The Profile Promised an Ocean View

Online dating profiles are tiny holiday brochures for human beings.

Everything is selected for maximum appeal. The flattering photograph. The charming little description. Adventurous, affectionate, emotionally available, loves good conversation. Nobody writes, “I become evasive under pressure, still share several financial arrangements with my ex and have been using the same photograph since people owned BlackBerrys.”

Naturally.

The brochure is not supposed to contain the plumbing report.

Most of us understand that everybody presents themselves nicely. You choose a photograph you like. You mention hiking rather than the six hours you spent watching television last weekend. You say you enjoy travel even though half your recent trips involved visiting relatives and locating an airport sandwich.

Presentation is normal.

The trouble begins when presentation wanders off and quietly becomes fiction.

Then You Arrive at the Resort

You can exchange messages with a man for days, perhaps weeks, and begin forming a surprisingly vivid impression of someone you have never actually stood beside. His photographs, stories and little comments begin joining themselves into a person.

Then you meet.

And occasionally, check-in is not quite what the brochure suggested.

The photographs were ten years old. The stated age has apparently been adjusted for optimism. “Separated” turns out to mean married, living at home and hoping nobody becomes overly technical about vocabulary. The confident, funny conversationalist from messages is strangely different in person.

One discrepancy may be harmless. Human beings are not packaged goods, and nobody looks exactly like a photograph taken during unusually cooperative lighting.

But sometimes you realize that the difference was not accidental.

You were meant to arrive before discovering it.

That changes the mood rather quickly.

Apparently the Ocean Is Technically Nearby

What fascinates me is how often obvious misrepresentation comes with a defense.

“I really don’t look that different.”

“It’s only a few years.”

“I consider myself single.”

“You’re focusing on the wrong things.”

Ah.

So the hotel advertised an ocean view, you opened the curtains and found a parking garage, and now management would like to discuss your unhealthy obsession with water.

Very clever.

The argument is usually that the hidden fact should not matter. But that neatly avoids the much more interesting fact: if it truly did not matter, why hide it?

That is where trust gets dented.

It is not always the age, photograph, relationship status or whatever else has been creatively edited. It is discovering that somebody decided you should make your choice using information they knew was inaccurate.

And then, having got you through the door, they would quite like credit for honesty because eventually reality became unavoidable.

A curious standard.

The First Lie Creates Extra Rooms

Once something substantial turns out to be false, your mind does a perfectly predictable thing.

It starts looking around.

What else has been renovated for presentation purposes?

The job? The divorce? The reason the last relationship ended? The mysterious “roommate”? The photographs from what now appears to have been an entirely different geological period?

Suddenly you are not simply getting to know someone. You are comparing the brochure with the building.

This is why one lie can create more distrust than its actual subject seems to deserve. The lie does not stay politely inside its own room. It opens doors.

And strangely, the deceptive person can become offended by this.

You ask another question and now you are suspicious.

You hesitate to share personal details and now you are guarded.

You would prefer not to hand over your address immediately and apparently you need to “relax.”

Well, yes. Nothing relaxes a woman quite like discovering the first thing she learned was untrue and then being criticized for becoming observant.

Sometimes He Believed the Brochure Too

Not every deceptive profile belongs to some grand villain operating an international romantic fraud syndicate. A lot of people are simply astonishingly generous with their own self-description.

The photograph really does look current to him.

He really does think “emotionally available” describes him because he once discussed a feeling many years ago.

He really does consider the marriage essentially over despite several practical details suggesting the marriage itself has not received the memo.

Self-deception can write remarkably persuasive copy.

And this is where online dating gets particularly peculiar, because you may meet someone who is not consciously plotting to fool you at all. He has simply been living with his edited version of himself for so long that he is surprised you noticed the difference.

The brochure has become internal literature.

The First Date Is Where the Gloss Comes Off

For all its faults, meeting in person does something useful very quickly: reality becomes three-dimensional.

You can see how the conversation actually feels. You notice whether the warmth from messages exists without a keyboard. Little claims begin acquiring context. A person becomes less like an attractive collection of statements and more like an actual human being, which is much more interesting anyway.

Sometimes the difference is delightful. The profile barely captured him.

Sometimes the difference is neutral. Fine. Nobody photographs perfectly.

And occasionally you realize you did not meet the man from the brochure at all.

You met the management.

Now the issue is no longer whether the listing was flattering. Everybody understands flattering.

The issue is whether you still trust the establishment after discovering that “ocean view” required binoculars, leaning dangerously from the balcony and a very forgiving definition of ocean.

The brochure can be beautiful.

Eventually, though, you have to check in.