I met him on Match. He was cute, and local, and my age, and a liberal. I “liked” him. He messaged me back. We went out a few times; I was starting to like him, even though he said he didn’t like to talk because he was a “doer.” I didn’t call him on how insulting that was.
Then he emailed me an invitation. His email address contained a year that, if it was his birth year, made him nine years older than he’d claimed to be on Match. When I casually asked him about it, hoping that the year was a sports milestone or something else that would keep him my age, he brushed the comment away. “Oh, yeah. I’ve been meaning to tell you about that.”
It seems that most men dating online do not know how to correctly enter in their birth years. In their profile, they bashfully explain that they are actually 10 years older, or 15, but they had made a mistake and Match wouldn’t let them change it. Some are honest enough to admit they deliberately lie because the women they had been attracting were too old. Others wait until the first message or meeting.
I tried to pretend it didn’t bother me. After all, he didn’t seem his age, and I probably would have hit the like button anyway.
Probably.
But when he called me the next day to “let me off the hook,” he blamed me. I had made him feel uncomfortable. I suppose because I called him out for lying.
For the life of me, I can’t understand why people lie about facts on their profile that are so easily uncovered. Do they really think that once they reveal they’re ten years older, or only separated instead of divorced, or twice married instead of just once, that the object of their affection will look past the lie because they’re already so attached?
Maybe they will. Maybe I expect too much. Maybe I should pretend to be five years younger (of course that would mean lying about my son’s age, too), a marathon runner, an experienced boater.
Nah.
I’d rather be alone as myself than with another person as a lie.
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