my sanity.
    Second Lesion not so bad, right?
    Peace of mind I slowly find out.
    Can I find my way back to Joy?

  33. wouter says:

    How to get true information?

    Ask someone to identify his weak spots, name some negative sides. this will push someone towards truth, and for you it will be easier to identify lies.

    As for old pictures…if you don’t want to use a webcam before meeting IRL …there is always the possibility of the old fashioned picture with todays newspaper..

  34. MysteryJetBoy says:

    So apparently, according to this study I am now 6’6″?

  35. Danski says:

    I think while some people lie just for the sake of it. Dont forget that many people infact most people dont seem themselves as everyone else does, soo what they say they may think is true when it actually isnt.

    I was 5”11 when i started my profile. posted height as 6ft. I can now happy save 6ft is right for me since just got measured at the doctors during a checkup lol, Dont forget that a person will seem shorter when they are just standing normally because when u are measured against a wall u gain height due too ur spine not being curved as its flatted too the wall and your not slouching,

  36. danski says:

    Indeed its natural too be curious, maybe even kiss someone of the same sex just too try it out. that doesnt make u bi in my mind though. Unless u want too actively seek someone of both sexs then i dont think they should say their bi.

  37. James says:

    @chris: “Whether age/income/height is crucial to a good ‘love match’ or if they are superficial details isn’t being debated. She’s going to drop him/her because they lied.”

    Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that there are questions which you shouldn’t ask if you don’t want to be lied to.

    But I think you missed the point I was trying to make. Suppose we move the problem back a step: I could post a completely honest profile, including my interests – hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, horses, etc – and a couple of profile pictures taken within the last few weeks, but leaving out the details of age, income, and height that this article says people lie about. I would get a certain number of responses from women with matching interests. But if I include DOB info, it’s unlikely that I’d get any responses at all, while if I include income (or more importantly, assets) instead, it’s likely that I’d get many responses from women with purely mercenary motives.

    So what do I do? Lying doesn’t work in the long run, complete disclosure doesn’t work in the short run.

  38. ChickPea says:

    At least some of the height inflation is simple self-delusion. I have a friend who insists he’s “almost 6 feet”. He’s 5’9″, tops. And I’m 6’1″, and he’ll stand there in front of me, looking up, and tell me to my face that he’s an inch shorter than me!

    Another factor: people lose height as they age. A man who’s 5’10” and tells you he’s 6′ may not have been measured recently, and may once have been right! Getting your height measured is not something that features much in later years, except for medical reasons.

  39. LeSethX says:

    Ha! That part about bisexuals does not surprise me in the slightest. From my own observations, most of the people (esp girls) in high skool who said they were bi really seemed to say that only to get the attention of others (eg, the boys). Fortunately, most of these “bisexuals” seem to pick one gender or the other by the end of college, earlier than in this post.

  40. S says:

    Hey, my pics are current, my stats are accurate. I say what I mean and mean what I say. I am not so naive as to believe that everyone tells the truth, but I think that if you read what they’ve written, that will be your first indication if other things are true or exaggerated.

  41. Sam says:

    Regarding the bi section, I think a lot of it has to do with how “bi” a person is.
    Some people lean more one way than the other, or there may also be further divisions.

    For example, I am more sexually attracted to males, but I’m more emotionally attracted to females. I look for men first, since I feel it would be easier to have a good sex life (and as many know, a sex life can be pretty important in a relationship, unless both parties in the relationship are asexual, which is rare). So, it would essentially be my hope to find a man that I trust and can build an emotional bond with.
    As for women, while I don’t have much sexual desire for female bodies, I find it much easier to trust women and have an emotional connection with women. If I were with a woman and I trusted her enough and came to love her, I would probably develop a love for her body as well, in due time.

    For this reason, because I truly believe I could be happy with either gender if given the time to create the necessary emotional bond and a feeling of trust, that I identify as a bisexual; even though, sexually I lean more towards men, and emotionally I lean more towards women.

    There are probably others with similar feelings, but, of course, there are probably others that are lying, confused, or just don’t have a complete understanding of what the term means.

  42. This Made Me Love OkCupid says:

    The OkCupid bot matches me, a self-identified bi girl, with straight chicks. :p Go figure.

    :( Can be a real let-down if i don’t notice until i’m already interested! But still makes me giggle.

  43. thestrawdog says:

    I wonder if you considered the possibly that your members might actually be richer than the average, therefore also more likely to be taller as height is linked to nutrition.

    Of course people will keep hotter photos up longer. That bi-thing is interesting. I won’t contact women who say bi. I bet I’m not the only one who’s looking for someone serious about being with my gender.

  44. Xttina says:

    On bisexuality: I think you’re hugely overstating your conclusions and ignoring a lot of conflicting variables. Please take an introductory course in statistics and psychological research methods, before making such broad and demeaning claims about a population whose vary existance is constantly questioned. Oddly enough you exemplify one of the confounding variables, which could just as easily explain the conditions you describe (which may or may not be significant,) about as well the scenario you suggest. Others have brought up the fact that there are people with sexual orientations that don’t fit on the gay, straight, bi scale. However, lets just assume for a moment that, while not appropriate for representing the variety of sexual feelings that exist among individuals, these three categories might be used to roughly outline how people respond to culturally constructed gender archetypes in behavioral terms. Sill your conclusions make no sense, because having feelings that don’t fit with in the confounds of culturally constructed gender archetypes, doesn’t mean that an individual can will behave as if these archetype no longer exist in the rest of society.

    Or put in planer terms, there is a lot of social pressures on people who are attracted to people who can be categorized as both “male” and “female,” which make even people who have a 50/50 preference for people who fall under these categories, more likely to only initiate relationships with one ore the other. Consider the fact that a young bi man, who has only slept with women, might still be nervous about his identity and afraid to message other men, on the off chance that they reject him, because they consider his lack of male on male experience a risk. And why on earth would this lack of experience automatically be assumed to be a risk? Because for some reason we seem stuck on this idea that for everyone the experience of having sex with one gender is fundamentally different form the experience of having sex with another. Not like the experience of having sex with any new person is likely to be unlike previous experiences, but that there is something magic about pineal vaginal sex, which makes people either desire it or not! This is all to say that (assuming that gay, straight and bi are useful terms for describing sexual behaviors among large populations, as they relate to gender) your observations can easily be explained by the fact that, as a culture we are so beholden to these gender categories.

    Unrelated: I would love to see more categories for both gender and sexuality! I’m a girl who always liked guys, until I met this one girl that I had an obsessive crush on for years (she wasn’t interested, I asked.) I can’t say I’m bi or even queer, without feeling like I’m lying, Saying I’m straight makes me feel the lest dishonest, but still not wholly honest and I hate that! I hadn’t considered the term “heteroflexable” (I was worried it meant just being interested in random encounters with the same gender and that doesn’t appeal to me,) until I read this article on it: http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2000/11/15/heteroflexibility. Now I’m seriously considering it.

  45. Randy says:

    It frustrates me that in this day and age the women on this site still wait for the guys to iniate contact. Ladies you goined this site to find something. Get active trying to find it and iniate contact.

  46. mustangirl16 says:

    I agree 100%, these women are just looking for attention in the wrong way!!

  47. a_cup_lover_200 says:

    Re: bi-sexuality.

    It has been my experience that many women feel that “bisexual” means “gay”, even when the two labels are offered as alternatives. Perhaps this accounts partially for the apparent deception.

  48. Christian says:

    Weird, I’ve always strove to be as honest as I can be on my profile. I’ve met a few women for dates that turned out to be quite different than their photo’s and profile implied and I was immediately turned off as I felt like they deceived me. For most people on dating sites surely the goal is to meet someone in the flesh and they’re going to find out exactly what you look like etc… and be disapointed if you’ve lied

  49. Brokk says:

    My wife is bi-sexual by her own definition. However, she’s had very few relationships with other women. She would like to have more, but finds it difficult meeting women. So she tried out OKCupid. Her only interest here was to meet women. She already has a guy in her life. However, that doesn’t mean she was lying.

    Bisexual people *do* have preferences. I would be surprised if there wasn’t a trend toward one gender or another. Most bisexuals I know tend to go in phases, where they are more into one gender or the other. Trying to get something specific out of a relationship. That doesn’t mean they are closed to their non-preferred gender, but they are heavily biased against them.

  50. B says:

    Wow. Although I guess I’m not entirely surprised. So far I haven’t lied in my profile. I’m every single last one of my 5’8″, and that’s BEFORE the boots I usually wear (which add about an inch or so).

    As for income, it’s one of those questions I always decline to answer. I can usually get an idea of how much financial capability someone has by reading their profile, much in the same way that I can guess someone’s education level. If I see ALL CAPS, lack of punctuation, a great deal of “text speak,” or many misspellings, I assume they dropped out of high school, or at best dropped out of community college.

    I’m surprised that “Body Type” wasn’t covered. I’d think that’s something that many will lie on. It’s almost as if “Curvy” or “A few extra pounds” now means obese, while “Average” could mean average or chubby.

    Drinking could be lied about too. If someone gets obliterated on the weekend after 10+ drinks on each night, I don’t think that qualifies as “Socially.”