Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.
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!