I’m Sam.

And I’m Roy.

Nowadays many people use online

dating apps to find love and romance.

This involves writing a dating profile –

a short description of yourself  which you hope makes you

appear attractive to other  people looking for love online.

Online dating started with the

internet, but the idea is not new.

In the days before the internet, people

put dating adverts in newspapers.

Because they paid a price  per word, people described

themselves in as few words as possible,

using abbreviations like GSOH,

which meant a Good Sense Of Humour.

Eventually, GSOH became a  part of everyday English.

Amazingly, the same thing is now

happening in the world of online dating.

In this programme we’ll be learning some

of the newly invented words and phrases

being used by people who are looking for love on the internet.

Every year thousands of romantic

relationships start through online

dating apps.

But as always with information found

on the internet, there’s a danger that

someone’s dating profile doesn’t tell

the whole truth.

That’s right, Roy, so my question is this:

according to research, what do men tend

to lie about in their dating profile?

Is it:

a) their hair?

b) their height?

or,

c) their age?

Well, most people want to appear younger,

so I’ll say it’s c) their age.

We’ll find out if that’s the correct

answer later.

The person behind the online

dating research I mentioned was

Dr Nicola Fox Hamilton.

She describes herself as cyber-psychologist

and has interviewed both men and

women about what they hide from

potential online dating partners.

Listen as she tells BBC Radio 4’s,

Word of Mouth, what she  discovered from her interviews:

If you’re very deceptive, so if

you have no friends, and you

never go to the pub, and you said in your

profile that your most fun  thing to do is hanging out

with your friends on a Saturday

night, then that becomes a problem

because then you’ve been very deceptive.

If you occasionally do it

and you made it sound a bit more

like you do it all the time, that’s more

exaggeration – a lot of people do that,

where they exaggerate things about

themselves to make them seem more

attractive. But they’re walking a

fine line in trying to balance between

being attractive and not completely disappointing…

People often exaggerate things

about themselves to seem more

attractive online, for example that

they love hanging out, or spending

time with friends.

Nicola also says there’s

a difference between exaggerating

and being deceptive - deliberately lying

and making someone believe things

that are not true.

Nicola says deceptive daters are walking a

fine (or thin) line – they’re

finding a balance between two

opposing attitudes or ideas.

Online dating has also created

new vocabulary of its own.

Here’s Nicola Fox Hamilton again

explaining the meaning of two

new words, catfishing and

wokefishing, to BBC Radio 4’s, Word of Mouth.

Wokefishing is a version of

catfishing, and catfishing is where someone creates a profile

that isn’t them at all, so a complex false identify usually with

the purpose of looking for, or pretending to get into involved in,

love or romance.

Woke-fishing is when the person is generally

who they say they are, but they say that they’re much more

liberal in their values and political attitudes than they actually are.

Catfishing is when someone

tries to be more attractive by creating a false profile and

pretending to be someone else on social media.

Related to this is the term, wokefishing.

Here someone asks about your political and social

opinions, and pretends to share them in order to get closer to you.

They may pretend to have more liberal or

progressive attitudes than they really do.

Looking for love is never easy.

The internet has helped thousands find romance and

created some interesting new vocabulary, but there are dangers

and disappointments too

Speaking of which,

it’s time to reveal the  answer to your question, Sam.

You asked what men tend to lie about in their dating profiles.

I guessed it was their age.

You were… wrong.

According to research by Dr Fox Hamilton, men tend to lie

about their height – and  women, about their weight.

OK, let’s recap the new vocabulary we’ve learnt in this programme

about the language of online romance starting with dating profile –

a brief written description of yourself which you hope will attract a partner.

Being deceptive means lying so

people believe something that is not true.

Hanging out is an informal way to

say spending time with someone, usually friends.

The phrase, walking a fine line means finding a

balance between two opposing ideas or attitudes,

or between two opposing sides  so as not to annoy either side.

And finally, we learnt two

newly invented expressions.

Catfishing means trying to  appear more attractive by

pretending to be someone else on social media.

And wokefishing is when someone pretends to

share the same opinions as the person they are attracted to.

Once again, our six minutes are up.

Good luck if you are looking

for love online, and remember - there’s probably

someone out there interested in the real you.

Bye for now!

Bye!