Desperately Seeking Liar

Robert:
Lying has its purpose, apparently—so says someone I met recently. Internet is rife with stories about people molding themselves to fit the unreal expectations of cultural attractiveness. Everyone has the right photo, height, waist, age, fashion sensibility, ethnicity, job, and delicate balance of edge and stability, humor and seriousness. (Except they don’t—age wears and fattens us; fashion requires money and taste, both in poor supply; and the “right” job depends on your values: an investment banker or a painter? Your decision says it all.)

So why do people insist on deceit? If the universe has its permutations, its diversity manifested in the range of people we see all over the streets, why is every profile one more attempt to appear like the next?

It’s here I catch myself having a conversation with a man who changed his age from 38 to 33 on his internet profile. He says he knows that lies are wrong but the market favors the clever. Scan all the profiles, he encourages me, and you’ll see guys well past 35, cutting off years like Anna Nicole trimmed off fat. Yes, I tell him, but the lie reveals itself; what will he do when he encounters someone he likes and their initial interaction was rooted in deceit? I tell him of my first date using the internet: a man who gave himself 6 inches of height to make up for a height inadequacy. Surely, he knew that a gay man would notice six, full inches, gone. No, no, he responds, Life beckons us to move as we must. Even job professionals encourage this: get in the interview, and you'll have a shot at the job. I’ll pass, I reply, painters are more my type.