Finding love online isn't easy. The prospect of meeting Mr. or Ms. Right seems to turn everyone into porn star used car salesmen. Luckily for you, dear dater, Vice's Brian Moylan knows exactly what everyone's lying about.


Romantic relationships are just a litany of lies. "Sure, I'd love to see a Katherine Heigl movie." "No, it's not creepy at all that your dad touched my thigh like that." "I swear I never fucked that chick. We're just, like, you know, friends." But before you shack up with a partner and the pants are really on fire, we have to get through that festering sore of omissions, obfuscations, half-truths, and fabrications that is the online dating profile.

Everyone's dating profile-whether it's on Match.com, OKCupid, Manhunt, Grindr, Craigslist (which is for people who are either looking to date hookers or find new futons for their dingy apartments), JDate, eHarmony, or even the bulletin board at your grandmother's church-is full of fucking shit. Everyone is so scared that if they tell the world about eating peanut butter right out of the jar with chocolate Teddy Grahams while watching Real Sex reruns at 2 AM, no one will meet them for cheap Pad Thai and cheaper conversations about what school they went to and how many siblings they have.


Unfortunately, if you do somehow manage to trick another human into meeting you IRL, your failings will be readily apparent. The cat will be out of the proverbial bag, and no one will be getting any pussy (or dick, as the case may be). To make life easier, I'm going to break down the biggest lies that everyone tells on their profiles. You've been warned.

Pictures

Everyone's pictures are absolute bullshit. But, like unhappy families, they're all bullshit in their own way. There are a lot like this one, which is so vague and washed out that the girl's face might as well be a blank Etch-a-Sketch (that's not gonna turn anyone's knobs), and then there are the guys whose photos only contain hats and cut off right before the hairline (bald), the ones with woefully out-of-date clothing (old), the girl who only shoots herself from the tits up (fat), and the pictures that look like they're reproductions of screen grabs from a Geocities site circa 1998 (bald/old/fat/serial killer). Everyone is trying to look their best, so they're editing pictures that will present some ideal version of themselves that either never existed or is long gone. Only believe the nastiest picture in the profile, and multiply that picture by a factor of two in terms of ugliness. That's what will show up at your front door.

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Music

More people think that their musical preferences are what others will reference when deciding if they are cool, educated, expansive, and generally with it. Therefore, filling out the musical interests section on dating sites is like making a mix-tape for a deaf person, because it is all a pack of lies. The only people really into jazz are old black men, so if someone lists that on their profile they're just trying to be like that dude in that episode of Sex in the City who fucks Carrie real good and then gets dumped. And if they say, like this guy, that they ‘like everything,' then they are the blandest, most milquetoast motherfucker imaginable who won't cop to his complete collection of Eminem singles and Dave Matthews bootlegs (also, he's probably a premature ejaculator). Seriously, when is the last time this guy listened to Mozart when he wasn't riding in an elevator or sitting on hold? And there is no way one person likes every hip band. They don't all go together.


Weight

This one is a bit tricky, because some sites don't require members to list their weight in actual pounds. Instead, they let them play with reality by picking ‘slender,' ‘full-figured,' ‘must be removed from apartment by crane' or some other silly adjective from a pull-down menu. These are all subjective. Just because a guy lists his body as ‘athletic' and then shows up with a gut the size of the Japanese GDP doesn't mean he was lying. After all, sumo wrestling is a sport. Look at this girl, she lists herself as ‘slender' but doesn't show a picture of herself below the neck. Danger, danger Will Robinson! She might have been slender when those pictures were taken five years ago. Without anything to verify that she is indeed a size 2, just go ahead and assume she's gonna show up with a FUPA. That's what you're signing up for.


Museums

If everyone who says they ‘love museums' and ‘go to them all the time' were telling the truth, every museum in the world would look like Walmart on Black Friday. Saying they love museums is like saying they love Christmas, because both happen only once a year. No one goes to museums unless they have family in town or they're on some bullshit OKCupid date trying to impress someone with how awesome and cultured they are (or if there's a new Star Wars exhibit). Just say you like to watch TV. That's actually true and will make you a lot cooler.


Height

Because so many profile pictures are taken without anyone else in the frame, it's hard to get a perspective on just how tall a guy is. Take this gentleman, who is selling himself as a slightly-below-average 5'9", but who has conveniently failed to post any pictures of himself below the shoulder. He says 5'9" but you best wear flats, because he's gonna show up at 5'7"… while wearing lifts. Just subtract 2 inches from every guy's profile. This is also true of women over 5'8" who want to appear shorter to get a man. Can it, ladies. There has to be someone out there with an Attack of the 50-Foot Woman fetish.



Dating websites are like reality shows: no one is there to make friends. If these singletons wanted friends they'd volunteer or join a kickball team or buy a dog or something. They would not go on a site where people are trying to get laid or get married or get a new strain of HPV. These passive-aggressive singletons actually want you to hit on them so they can say, "Oh, no. Me? No! I'm just looking for friends," before they fall into bed with you on the first date. Do you really want to start a relationship with someone who lies just to get attention?

If you're just looking for a fling, that's a different conversation. These nutjobs are always animals in the sack.


Bisexual

All ‘bisexuals' on Craigslist are gay guys trying to look butch. Period.


Dick Size


Saying guys lie about the length of their penis is like saying that teenagers love texting and John Stamos only gets more and more attractive with age. He also lies about his cock. That is just the way it is. Even a guy with 11 inches claims he has an entire foot. That's how we're built. Pictures make it a lot harder to get away with though.

The guy whose profile the image above came from claims to have 6.5 inches. Unfortunately, we can't show you his dingus here, but the only way that man has 6.5 inches is if you measure from the top of his chocolate starfish, through the entire taint, over the balls, up the shaft, and an inch past the tip. Just like it's 5 o'clock somewhere, you can get to 6.5 inches if you're not afraid to use a little creativity with the measuring tape. This is just so expected that I wouldn't trust a guy who doesn't give himself some fluff in the below-the-belt stats. There's gotta be something seriously wrong with that asshole.


Also by Brian Moylan:

An Etiquette Guide for Straight People in Gay Bars

Erotic Hypnosis Gave Me the Most Intense Orgasm of My Life

The VICE Guide to Bad Celebrity Plastic Surgery



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