Online dating and self-presentation

How many people or friends do you know that date online, whether it’s on apps like tinder or webpages like eHarmony?  And how many of you have a friend that ever lied about something on one of these pages even if it’s a small as a slight difference in height? Making yourself look better on dating sites like this Is called Deception of online dating. I’m sure we’ve all seen an episode of catfish, where the guy thinks that he’s dating a gorgeous girl and when he goes to meet her it turns out to be one of his friends or even another man. The deception of online dating is probably the most reoccurring problem when it comes to the dating process over the internet. I don’t really understand why people do it, I mean I know it’s to look better but it just doesn’t make sense in the long run if you’re trying to find a partner and you create lies about yourself to seem “more attractive”.  I do not have a tindr but when I ask my friends about theirs they describe it as “A place where I keep swiping until I find a random hot girl I can try to hook-up with”. Extra emphasis on the try. Not everyone has this same narrow minded approach but many online dating sites have come down to making your personal image look as good as possible even if it’s fake so you can get an easy hook-up, instead of the original purpose of dating which is to find someone to date and possibly spend the rest of your life with like sites like eHarmony.

Deception of online dating is just one of the ways someone can present themselves. In our reading self-presentation in online dating the mentioned how Self-presentation is “Online self-presenters are often highly motivated to control how other people see them because of the publicness and performance of their self-presentational acts..”  So basically people want to not alter the way they look but only share the good things like “just got into Penn State!”,not “I just had to drop my chemistry class because I failed my first two tests!”  She goes on to say “Highly motivated self-presenters have the opportunity to create flattering self-presentations, that cater to their audiences…”. Basically the more followers they have the more they alter what they post and try to make themselves seem more liked and accepted. It always seems a little silly but this day in age social media and how you present yourself on said networks like twitter and Facebook is becoming a staple society. Trying to date online through social networks is also becoming a popular trend. Although most of the time it’s more commonly used for hooking up with that one girl at the party by “sliding in her dms” instead of dating or talking first.  Times are changing and our hook-up culture is at an all-time high, it just makes me wonder if anyone is still old school and instead of looking for an easy hook-up they look for a nice movie and a girl they can bring home to their parents.