What Do I Do When I Know My Date Is Lying to Me ?

I have a question I never thought I would have to ask: what do I do when I realize someone I met on a dating app was lying to me?

I don’t even mean men who are 5’10” but tell me they’re 6’ or who use old photos, I mean ones who lie about who they are as people? Over the course of my last several dates from men I’ve met on Hinge, I’ve met one man who lied about being single (he’s married but “has an arrangement”), one who said he didn’t have children (he has two, they live with his ex-wife), at least two I caught using AI and multiple men who claimed to be moderates politically but who would end up admitting they were Trump voters when we met up in person.

I don’t know why men do this when the truth is always going to come out. What even is the point? How do I make it clear that I’m never going to be interested in fake “moderates” any more than honest Trump supporters? And when it happens, what do I do? Up until now I’ve stayed until the end of the date and then just never talk to them again, but maybe I should just get up and leave? Is this what dating has become now?

Tired Of All The Games

For as long as dudes have existed, there have been dudes who have lied in order to make it easier to get sex. If we go far enough into the Chauvet Cave in France, I’m sure we could find pictographs from Arglebargle complaining about the time Gukgak tried to convince her he brought down a mammoth single-handedly so he could get into her bearskins.

The general “why” of it is exceedingly simple: they thought that it would help and they could get away with it… or at the very least, by the time they got caught, they could either rationalize it away or it would be fait accompli. Most of the time, it was a case of knowing that the thing they were lying about was a dealbreaker, but they hoped that by the time someone met them in person, the person they met would be so charmed by them that they would overlook or forgive the screamingly obvious bullshit.

(In the era of ubiquitous cameras and now a new breed of glasshole, there’s also always the possibility that some of them are trolls looking for “triggering the lib” fodder for their 300-subscriber wanna-be influencer TikTok accounts.)

There’re some areas where, in the past, I was slightly more forgiving about lies of omission – usually about issues that were highly stigmatized and prone to misunderstandings, rather than fundamental dishonesty intended to hide significant details about themselves. But frankly, over time, I’ve come around to a position of “better to have a more limited dating pool of people who’ve opted-in in advance and filter out the rest”; there are already too many false-positives and unforeseeable incompatibilities in online dating. In my opinion, it’s better to embrace being strongly flavored than it is to be broadly but shallowly acceptable.

But a lot of people don’t see it that way. Some simply see it as being “part of the game”, some like to play fuck-fuck games of legalese and “well, technically…” and some just see folks not wanting to bang them because they support a political party that doesn’t see women as people as being unfair.

This is especially true of the Crouching Moderate, Hidden Trump Voter; rather than trying to compete for the vanishingly small number of women are also Trump supporters, they want to bang a lib or a progressive. Why? Because at the end of the day, most of them don’t want a partner, they want a conquest; they want to prove their patriarchal bonafides and powerful virility by “breaking” someone from being a liberal to a meek and submissive tradwife.

Since they know – and won’t stop complaining about it – that women just don’t want to fuck conservative men, they lie. They can’t reasonably fake being liberal or progressive, but they can at least try to pretend to be “moderate” or “apolitical” by avoiding saying anything on the apps and praying to Supply-Side Jesus that their dates don’t seek out their socials. For some, the fun is in the reveal, but in my experience most of the time, they’re not able to keep up the lie and slip up or hope that – as I said – that by the time their dates find out, they’d be too invested to bail.

The question of how to handle it, in my opinion, is going to depend on how safe you feel in the situation. While most of the liars on dating apps are just sad, rather than malicious, there’re enough people who Hulk out when a date doesn’t go their way that I think caution and trusting your Spidey-sense is warranted in determining how to respond.

I know there’s a contingent of folks who would love to see people verbally rip a deceiver a new one at such a volume that people down the block would say “Wow, what a goddamn idiot.” But frankly, I don’t think the potential catharsis would be commensurate with the potential risk, nor do I think they really deserve that much of a response. Doubly so if they’re the sort of dickbag who might be trying to get responses like that for content. Creating a scene like that also tends to work out badly for the person who’s making the fuss, even if it’s ultimately because the other person started it. The last thing you want is to create drama at your favorite bar or coffeeshop. And frankly, not everyone’s the type who’s comfortable with that sort of confrontation.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s worth staying any longer than you absolutely have to. I can understand the social pressure to be polite and stick it out to the end and the way that women in particular are socialized to be considerate of men’s feelings at the expense of their own. But quite frankly, I think that once someone has revealed a lie that goes beyond the dating app equivalent of ‘fudging their resume a little’ to ‘actively leaving out vital information’, the social contract is well and truly broken. Once that’s happened, there’s no reason for you to linger a second longer than it takes to signal the bartender or waiter for the check and bounce. Hell, in some cases I think you’d be forgiven for getting up to “use the bathroom” and then just dipping out.

What is always going to be true, however, is that you’re not obligated to teach them the error of their ways, nor is there any reason to humor someone or hear them out if they’re willing to deceive you like that right off the bat. Many of them are relying on that social programming of “well, I agreed to this, I have to see it through” in order to try to push the issue. This is a place where a philosophy of “Fuck Politeness™” will go a long way to ensuring that you don’t waste a second longer than you absolutely have to.

The other important thing is to remember that this is a them issue, not a youissue. You can certainly make it clear in your profiles that certain things are non-negotiable, full stop… but you can’t control other people’s behavior. If someone’s going to lie about important information about themselves, the odds that they’re going to respect a “Trump voters swipe left” is pretty much zero. The best thing you can do is minimize the time they can steal from you by Googling in advance and arranging a 15 minute vibe check rather than a full on date. At least that way, it’s that much harder for them to trick you into wasting a perfectly good evening you could be spending watching your favorite episodes of Heated Rivalry again.

Good luck.

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Aloha, Dr. NerdLove. I’m a 45-year-old gorgeous lady who loves men and is pretty intense when it comes to well, everything. I work out daily. I like riding horses long distances. I meditate on the regular. I’m financially independent and have lots of time on my hands. I get bored easily. I hate small talk. I’m brutally honest yet kind. I’m discouraged with dating because my dreams are so big, and whenever I connect with a guy the romance just peters out. Case in point my last boyfriend broke up with me after 7 months; he called me selfish cause I wanted to have sex every day.

Maybe my intensity is scary? I mean, I get it, sometimes the intensity of my feelings surprises even me, but I’m more than willing to talk about it. I just want more, and I ask for it, even though I’m actually a down-to-earth, easy-to-please gal who enjoys a quiet dinner at home and a hot bath. I can feel my own soft, tender heart brimming with love and passion, and I don’t understand how no one shares my desire to create a wonderful relationship full of fun and adventure.

Men hit on me All the time, which I love, and I give them a chance but nobody lasts. Where is my man?! All my friends say, oh you just haven’t met the right person, but I’ve been dating for 30 years and I’m discouraged.

I live in a small community of 150,000 people, so yeah, the pool is limited. I travel often and meet men wherever I go . . . but it doesn’t help my situation if he’s not local, right? I can’t move because I have a daughter and co-parent with the dad who will not move. I tried online dating for a year, but my direct approach of immediately requesting a phone call resulted in contact with only 20% of matches and generally intimidated men.

I’m from the South, so I typically mesh better culturally with east coasters, while I live in Hawaii. I often feel out of place culturally cause people are so casual and new agey here. One more serious discussion about astrology and I’ll shoot myself in the head! I voted for Trump. I want a traditional man who opens doors, totes a gun and doesn’t give a f*ck about pronouns. All I get are swingers and hippies who are NOT my scene.

Any advice? Curb my enthusiasm and play it cool? I am being patient and praying daily for guidance in this matter.

Troubled In Paradise

If you’re tired of all the hippies and want a mmm-beef-tallow-glurp-glurp-glurp Trump voter, I understand there’s a lot of political “moderates” looking for love on Tinder and Hinge.

But I suspect that’s not really the issue here.

As a general rule, when someone is regularly being told that they’re “too intimidating”, especially if that someone is a woman, they have two choices: change their behavior or change their expectations. All of it is going to come down to what is ultimately more important to you – finding someone or finding someone who is attracted to your authentic self. If the cost of finding someone is going to be making yourself smaller for their comfort… well, you have to decide if that’s a price you’re willing to pay.

(More on this in a second.)

However, there is a caveat to this: you also need to be willing to take an honest look at your actions. If it’s an issue that has come up over and over again, then it’s possible that you’re coming across in ways that you don’t intend. After all, there’s “guys are intimidated by a confident and independent woman” and then there’s “people as a general rule don’t want to feel like they’re standing in front of an oncoming bulldozer.”

This isn’t even necessarily an issue of confidence or being secure in their masculinity so much as “this isn’t a conversation, it’s a series of demands by the Fire Lord’s daughter and heir.” The guy who called you selfish for wanting sex daily, for example, is an area where the exact complaint might be worth examining and what he thought was “selfish”. Sometimes it can be a case of a simple mismatched libidos. Other times, however, the problem isn’t wanting sex every day, it’s the kind of sex, the way the other person is made to feel or if they feel as though their wants and desires are unimportant or ignored. The difference there is rather significant.

There’re a couple of points in your letter that make me wonder if maybe you’re coming across more like Azula than you realize.

The comment about how the intensity of your feelings surprises even you, for example, is an area where what you’re doing and how other people may be perceiving it are two different things. Being willing to talk about it is great, but if your emotional intensity goes straight to a 10 when people are expecting a 2, that’s going to put people off. This is especially true if that high intensity seems to clash with the down-to-earth, easy-to-please desire for a cozy night in.

That comes up with your experiences with online dating. While God knows lots of people want someone to be direct and don’t want to faff about trading texts back and forth forever, most people expect that there will be general messaging back and forth to assess a vibe. An immediate response of “Talk on the phone, right now” isn’t what most people expect; it’s off-putting not because someone’s not confident or comfortable with someone who’s assertive and independent, it’s incongruous with expected behavior on the apps.

This also plays into the part where you say “I’m brutally honest but kind”. To be blunt, I’ve yet to meet anyone who claims to be brutally honest but whose brutal honesty is even vaguely positive. Most of the time, the honesty is less important than the brutality, and the brutality is held up as a virtue – a sort of sadistic epistemology to complement Natalie Wynn’s masochistic epistemology. Honesty doesn’t need to hurt to be valid, and the brutality often isn’t helpful, especially if that’s your primary working mode. There’s a difference between someone who is honest with you and someone who doesn’t seem to notice or care that their honesty only hurts or highlights the negative. If talking to you or getting your opinion on something, especially something personal, leaves them feeling like they just had their skin flayed off, most people are going to dip, sooner rather than later.

Now maybe these are things that you’re doing. Maybe they aren’t. I don’t know; I’m not there, so I can’t say. If you have friends who know you well and whose judgement you can trust, it may be worth getting their opinion on the matter as an outside observer.

But there’s one more thing to consider: remember what I said about making yourself smaller for someone else’s consumption vs. someone who wants your authentic self? This is as much about the people you want to date as it is about how you decide to comport (and possibly contort) yourself. And quite frankly… the kind of guy you want is far less likely to want the kind of person you are. Conservatives, especially the sort of person who thinks respecting other people’s pronouns is stupid, don’t want assertive, strong, financially independent partners who are willing to demand their worth. What they tend to want is a subordinate, not a partner. They’re fine with someone who’s fierce and intense… but only when they get to direct that intensity at others, not when it may turn around and affect them.

So if you’re looking for the rootinest-tootinest, gun-shootinest, no-they-them-their motherfucker instead of your typical laid back kahuna… you’re going to have to decide how much that fierce intensity, financial independence and sense of self means to you, or if you’re willing to be another Mar-A-Lago clone in a series.

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This post was previously published on Doctornerdlove.com and is republished on Medium.