How an online virus can damage your analogue self. Beware the BS disease.

by John Davis
Writer, Comedian and Star of Come Date With Me
Wednesday, 14th December 2011

Not long ago a some of you decided to follow my three part advice series on internet dating and supplied me some torrid and some not so torrid tales of the results. The most horrifying of these appeared in the top ten worst lines heard on a date which prompted a storm of replies and retweets but they were, in equal parts, disturbing, hilarious and downright wrong.

Now, I’ve had a few dates from trawling sites on the internet, some of which, I admit, have been ‘lovely’ or ‘nice’. I’ve made some great friends and of course, a few enemies. Law of averages dictates that this is to be expected. However, while ladies out there may receive between tens to hundreds of messages a day, the same can’t be said for men. Nowhere near in fact. This means that for guys, efficiency is key. Let’s assume that after message 124 has been sent, you as a gentleman finally receive a reply. The temptation is to take the plunge by immediately arranging a date while the more primal aspect of your imagination goes into overdrive. This is called Selective Online Syndrome of Attritional Dating, or SO SAD.

SO SAD is a debilitating condition for your digital self because, unlike a traditional computer virus, it leaks into physical world impacting upon the everyday like a reverse Matrix. Thus there is a very good reason why the erstwhile gentleman must exercise Victorian style caution. But even if you exercise extreme caution and take all possible precautions around SO SAD, the discernment with which you select who you finally do date may still not be enough to prevent trauma. You see, according to a report commissioned by Greg Hodge, MD of beautifulpeople.com – he’s basically the online equivalent of Peter “Get out of my club you ugly/fat/poor person” Stringfellow – women lie more then men on their online profiles.

Men do lie of course, but women simply do more of it. And what do they allegedly lie about? Weight, Age and Physique in that order. This can of course lead to all manner of potentially embarrassing situations. One date I went on found me wandering around the agreed pub unable to find my date. There was a reason for this. As I stood, pint in hand, feeling slightly awkward, a hand descended upon my shoulder. A big hand. I slowly turned. She was six foot three and, ahem, larger than your average bear. And if I had to pick a bear I’d say brown bear. If I wanted to catch salmon my interest may have been piqued. Alas there was not a stream in sight. Size isn’t an issue to me as long as you DON’T LIE about it. Shock will always win out against politeness. Still, I collected myself, we sat down and made a token effort at conversation. The following is a word for word account of our date:

Me: Soooo, how’s your week been? (Rubbish I know but I was still in shock)
Her: I’m absolutely exhausted. (stop sniggering)
Me: Work been difficult?
Her: No, I had a baby three weeks ago.

Okay, so not in the top three things women lie about but hey, I had to share.

And men? Well, not surprisingly, men lie about their job, height and weight. One of my closest friends specifically states she will only date men over 6 foot. She is 5’ 10” and likes to wear heels you see. She got chatting to Stephan who works in finance in the city. Stephan is 6’ 1”. Except when they met it was less Stephan the City (geddit?) than it was Stephan the wonder dwarf bank clerk.

Notwithstanding the fact that the report is essentially a PR push for the elitist beautifulpeople.com assisting them in their eugenic ends to shrink the gene pool so everyone dies of haemophilia, there are some interesting points to make.

1) All’s fair in the search for Love. Even war has codified rules of engagement. In love there are no such rules. Machiavelli and Cupid are one and the same

2) Cognitive dissonance. Most of those surveyed believed that almost everyone lied on their profile. Yet, at the same time, a majority of respondents said that, when reading a profile, they believed what was written! This is paying money at an online clothes store after seeing the the naked emperor prancing around and thinking ‘nice tie fella.’

So dip cautiously when allowing your online self to be bathed in the dating worlds sea of profiles. Scooby Doo moments have a way of biting us back. “I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for that pesky reality!”

topic tags: attraction, conversation, online dating, relationships

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about the author

Like a modern day Moses, John Davis (formerly Jay Sivad) was rescued from under a bushel by the Dating Trail team. Cleansed of his past as a serious journalist, John emerged, the proverbial butterfly, as the country's leading dating writer. He's got practical skills too and can attest to being nation's most experienced dating host having run over 250 speed dating events for Original Dating. A stand up comedian, radio host, philosopher (it's true! He has the paperwork) and budding media personality (Channel Four's Come Date With Me), Jay turns a wry eye on the travails of modern dating and its participants.

John writes regularly for Dating Trail. If you'd like to be be first to find out about his next installment then please follow us on Twitter or 'Like' our Facebook page for updates.

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