Honesty... and WHY it's necessary

As Dr. Gregory House always says, “everybody lies.”

I think that this is an accurate statement when it comes to a lot of different situations one may find him or herself in throughout life. I find it particularly appropriate when applying this statement to online dating and online dating sites.

I discovered Craigslist (CL) about four years ago, when a male friend of mine pointed me in its general direction. At first I was intrigued, and a little horrified in that “oh, look there’s a car accident and I can’t look away” kind of way. I mean… here was this open forum where people went and posted ads seeking someone to date, or answered ads from people they thought were in similar circumstances that they were in.

Little did I know that this was just the beginning of my “education” where CL was concerned.

In the three years that I was a semi-regular visitor to CL as a reader, and sometimes as a responder, I came across ads that were posted by men who were either looking for just a simple date, or for a regular f*ck buddy. Those were the ads that amused me the most, because it was not only the "men seeking women section," but also the occasional glimpse into the "casual encounters section" that schooled me to the fact that people lie. Plain and simple. They lie about their “stats” (height, weight, education, income, sexual prowess, etc). They lie about what they do for a living and how much money they make. They lie about everything under the sun. The only thing they shouldn’t, in my estimation, lie about is their marital status, and of course, that’s what they lie about the most. Why do they do this? Because everybody does when it comes to the possibility of “gettin’ some strange.”

I’ll admit that I’ve succumbed to answering a couple of the M4W CL ads that intrigued me. I was probably one of the very, very few people who were idealistic enough to actually think that answering an ad on CL was a harmless action, and that I may, at the very least, meet someone that I could become friends with, if not more.

If someone – anyone - had warned me that CL was a breeding ground for skeevy bastards, maybe my experiences with that particular medium would be at a much smaller number. Or possibly even completely non-existent.

All in all, my CL experiences amounted to some interesting stories to be told on my part. There was the guy I met who was in medical school to be a psychiatrist… and wanted to use his patients’ (confidential) stories as fodder for a stand-up comedy routine. There was the rich boy from upstate NY who came to MIT to get his MBA, and who constantly canceled plans with me because he thought he was “too much” for me. (Yeah… too much trouble, apparently.) There was the artsy, Tim Burton wannabe who was socially awkward. There was the former Bostonian turned Los Angeles freelance production person who thought he was God’s gift to women. And when I say “God’s gift to women,” I mean… he claimed he was very well-endowed. (I have it on good authority that he wasn’t, and still isn’t.) There was the Asian guy who lived in LA who was basically my mom’s dream of everything she ever wanted for me. Except that he wasn’t even close to being ready to commit to anything or anyone. There was the seemingly over-sexed guy who got off on hearing/reading dirty stories that were also other people’s real life, personal experiences. And who ended up being married. There was the guy from the strictly platonic section who turned out to be married and who was trying to have a baby with his wife. He just “omitted” that whole part of the “getting to know you” portion of our conversation for the early duration of time that we were getting to know one another. And the list goes on and on and on…

The moral of this laundry list? Everybody lies.

Honesty is one of the pieces of the foundation of any relationship, whether it’s a friendship, a familial relationship, or a romantic relationship. The fact that men and women everywhere are using sites like CL, okcupid.com, match.com, et cetera as a means to finding “that special someone” – for one night or for the rest of their life – is fine. In fact, more power to you if you meet someone that you can see yourself being in a healthy, long-term relationship with who also sees the same with you. HOWEVER… the issue that comes up with free sites such as CL – or really almost any online dating site - is the amount of turnaround and the number of recurring posters who put up numerous ads per day, or per week, or per month, constantly seeking that “one” person who can satisfy them for the night, or for the long haul. Here’s the thing: if you’re not being honest about whom YOU are, then you can’t get upset with a person who replies to your ad that isn’t also being honest about who THEY are. Fair is fair. This is not a “do as I say, not as I do” scenario. This is about making yourself as attractive as possible to a wide audience of men or women. If that means stretching the truth a little, then that’s what you may need to do to get it done.

If a person posts pictures with his ad or online dating site profile, then he may try to make himself infinitely more attractive by posting pictures that were taken ten years and 30 lbs. ago. I'm not saying that this is an acceptable practice by any means. Because, eventually, you may end up meeting in person for real, and you may end up being sadly disappointed by the clear, real life indication that this person you are spending an hour or so with during one of your rare free nights is not, in fact, the man or woman your sex-deprived self imagined him or her to be. Why do this when the hope is that you will eventually wind up naked with this person? It just doesn’t make any sense.

If you're fortunate enough to find someone whose company you enjoy and get past the requisite number of dates to the point where you become physically intimate, this is where the TRUE test of honesty comes into play.

The ultimate goal of any fledgling relationship, aside from it becoming long-term (if that’s what you’re hoping for), is that you will be naked with your new boyfriend or girlfriend, and that that nakedness will happen much sooner rather than later. This is where neither party can afford to lie. Because you can try to fool yourself into believing that you're a size 8 with a perfect pair of 34-C breasts, or try to fool yourself into believing that your length and girth are a lot more than God actually gave you. The harsh reality is that, when the clothes come off, the lies are revealed. And you're both left naked, exposed, and maybe even a little embarrassed that your... embellishments... manifested themselves into big, fat, disappointing lies.

Again, though, if you and your partner were able to see past the initial truth-stretching, then at this point, the initial nakedness, you probably don't even care what the other person looks like because you're finally, FINALLY getting what you've been hoping for: sex with someone other than your hand or your favorite sex toy.

At the basis of everything is honesty. Lies beget lies and they build upon each other to the point where you almost can't remember what the initial lie that started everything was. The point is... everybody lies. For better, and for worse, at the beginning of the dating game, everyone tells a little white lie here and there to make himself more marketable. Why? Because one hundred percent honesty is very rare in any relationship in this day and age, and it's not expected that that will change anytime in the near future. However, there comes a point in every relationship where honesty really IS the best policy. Well... maybe not complete honesty. Because let's face it... in every relationship, everyone has to have SOME secrets. And keeping secrets doesn't necessarily mean you're being dishonest, per se. You're just... lying by omission.

FOR YOUR READING PLEASURE ---> Part 1:
Another foundational aspect of any relationship is respect. You can't have a successful relationship without it. So why is it that some guys feel that they can disrespect a woman, and still "get" her? Read the first part of this entry here: WHY don't you give me some r-e-s-p-e-c-t??