There are millions of Americans seeking love on the Internet. Little do they know that teams of scientists are eagerly watching them trying to find it.

A recent New York Times article titled “Love, Lies and What They Learned,” indicates that collectively, the major dating sites had more than 593 million visits in the United States last month.

Research involving more than one million online dating profiles was partly financed by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

The in-depth studies found that about 81 percent of people misrepresent their height, weight or age in their profiles. On average, the women described themselves as 8.5 pounds thinner in their profiles than they really were. Men fibbed by 2 pounds, although they lied about their height, rounding up a half inch. Another study found that women’s profile photographs were on average a year and a half old. Men’s were on average six months old.

According to the studies, liars tend to use fewer first-person pronouns. Professor Catalina L. Toma, an assistant professor in the department of communication arts at the University of Wisconsin-Madison said this is an indication of psychological distancing: “You’re feeling guilty or anxious or nervous.” Liars use more negative words like “not” and “never,” yet another way of putting up a buffer. Liars use fewer negative emotion words like “sad” and “upset,” and they write shorter online personal essays. (It’s easier not to get caught if you say less.)

“I was personally really shocked,” said Professor Rose McDermott, a professor of political science at Brown University whose study was published this year in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior. “People were much more likely to say ‘I’m fat’ than ‘I’m a conservative.’ ”

Personally, none of this is surprising if you’ve dated online. You may find it exasperating, but I just think it’s human nature. WE are insecure. We know that online dating presents a lot of choices. We know that men are looking for younger and thinner and women are looking for taller and wealthier. We know that if we tell the truth – I’m 5’8″, not 5’10″, I’m 55, not 49, we’re all but eliminated from the search of the most desirable candidates. So we fib a little to “get in the door” and hope that we don’t seem too different from our descriptions.

Given that 81% of people lie, I think it’s time to stop getting so bent out of shape when they do, and simply assume that everyone is fudging a little bit – some, more than others. At the end of the day, it’s better to be pleasantly surprised when someone does tell the truth than bitterly disappointed when he doesn’t. It’s too predictable to get angry about.

Read the full article here and let me know your thoughts.

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Several online articles have appeared recently regarding “sperm snatching,” including this one on Big Think. It cites a column in the Daily Mail by Liz Jones as well as another post on Big Think about sperm for sale. The author tackles the concept of Dynamic (or Time) Inconsistency as it relates to rising number on deceptive pregnancies: it is the economic concept that preferences can change over time. What may seem like the optimal choice in period one (not wanting the father’s money or support during pregnancy, for example) is not necessarily the optimal choice in period two (after the baby is born).

According to the Daily Mail article, a 2001 survey showed that 42% of women would lie about their contraceptive use if they wanted to get pregnant and their partner did not. Author Jones describes how, over the course of two relationships, she snuck into the bathroom in the middle of the night in order to inseminate herself using sperm rescued from condoms, despite the fact that both men had made their unwillingness to become fathers very, very clear to her. She tried to sperm snatch, but was unsuccessful.

In Big Think’s related article E-Sperm For Sale: Man Not Included, writer Pamela Haag discusses the sperm trade, and how children are “the new spouses,” the emotional and romantic anchors of many a modern family, NOT men. She ultimately advocates for effective male contraception since sperm snatching is becoming more rampant.

I’m disgusted by this concept of sperm snatching, but hey, I’m not a woman trying to get pregnant. Would love to hear your reactions below.

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Blogger BbSezMore recently wrote that when she was single, she never stopped to think about what she offered to a man, other than love. “It seemed so simple back then: if you loved someone, and they loved you back, then it all worked out. Game, set, match.”

These days, everyone want to know: “What’s in it for me???” Continue Reading »

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I read this blog about a recent movement to stop “discrimination against the ugly” and found it fascinating.

It makes a reasonable point. There are protections for discrimination against gays, blacks, and women, so why should we still be allowed to exercise bias against the unfortunately asymmetrical people out there?

Your gut may say that women are judged unfairly for their looks, but that wouldn’t be the entire story. Says a related New York Post article: “Men, in fact, suffer the greater repulsiveness penalty in general: Unattractive women earn 3 percent less than average-looking women, while unattractive men’s take-home is reduced a whopping 22 percent.”

The question I have for you is whether you feel that you’re judgmental of others based on looks, age, height, weight, education, or income… and, just as importantly…have you been judged negatively for one of those other characteristics?

Your comments, as always, are appreciated.

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A friend on Facebook sent me a link to this notorious OkCupid profile. It is, to say the least, a good read about a woman who is burned out on online dating and now just sleeps with men for fun.

A brief snippet:

“The suggestion that I’m “acting like a man” is also based on the assumption that you can simply interchange male and female behavior in the first place. Doing so ignores the fact that male and female sexuality are regulated very differently in our culture. Women aren’t supposed to seek out and enjoy sex with multiple partners. They’re supposed to be selective with their mates. They’re supposed to barter sex for emotional security, romantic love, and domesticity. Men are supposed to avoid this trap at all costs. According to this logic, I can never act “like a man” because we already have a term for a woman who acts like I do: slut.

Continue Reading »

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In a new study called “Let My Fingers Do the Talking: Sexting and Infidelity in Cyberspace” by Diane Kholos Wysocki and Cheryl D. Childers reveal that women are more likely to send nude photographs or sexually explicit text messages than men.

About two-thirds of women surveyed sent “sexts” compared with about half of the men.

“Cheating is alive and well, and sexting is on the rise,” said Dr. Kholos Wysocki, whose first study of sex on the Internet dates to 1992, back in the dial-up days. “But I don’t believe the Internet is causing people to cheat. There seems to be something going on with marriage that’s the bigger social issue. Before, people would just get a divorce. For some reason, people are staying and cheating instead.”

The study results are base on an online survey of 5,187 adult visitors to the Web site AshleyMadison.com, an “infidelity” service aimed at married men and women, as its basis for analysis. Conducted in 2009, the survey asked 68 questions about users’ Internet use, sexual behaviors and demographics.

Have you sent explicit photos via text message? Have you cheated on a spouse or carried on a “sexting” affair? Read the full text of the article here and share your experiences in the comments.

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The belief that the future will be much better than the past and present is known as the optimism bias.

A recent Time Magazine article by Tali Sharot examines this bias.

You might expect optimism to fade when confronted with the reality of 21st century dating: guys who don’t call after a great first date, relationships that fall apart after three months, marriage proposals that never materialize. The study concludes that we can become pessimistic about the general state of things, but privately, optimism about our own futures remains intact. Even hearing that the odds of divorce are almost 1 in 2 tends not to make us think that our own marriages may be destined to fail.

The extensive study used brain-imaging results to conclude that while healthy people expect the future to be slightly better than it ends up being, people with severe depression tend to be pessimistically biased: they expect things to be worse than they end up being. People with mild depression are relatively accurate when predicting future events. They see the world as it is.

Says Sharot, “A canceled flight is hardly tragic, but even when the incidents that befall us are the type of horrific events we never expected to encounter, we automatically seek evidence confirming that our misfortune is a blessing in disguise. No, we did not anticipate losing our job, being ill or getting a divorce, but when these incidents occur, we search for the upside. These experiences mature us, we think. They may lead to more fulfilling jobs and stable relationships in the future. Interpreting a misfortune in this way allows us to conclude that our sunny expectations were correct after all — things did work out for the best.”

According to social psychologist Leon Festinger, we reevaluate the options post-choice to reduce the tension that arises from making a difficult decision between equally desirable options. Without this, our lives might well be completely filled with second-guessing. Did we choose the right man? Should go back to our ex? We would find ourselves stuck, overcome by indecision and unable to move forward.

The article asks “How do we remain optimistic about dating while at the same time guarding against the pitfalls associated with being TOO optimistic?” What do you think? Looking forward to your comments.

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A new study in the American Psychological Association journal Emotion reports a significant gender difference in the sexual attractiveness of smiles.

In a series of studies, more than 1,000 adult participants rated the sexual attractiveness of hundreds of images of the opposite sex engaged in universal displays of happiness (broad smiles), pride (raised heads, puffed-up chests) and shame (lowered heads, averted eyes).

The study found that women were least attracted to smiling, happy men. In contrast, male participants were most sexually attracted to women who looked happy, and least attracted to women who appeared proud and confident.

The results seem to reinforce old stereotypes. Women really do prefer the “strong, silent type.”

Surprisingly, displays of shame were attractive to both sexes. Shame conveys social awareness and “appeasement behavior,” indicating a potential partner’s trustworthiness and desire to be accepted.

Read more here. Does this apply to you? Please share your comments below.

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OKTrends released a study last week after compiling observations and statistics from hundreds of millions of OkCupid users. The study features ten charts about sex.

Charts 7 and 8 plot “Women by Body Type: Sex Drive Vs. Self-Confidence”.  It features a dynamic chart that illustrates body type, sex drive, and self-confidence from age 18 to age 60. A  slider at the bottom moves to show that a woman’s sexuality peaks in her twenties, holds somewhat steady for 20 years, and then falls. And while sex drive ebbs and flows, self-confidence steadily grows.

The study also includes humorous elements.  For Chart 2, researchers took a single question—Is your ideal sex rough or gentle?—and searched profile text of men and women in their twenties for the words that most correlated to each answer.

Not surprisingly, the gentle folks’ “word clouds” included gardening, church and challenges. Whereas the rough sex folks’ words included obsessed, cynical and punk.

Review all ten charts here. I’m looking forward to your comments.

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The dating biz is a small one. Pretty much everyone who gives dating and relationship advice in the U.S. is someone with whom I’ve crossed paths at one point in time, and most of them are pretty darn good people. A perfect example is my friend, Jennifer Kelton, who is the founder of BadOnlineDates.com. Continue Reading »

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