Things We Lie About When It Comes to Casual Dating

It's 2018, and it's the decade for casual dating. It's a dating phenomenon that has completely changed the progression of most relationships. Everywhere you look, the "casual love" style has taken hold.

This means that casual sex, "no strings attached," and of course, shallow relationships are now the norm. Physical and emotional intimacy, the type that takes time and effort to cultivate, are rare now.

On the Google Play store, online dating apps like Tinder have been helping people find fling partners. On forums, people now use terms that describe awkward situations that happen when things get too casual or too formal.

Personally, I'm not a fan of this type of dating. I think it cheapens the romance aspect of dating and is a full-on waste of time. It also tends to make people act shallower, which tends to build the pressure when it comes to telling the truth.

Whether we want to admit it, the "casual date" scene is one that's built on lies and increases the pressure to lie to others. Don't believe it? Chances are you've either lied or been lied to about these topics in the past...

Weight and Height

One of the most aggravating things about casual dating is how everyone is treated like a piece of meat. This is especially true when it comes to online dating, where height and weight preferences are actively advertised.

More than ever, a person's height and weight matter when it comes to being able to find a date. It makes sense, then, why so many people lie about these things on dating profiles.

People want to find love, and some figure it's worth lying about in hopes that maybe people will look past being a bit pudgy. All things considered, a lie about an inch or an extra 5 pounds doesn't seem that unreasonable, does it?

What You're Really Looking For

One of the biggest sins in the world of casual dating is admitting that you don't want to be stuck as "friends with benefits." This sucks, because it means that you basically have to feel out whether you're just a fling or something more.

It's a sin that goes both ways. A lot of people who want cheap sex will lie and say they might want marriage to get it. Others, who want love, will say they're cool with "just a fling" in hopes that they can make the other person fall in love with them.

Relationship Status

True story—around a third of all people on online dating sites are married. As in, they are already taken and they just want to pursue casual dating on the side. Many people are not aware that their partners are on those sites, either.

We have all heard about a couple who started dating casually, only for the guy to "come clean" about his wife after the girl started to fall for him. Sadly, you can't really take anyone's word about relationship status in dating anymore.

Our Interest in People

Ghosting is a symptom of one of the worst sets of lies we tell in the casual dating world. Because we try to limit the emotions we feel and have become increasingly conflict-averse as a society, we often end up lying about how interested we are in a potential date.

This is why so many dates seem to be fairly interested in person, only to ghost the date they "adored talking with." They can't be honest or direct about a person not being their type, so they end up saying nothing at all until that person gets the hint.

Another example of this lie happens when you see a Nice Guy(TM) who tells a girl that she "wasn't his type anyway" after he gets rejected. It's two sides of the same coin.

If We're "Talking to" Others

By "talking to," I mean dating and/or sleeping with. Truth be told, this is a lie that's done more out of a common courtesy than anything else. It can hurt not knowing you're the only one, particularly if you are trying to break out of casual dating on a whole.

Though the thought of sparing one's feelings is nice, it's important to realize that this lie can have a lot of implications. Some might feel led on, others might feel like they have a chance. Either way, it's one of many lies most people will say at one point or another.

Our Interests and Hobbies

A shocking number of people think they'll impress the people they are casually dating by saying they have interests that they don't really have. This is not a good move, and actually remains one of the worst dating moves you can make.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why this doesn't work. You can't lie about a topic someone else knows a lot about without eventually slipping up and admitting that you don't know anything about it.

How Much You Earn

To a point, wanting someone who gets paid enough to go out with you makes sense. However, it's still really noteworthy how many people demand to casually "see" people above a certain income level, isn't it?

Unsurprisingly, guys will often lie about how much money they're making in hopes that it'll get them laid. If they aren't feeling it with a girl they're talking to, they may even try to make themselves unattractive by lowballing their wages.

Living Situations

A lot of Millennials still live at home, or with roommates—and that's okay. Somehow, casual dating has made us think that it's not okay. That's why a lot of people who use casual dating as a way to meet "the One" will end up lying about their living situation.

It's also hard to ignore how "being casual" can attract a lot of opportunistic cheaters. In some cases, people who are looking for a sidepiece will lie and say that their wife is a roommate. This falls under that category of lies, too.

Skills

It's generally agreed that people tend to find competent people to be attractive. That's why we find athletic, intelligent, or otherwise talented people to be attractive and date-worthy. The problem is that casual dating also means you have to flex ten times more to stand out in the crowd.

So, this leads to people claiming they are able to do things they don't know the first thing about. That's why you see a lot of pretentious people using flowery words to cover up the fact that they're really not very well-schooled in anything they're talking about, and why so many people who claim to have read Neitzsche have no idea what nihilism is.

That We Enjoy Casual Dating

If we were to be totally, brutally honest, most people do not enjoy casually seeing others. They don't. It's a cheap facsimile of romance that is done by people because trying to get real dates is just too damned hard.

It sure as hell seems like Millennials are the generation that lacks commitment and can't seem to cultivate the gumption to seek it out. Finding real intimacy in a hookup culture world seems harder than ever.

Some people might enjoy casual dating, but after a while, most of us get sick of it. It shouldn't be shameful to admit that you want love and commitment—but unfortunately, that's a byproduct of a culture that pressures us all to lie.