A homegirl of mine was just victimized by the most egregious case of online dating false advertising I’ve ever heard of! :D .. WOW!.. I mean, it was horrific. Some people ought to be absolutely ashamed and embarrassed about how they present themselves online vs. how they actually are in real life (IRL).

You Can’t Handle The Truth!

I already talked about this back in 2008, in “It’s All In The Game (Online Dating)”, in response to this comment on BlogHer:

Zandria: I have had several “interesting” experiences.
For one thing, a lot of guys seem to think they’re six feet tall. I]ve spoken to a number of women who back up this theory of Male Online Dating Height Exaggeration. Guys who really are tall — say, over 6’2″ — tend not to lie. But if I see a profile that says the guy is 6’0″, I’m going to assume he’s at least an inch or two shorter than that. (If I’m 5’9″ and wearing not-very-tall heels, and the dude is also wearing shoes, and we’re looking each other straight in the eye? I’m sorry, but you’re not six feet tall.)

Briefly.. I explained that guys know damned well that they’re not 6 feet tall, but they also know they might not get a date if they admit that they’re 5’9″, so it’s better for them to lie to you to get you to show up for the date and then see what they can do. >:D

A bit of truth-stretching is the norm on the dating scene, but it’s entirely unethical to go overboard with it.

Bait & Switch

Back in the day, I met this chick online and we were “friends” for several years… Let’s say 3 years (I don’t remember how long at this point). The entire time, I had been receiving up-to-date pictures from her of how she looked. At this 3-year mark, she created a new account on a new social networking site.

When I went to check out her account, her profile pic was the EXACT. SAME. PIC. that I first saw of her several years before. I knew damned well that she didn’t look like that anymore, so I asked her why she used that for her avatar. Her response was that that was the picture where she liked how she looked the best…

I was like “Yeah, but you don’t look like that NOW!”, which made no difference to her. It was in her best interest to show the better-looking pictures and get more guys interested and “cross that bridge when she gets to it” about how she currently looked.

The Fellaz

This is basically what recently happened to my homegirl.. She got duped with some ancient pictures of a dude, and when he arrived for the date, he looked more like the Crypt Keeper than Donnie Wahlberg.

 
 
 
 
 
<= Crypt Keeper.. Not Donnie. :/

SRSLY.. :/ If you look like the Crypt Keeper, fess up! :D

What do you think is going to happen when the chick finally sees you in person? You think she’s going to forget what your pictures looked like?

It’s one thing if you’re 5’11″ and you said you were 6’2″. That’s a lie you can potentially recover from. If you’re BUSTED and you told her that you’re not?… You’re pretty much finished before you get started.

If you said you were rich, you can pretty much get over on that until you tag up one time or maybe twice, but after that, if you can’t produce that yacht that you claimed was moored out in Sag Harbor, your rap is basically toast.

If you claimed you were gonna rock her body to the break-day-light and then you turned out to be a two-minute-brotha.. you’re done!

The Ladies

While tha fellaz need to keep it real, y’all ladies need to stop trying to get over as well… Nobody’s being fooled by those close-cropped pictures that only show your head and perhaps your neck. :D

Until a guy sees a full-body picture of you, he’s not believing the hype. If all you want to show is your grill, it’ll be assumed that the rest of you isn’t worth seeing, or in fact, would be detrimental to your rap.

You really don’t want a guy to figure out what physical condition you’re in when he sees you approaching the table on the night of the date. :) If he doesn’t like how you look, you might get some weird-ass reactions from him, which could create a very uncomfortable / awkward situation for you, in public, no less.

In fact.. If the guy knows what he’s doing, he’ll tell you to meet him at the restaurant and then post up across the street so he can see you arrive. If he doesn’t like what he’s looking at, he’ll just bounce and remove you from his friends list on the online dating site.

OTOH.. If you happen to be FOYINE, it’s in your best interest to make sure that guys know this when they browse your pictures.

I know y’all are always crying about “WAAAAH, WAAAAAH I want him to love me for ME! :( WAAAAAAAH!!!”, but “You” isn’t just your mind.. It’s your body too. If he’s not physically attracted to you, you’re not going to get the chance to tell him what’s on your mind.

Will you get a lot of messages you don’t want, from guys that just want to hit it & quit it? Sure… It’s your job to sift through your potential suitors to find that needle in the haystack that you want to spend time with as much as he wants to spend time with you. It’s better to have too many guys kickin’ it to you than too few! o_O

Keep It Real

Ultimately, the thing is this… If you cheat people on your profile, eventually, you’re going to have to pay the piper.

If you’re not in shape, that’s going to be obvious.

If you’re not as smart as you said you were, that’s going to be obvious.

If you suck at playing guitar when you said you were in a band, that’s going to be obvious.

I realize that some people are desperate to achieve even the shortest amount of physical contact with another human being, so tricking them into meeting you for a date is the move for you. I think everybody else needs to be aware that people do this and realize that online dating isn’t WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).

My personal advice is that you should meet, kick it with and date people your friends already know. Checks & Balances is the name of the game.

There are too many people connected to too many people in the year 2010 for people to have to seek dates outside of their currently cultivated social sphere.

Hop on Facebook or MySpace or wherever you socialize with other people and let them know you’re interested in meeting someone to spend time with, kick it about philosophy with or get your FREAK ON with and let them suggest people that they think might be a match for you and that they can vouch for as cool people.

Other than that, you’re going to have to take your chances, whether you’re on the giving or receiving side of online dating false advertising.

On the giving side.. If you’re looking for a LTR, it’s in your best interest to lay your cards on the table from the giddyap. If you’re just trying to sneak in the door and hope you get to hook up before your date becomes sober, you might very well get over, so good luck with that! :D

On the receiving side, recognize that people are going to try to dupe you as often as possible and get over as much as possible. They might not look the way you think they look or think the way you think they think when you meet them in person. It’s all in the game! >:D

Related Posts

• Girls Don’t Have Friends That Are Guys
• Why Men Rebound So Quickly
• Women Date Up, Men Don’t
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As a follow-up to my 2008 post “Women’s Guide to NYC Dating”, I’d like to offer the ladies some of my top tips for those of y’all that are currently involved in the dating scene:

1. Stop going outside looking like a bum

Being that women think romantic situations fall out of the sky via divine intervention, y’all often leave your cribs completely unprepared to visually impress a guy.

Here’s the problem with that. YOU don’t get to decide when you run into a guy you might like to date. If you’re in public AT ALL, you SHOULD be looking STELLAR. Period.

Also, in the year 2010, photo-ops come up instantaneously. If you show up to a party looking BUSTED, that’s what’s going to go out on Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, Bebo, and everywhere else people put pictures and/or videos and then that’s going to represent you to guys that stumble upon images of you in social media streams.

I told a friend of mine I was getting to a party early and her reply was “I’ll be there later because I need to go home from work, get myself looking good and then go to the party”. That’s EXACTLY what she should have done. >:D

Also, if you make plans to go out with someone you’re not romantically interested in, you STILL need to not look bummy because you never know who’s going to show up wherever y’all went to eat, drink or hang out and then you’ll feel corny for wearing your Grandmother 1930′s sweater, non-fitting pants and flip-flops outside instead of looking like a gal a guy would actually like to meet and potentially date.

The Game is *Always* On. Act As If.

2. Only date guys you have references for

A lot of guys wonder why I know so many women. Well… I know so many women because I know so many women.

HAHAHA I’m not being funny when I say that. Women know other women. The more women you know, the more women you’re going to meet. The best thing about that is that there’s a two-way system of checks & balances that comes automatically equipped with your new acquaintance. Both of youse get to ask the middle-woman about the other one.

On top of that, the vast majority of the time, people don’t want to introduce you to crumbs because that’s going to make THEM look bad and look like poor judges of character or even worse, that they were trying to parlay your friendship into some kind of business or networking deal on the sneak tip. So you can pretty much assume before asking either the introducer or the introducee any questions at all that this person is most likely cool.

Meanwhile… Every sentence I hear about dating from women starts out with “I met this guy on okCupid and…”, “I met this guy on PlentyOfFish and…”, “I met this guy on Match.com and…”.. and I’m like “Do these chicks know ANY guys that could actually INTRODUCE THEM to guys they might like to date? :D”.

One of the reasons y’all have so many problems dating is that you keep starting over from scratch with every new guy that you meet that you have ZERO social connection to whatsoever. Another problem is that he doesn’t have any incentive NOT to jerk you around because if you stop talking to him, who cares? He has more girls lined up on the dating sites. If you give him a bad review, who cares? You don’t know anybody he knows, so you’re a tree falling in the woods.

Y’all get to skip all that by meeting guys that your friends already know. If he’s a jerk, you can find that out ahead of time (or else your friends SUCK for not vetting him before introducing him to you). If he’s not a jerk NOW, he’s going to think at least thrice before BECOMING ONE, because he knows his entire social set’s going to find out about it with the worst-case scenario being that your full name becomes slang for a description of a particular way of being.. which is NORMALLY NEGATIVE! :D

I happen to find this extremely funny, BTW! HAHA (example: “Who? Winston?… Yeah, I know him.. That guy’s a Bill Cammack. :/”) hahaha I love that SO MUCH when someone attains the height of notoriety while walking around oblivious to the fact that everyone’s hip to his M.O. hahaha :D

Anyway, ladies.. Y’all need to start meeting guys through homegirls of yours instead of going on all these pot-luck grab-bag dates and ending up playing Parcheesi* at 2am in some hipster bar with some dude that’s currently too drunk to get up and walk away, much less do anything else interesting to you this evening. O_o

* Parcheesi is an actual board game.

“Playing Parcheesi at 2am” is not an euphemism for sex.

To be continued in Part 02: “Communication & Congruence“.

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So I’m reading TheDiva Rockin‘s blog post where she outlines how she would like a first date with a guy to evolve. I found her concepts to be interesting and reasonable from the female side of things. Let’s see how the exact same date scenario evolved for the guy….. >:D

TheDiva: The following are the steps which I would ideally like a guy to follow leading up to a first date. In some cases I have skipped over a step here and there or added in a few, but over all I think this is a fair and appropriate execution:

Step One: “Guy finds interest in my profile (on one of the various sites I am a member of) and messages me with a competent and interesting introduction.”

Actual Step One: Guy browses online dating site in grid mode so he can fit 40 chicks on a page instead of 10 and also he gets to save the time of consciously skipping over whatever nonsense she wrote about herself in order to see the next chick’s picture.

Guy finishes skimming through all the new entries and starts looking through the tabs he created from the pictures he selected…. I mean, not looking through the tabs, but rather scanning the pages he selected for the “More Pictures” button.

Guy finds more pictures of the chick which inform him whether he’d be willing to tap that or not if he met up with her IRL. No extra pictures = closed tab. Bad extra pictures = closed tab. Good extra pictures, but in light of the new evidence, he’s not interested in hooking up with her = closed tab.

Guy re-skims the profiles of the gals who made the cut, looking for something she wrote that he can CLAIM made him interested in dating her other than she has a really nice ass. He then writes something like “I like fluffy pillows and cats too! :D” instead of “Does your body still look like that or are those old pictures?”.

TheDiva: Step Two: “I review Guy’s profile and in finding a mutual interest I message him back with general commentary on his profile or intro message.”

Fortunately, I knew that Random Guy knew that chicks actually READ what guys write on online dating sites, so he changed his profile to match hers BEFORE he contacted her.

All the stuff he used to pull the last chick, he deleted and replaced with her favorite movies, books, etc. He even googled a couple of them so he could pull some quotes to add authenticity.

Guy receives requisite message indicating “OMG, WE HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON! :D yadda yadda” and he knows it’s Game On! >:D

The obvious problem here is that he kicked it to at least 5 chicks last night, who are all going to have slightly different text content in their profiles. In this case, his best bet was to match the profile of the chick he wanted THE MOST and then add tidbits from what the other gals wrote in decreasing order of tapability… tapworthiness? \o/

TheDiva: Step Three: “After a few exchanges, if the conversation is going well, I provide my personal email (note: I am not a fan of Instant Messaging or talking on the Phone right away, though I have made exceptions to this in some cases).”

Jeez. This is taking AGES! :/ … Exchanges? Conversation? What’s going on here? O_o This is like actually having a job. All this work I put in and then I get an EMAIL ADDRESS? Damn. What is this? Dante’s rings of the inferno? :/

TheDiva: Step Four: “Guy requests a meet up.”

DAMNED ******* SKIPPY I HE REQUESTED A MEETUP!!!

The meetup was REQUESTED in the first communication, yet conveniently ignored so this chick could entertain herself with “exchanges” and “conversation”. UGH! :/

TheDiva: Step Five: “I agree to meet Guy over coffee or a casual drink and provide my phone number so that we can discuss the arrangement.”

Finally. Please. Thank *GOD* we’re finally getting this show on the ROAD! :D

Now, all I have to do is not get caught calling her by my wife like Tiger Woods.

TheDiva: Step Six: “Meet Guy for Coffee/Drink, but keep it short and sweet. If all goes well we should agree to a 1st date before departing.”

Completely Agreed! :D The first meetup needs to be short & sweet. It also needs to be strategically located within walking distance of the nearest motel, just in case The Kid makes it HAPPEN, SUNN!!! :D

TheDiva: Step Seven: “Our 1st Date. Nothing fancy – lunch or dinner at a casual spot will do. Maybe a cocktail or two and some witty banter.”

ok.. So I didn’t make it to the motel on Date Zero. :/ However.. I determined upon spending time with this woman that she’s as sexy as her pictures indicated or eve MORE so! :D Therefore, I’m more than willing to jump through a few more hoops in order to get on. Lunch is better than dinner because I can be rid of her by 4pm and then get ready for my other date later this evening. No point in showing up for the real action smelling like some other chick because I hugged her goodbye and got some of her perfume on me.

Lots of meaningless banter during Lunch and pointing out the color of the leaves and other stuff that chicks dig. Make sure she consumes lots of liquids so she has to get up from her seat to hit the bathroom a couple of times so I YOU can accurately assess her ass while she’s leaving. You know how sometimes, chicks luck out and the light hits their ass just the right way to make it look good in a picture, but IRL, it’s just not an athletic ass, like how it doesn’t clench when she walks or it looks like an orange because she’s wearing her grand-ma-ma panties under her jeans which divide it into several sections….. um, what was I talking about?

TheDiva: “Now, I’d prefer not to be asked to go out again while still on the 1st date. I think a guy should follow up the next day or shortly thereafter if he is interested. Plus, if I am no longer feeling him at the end of the date, it takes some pressure off me where I am likely to say yes to your face when I really mean No Thank You.”

Asking a chick out AGAIN while you’re ALREADY out with her is extremely poor form. You’re demonstrating a Defeatist Attitude, which is completely unsexy to chicks. No good. :/

By asking her out again for the future, you’re assuming she’s not coming down the street to the motel with you.

Chicks Dig Confidence. Whether you get it or you don’t, you have to think, feel and believe you’re going to get on immediately if not sooner because this chick is sweating you RIGHT. NOW. :D If you Herb out with a line like “Did you have a nice time?.. Do you think we should go out again?”, you lose.

Damn ******* Skippy she wants to go out with you again. Damned ******* Skippy she’s hoping you invite her to the motel. Damn ******* Skippy she wants to go out with you again because you showed her a better time tonight than any of her other suitors. There’s nothing to ASK about. You know you rocked this date. You know SHE knows you rocked this date. You know that anybody that SAW YOU WITH HER said to their friend “That dude over there?.. He’s RAWKING that date! :O”!

If you’re just the type of dude that HAS to ask a chick something, ask her whether she’d like the Steak & Eggs or the Continental Breakfast from the motel’s room service menu. ;)

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Bill & Frank discuss MiGente, MySpace, OkCupid, Facebook and the potential pitfalls of one gal inviting another gal along on a date as a “third wheel”.

Listen / Download => Audio Version (.mp3) [11:27]

Send “Street Game” questions to @BillCammack or DGstreetgame@gmail.com

More Episodes: http://billcammack.com/category/datinggenius/streetgame/

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This is not a continuation of “Online Dating Tactics”. This is a response to a BlogHer post by Zandria M, entitled “Dating: ‘Tis the Season”.

Zandria: I’ve heard that more breakups occur during the holiday season than any other time of year. [...snip...] The thing is, though, I haven’t seen a drop in the amount of people looking for dates online. In fact, I’m receiving more expressions of interest than I did when I first signed up over the summer.

hehehe Excellent read, Zandria. :) Let me tell you what’s going on.

You explained why you’re getting more expressions of interest now than you did over the summer. Guys are dumping their girls for the holiday season OR they’ve already DECIDED that they’re dumping their girls, so they’re trolling for more women ahead of time. It’s like being a freelancer in a work situation. As a video editor, I get MORE work when people get fired or companies downsize. You’re experiencing the same thing with online dating.

The reasons you gave were spot-on. Basically, the holiday season is an expensive time to have a girlfriend, so guys tend to break up permanently or at least until the season’s over and take their girls back in January.

Another reason is that there are a lot of holiday parties right now, with a lot of DRUNK WOMEN at them. That’s where you want to be, instead of stuck at some party with a chick you already know… or even WORSE, over @ her relatives’ crib! :( This is PRIME TIME for meeting women and starting new relationships. Also, if you start a new relationship NOW, it’s too early for her to expect an expensive gift from you. :)

Zandria: The thing is, though, the more dating you do, the more instances of “Did he really do/say that?” tend to emerge.

You need to catalogue those increasing instances of “Did he really do/say that?” that you’re experiencing, because those are brief glimpses into what a lot of guys are actually thinking. It’s really the little things that give people away.

Zandria: I have had several “interesting” experiences.

For one thing, a lot of guys seem to think they’re six feet tall. I]ve spoken to a number of women who back up this theory of Male Online Dating Height Exaggeration. Guys who really are tall — say, over 6’2″ — tend not to lie. But if I see a profile that says the guy is 6’0″, I’m going to assume he’s at least an inch or two shorter than that. (If I’m 5’9″ and wearing not-very-tall heels, and the dude is also wearing shoes, and we’re looking each other straight in the eye? I’m sorry, but you’re not six feet tall.)

As far as the “six feet tall” thing, hahaha Online dating sites are set up in categories. This is how women and men get to choose whom they see in their search results. If a guy honestly states that he’s 5’9″ and a lot of women check the box that says 6′ or over, he doesn’t show up in the search results and he doesn’t get that date. Or, in some cases, where the site does the matchup FOR you, he doesn’t make the “compatible” list, so, again… HE doesn’t get that date. Since the whole point of him being on the service is to meet women that he wants to date or have sex with or whatever, he wants to meet as many as possible, so he LIES and says he’s 6′ tall. It’s not that he doesn’t REALIZE that he’s not that tall hahahahaha. It’s not that he has delusions about his height. He’s merely tricking you into going out on a date with him, when he’s actually below your selected height requirement.

It’s all in the game. :)

Oh… and apply the same logic to his salary.

Zandria: Another thing: some guys need to be more up-front about important matters that affect possible future relationships before you take the time to meet them in person. I had this one guy wait until our first meeting before he asked me, “Did I tell you that I’m about to be deployed to Iraq for seven months?”

As far as guys being “more up-front about important matters that affect possible future relationships”, nobody’s thinking about “possible future relationships” until they meet you in person. The way it works is, guys get what they can get… NOW… and if it continues, fine. So, if dude’s about to leave town, he’s looking for something to do UNTIL he leaves town. Similar to the “not 6-feet-tall” guy, he’s not going to ruin his chance to try to get some or have a temporary girlfriend by letting you know he’s not physically available for a LTR.

Once he meets you, it’s a different story. He might feel like “this one’s a keeper” and THEN come clean about his current status and future plans. I guess I should have put ‘clean’ in quotes, because STDs are another thing guys (AND gals) don’t tend to mention on online dating sites.

Zandria: Then there are the things that just make me go “Hmm…” Like the guy who came across as really formal and straight-laced, but when I called him out on it (yes, I will call you out if it’s warranted) he assured me, “I do have a dark and twisted side.”

As far as dudes announcing that they “have a dark and twisted side”, that normally means that they don’t, but they’d be willing to make one up so as to not get rejected for being boring. Also, “dark and twisted” is relative to his own experience. I know women who think doggie-style is dark and twisted, hahahaha :D The point is that guys are going to SAY whatever they have to say in order to stay on track to hooking up with you. If they’re wackos, they’re going to say they’re not. If they’re boring, they’re going to say they’re not.

If you want to know if a guy’s “twisted” for real, look in his eyes and then ask him what he wants to do to you.

So, yeah, that’s “how we do”. Lie as much as you need to in online dating so you get a chance to run your IRL game on her. Best-case scenario, the 5’9″ broke-as-a-joke, unemotionally available, boring dude gains the physical company of a female he finds attractive for one or more evenings. Worst-case scenario, she walks out the door as soon as she sees you, because you’re not what she wanted… except that’s the same outcome as if you hadn’t lied on your application in the first place and she never chose you, so who cares?

It’s all in the game. :D

~Bill

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