When Your Date Looks Different On The Internet

In the age of internet dating, when people have the tools to PhotoShop themselves into supermodels, it’s not terribly unusual for people to be surprised when their blind date looks nothing like their online picture.

ABCNews decided to have a little fun with this phenomenon, setting up singles with online matches, complete with photographs, before having the two meet in person—both looking completely different than their online personas. As Yardena Schwartz of ABC notes, “With so much riding on the personal profile, it is easy to imagine people embellishing physical characteristics. Some online daters use photos from earlier years, thinner days, or simply photos that make them look more attractive than they truly are.”

Justin Dubler and Carrie Goldstein were chosen for the experiment; both of them set up 5 dates apiece, using their real online profiles. But their dates were met with Charlie and Sabrina, two actors who looked nothing like Justin and Carrie. “It was nearly impossible for their dates not to notice the actors were impostors,” Schwartz writes, “especially because Charlie was seven inches shorter than Dubler and Sabrina nine inches taller than Goldstein. The actors were also about 10 years older than Dubler and Goldstein.”

The dates reactions ranged from sympathy to forgiveness to flat out anger and rejection: one date spied on Sabrina, whom he assumed was Carrie, from outside for 10 minutes before texting some BS excuse about a family emergency and taking off. Ouch.

I have never personally been on a blind date, but I suspect my immediate reaction in a situation like this would not be a positive one: I’d stay for dinner or what not, but probably wouldn’t call the guy again, as the first thing I would have noticed about him is that he was a bit shady in hiding his real identity. How have you dealt with such situations? And have you ever fudged your picture so much that your date didn’t recognize you?