Internet Dating

We all crave love, it is human nature to feel wanted and cared for by another and for many they are lucky enough to find true love, we all know that love doesn’t come easy and relationships take both commitment and communication along with trust.

To find this kind of love seems to be a rare thing these days. I for one have struggled to find my soulmate, if indeed this actually exists. I like to think it does even if my belief in true love has diminished from the hopeless romantic I once was to someone who finds it difficult to trust other people.

I am not alone in this mistrust, the world of the internet has made it much easier for people to meet through chat rooms and dating websites. It is a battlefield of the sexes where having the sexiest picture often outdoes a well-written profile. This also makes it easier for people to lie, cheat and deceive others through fake profiles.

For many people, the world of online dating can be as daunting and scary as dating in the “real” world and in some ways it can be dangerous and is often frowned upon compared to meeting someone in a club or a coffee shop.

Swiping left or right in the search for love is becoming a normal activity with many dating websites also having their own phone apps, so how do you tell who is genuine and who isn’t in the world of internet dating?

It is easy to lose yourself in the plethora of dating websites and the charges a lot of these make are a little off putting. Some will advertise their services as free only to have you sign up and when you receive a message you’re informed that you have to pay to read it or to send a message to a person.

Others such as Plenty Of Fish, freedating.co.uk and OkCupid are relatively free to send and receive messages although there are paid options which will allow you to view who has liked you feature as on Plenty Of Fish which is locked out to free users.

As a photographer I have spent many years learning the craft and understanding the business of photography. I know what it takes to create a professional image, how the lighting is used, when airbrushing or other image editing software has been utilized and the positioning used with models. I have also done a lot of research on models and as such recognise faces I have seen in images on the internet.

But what is the relevance here?

When you know what to look for in a photograph it is often very easy to identify a fake user profile on any dating site. This isn’t always the case and sometimes people will have visited a professional photography studio for a shoot and use an image from that. I have found several people using the same photographer and makeup artist for a photo shoot they have paid for easily recognisable by the backdrop and style of hair and makeup.

It is possibly easier for me to recognise these things than someone who has never taken a photograph or studied photography, but do not despair as there are other ways to weed out the fake profiles.

Below is an example of a professional portrait shot which could be easily used by anyone who has Google search facilities. This came from a royalty free photograph website and it was as easy as right click and download to get the image.

The backdrop is plain white, the lighting soft and appealing, showing that the photographer was using light boxes and possibly reflectors to highlight the woman’s cheek bones. Air brushing is visible beneath her eyes which were possibly much darker when the original photograph was taken.

The image below is a prime example of a fake photograph used on a dating site. Note how this image is more like a selfie, even posing in an office “at work.” It is more than possible this is just a selfie of an innocent dater, however further investigation proves otherwise:

Google has a feature called “reverse image search.” Most dating sites will allow you to right click on a picture. This will bring up several options, one of which is the reverse image search. If you click this a new tab will open in your browser and it will display a thumbnail of the picture you clicked on and below this will show all the links to websites that the image is being hosted on.

In this case we have a lot of links showing the same photograph. This shows that the photo in question is of a model or it has been stolen from someone who is completely innocent and unaware her photograph is being used. The fact is it appears on several websites, usually for advertising (unless it’s a stolen image) and that it is more than probable that the person who’s profile it came from is not the person in the picture.

I had to blur out the second page because it appears on adult content related websites.

As you can see from the above pictures there are a lot of results used on different websites for this particular image proving that the profile is indeed a fake.

There are other ways to spot a fake profile but unfortunately no single option including the above is a 100 percent guarantee that the person behind the profile is fake. No picture on their profile could be a giveaway in this day and age of smartphones there is really no excuse not to have a photograph on a dating site unless it’s for such reasons which could jeopardize a person’s work environment or personal life.

Links to other dating sites on their profiles are a good give away of it being fake. If the information about them includes something along the lines of “Find me on www.hotandsexy.com” or similar then it is pretty obvious a fake.

Another tell-tale sign is if they ask you to contact them through email and not through the dating websites messenger service. Their information will normally read something like “Send me an email at [email protected] as I am rarely on this site” again it could be a variation of this line but these are very rarely a genuine person and you will find your email inbox bombarded with spam or potential viruses and spyware.

One of the main things I have noticed which is consistent with the majority of fake profiles is the images they use are nearly always of a beautiful woman (in the case of men looking at profiles). I cannot say I know for sure if this is the same with male profiles but it seems to be a mirrored effect in this case from some of the things I have read on women’s profiles on some dating sites.

This isn’t to say all good looking people are fake on these websites but often if someone looks too good to be true it will be a stolen image of a model. There are some very genuine, beautiful people out there on these websites too so if you follow the above tips and don’t find their photo/s on a multitude of websites then go ahead and send that message, what have you got to lose?

As scary as this all sounds it isn’t all doom and gloom; there have been many cases of relationships beginning through dating sites and succeeding for years to come, although nothing can beat meeting someone in person and talking face to face. If you can navigate through the mass of fake profiles and weed out the genuine ones then maybe, just maybe you can find love on the internet.