I have a Google Alert set to send me any articles where the phrase “online dating” appears. I usually get notifications about new apps that are trying to take market share (good luck), crazy people who send money to strangers over the internet (don’t be one of them), and new algorithms that the dating sites are using to pair up their members (something that I presume looks like a dartboard with a heart as the elusive bullseye). Some of the articles I skim through, some I read the title, and some I just plain ignore.

But, just a few days ago, an article came across my screen that made me do a double-take. The title of the article was “Tinder to Get ‘Height Verification’ Feature Soon.” Whaaaa? After all these years of trying to convince female clients that a six-foot man is not the epitome of sexy (in fact, fewer than 15% of men in the US are six feet or taller), and that someone who lists that he’s six feet online could very well actually be (gasp) a real six feet, Tinder is playing into the myth that most men lie about their height online. (Okay… you got me. It’s not a total myth. OkCupid published a study back in 2010 showing that men’s heights on the site are skewed two inches higher than the national average. Unless the men on OkCupid are, on the whole, a tall sampling of the nation, there’s a lie in the midst. Oddly enough, the same two inches were embellished for women, too. I personally love being a shortie, but that’s just me.)

At any rate, the article links to Tinder’s blog itself, which reads, “Say goodbye to height fishing.”

“Let’s be real, when it comes to online dating—honesty is the best policy. Yes, your height matters as long as every other shallow aspect of physical attraction does. Please try not to take it to heart.

“It’s come to our attention that most of you 5’10ers out there are actually 5’6. The charade must stop. This type of dishonestly [sic] doesn’t just hurt your matches—it hurts us, too. Did it ever occur to you that we’re 5’6 and actually love our medium height? Did it ever occur to you that honesty is what separates humans from sinister monsters? Of course not. You were only thinking of yourself. Well, height-lying ends here. To require everyone under 6’ to own up to their real height, we’re bringing truthfulness back into the world of online dating.

“Introducing Tinder’s Height Verification Badge (HVB), because yes—sometimes it matters. It’s the tool we’ve had in our back-pockets for years, but we were hoping your honesty would allow us to keep it there. Our verification tool is super easy to use, and extremely hard to misuse.

“Here’s how it works: Simply input your true, accurate height with a screenshot of you standing next to any commercial building. We’ll do some state-of-the-art verifying and you’ll receive your badge directly on your profile. Oh, and by the way? Only 14.5% of the U.S. male population is actually 6’ and beyond. So, we’re expecting to see a huge decline in the 80% of males on Tinder who are claiming that they are well over 6 feet. That’s fine by us—as long as we’re all living our truths. Tinder’s HVB is coming soon to a phone near you.”

Is this tool—something that women will likely laud and men fear—for real? Are we really going to make things worse out there for shorter men, who already bear this unfounded discrimination? (In fact, now that I think about it, you’re not actually required to list your height at all on Tinder.) If people have to start verifying their height, are they going to have to hop onto a virtual scale too? And maybe post their resume? And how about that college GPA? What is the world coming to?!

Well, it turns out that I, along with many others, may have fallen prey to Tinder’s poor excuse of an early April Fools’ Day joke. (Um… isn’t the point of April Fools’ Day to play a prank on, you know, April 1^st?) Otherwise, it’s just confusing, even to those of us in the industry. Time will tell today whether it was all a ruse or not.

Whether real or made up, Tinder was correct about one thing—honesty is the best policy. Use it wisely, and don’t take pictures next to the Eiffel Tower to measure your height. It’s already cliché enough.

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I had a date several years ago with someone I had met on an online dating site. He was handsome, witty, and intelligent—the trifecta in my book—so we decided to meet for brunch.  (As a side note, I generally prefer to have a cocktail or coffee with someone on a first date, but, if we’re being honest here, I couldn’t resist the bacon biscuits… don’t tell my rabbi.)

When I walked in, I found my date immediately. He looked like his photos… so far, so good! (It’s a low bar, I know.) He stood up to greet me, but when he was standing, I noticed that he and I were looking directly into each other’s eyes. I’m only 5’1, and height is actually not something that I care about when searching for a partner. But, it wasn’t his height that bothered me… it was the fact that he had lied about it.

Most people would secretly judge the guy for lying and pretend like it didn’t happen… until they tell their friends later. I’m not most people. Given that I’m the honest (blunt?) person that I am, I blurted out, “You’re not 5’7!” He replied, “Well, I’m 5’5.” The next thing out of my mouth was, “Okay, you’re not 5’5 either, but why would you lie?” It’s not like I wasn’t going to find out!

Giving him the benefit of the doubt (remember, there’s bacon involved…), I stayed to have a surprisingly nice banter with him. At one point in the conversation when we were discussing our families, I innocently asked if he had any children of his own since I knew he had been married before. Before he responded, he awkwardly looked at me and said, “I have something I have to tell you.”  That’s never a good sign. He then proceeded to tell me that, instead of the 39 years old he listed on the dating site, he was actually… wait for it… 45.  He told me this because he has a 19-year-old son, and he figured I might be suspicious.

He had lied by six years, which is not a small number, presumably to get dates with women in their early 30s, as I was at the time. Perhaps he hadn’t been caught before, or perhaps no one was as up front about her distaste for liars as I was, but he sat there with his tail between his legs while I kindly but firmly told him that he was wasting my time.

Last year, the New York Times featured a story about a lovely-looking couple in the wedding section titled “Stretching the Truth to Find Love Online.” The article commented on how the groom, 5’5, had fudged his height to 5’8 to get more profile views. While I can’t agree with it, I, of course, am not blind to his rationale. Women often make an arbitrary cut-off of anything below 5’8… or 5’10… or 6’2. For men’s sake, I wish that being tall wasn’t equated with being attractive for so many. Would I be tempted to lie if I there were something about me that I knew many men weren’t inclined to go for? I’d be, well, lying if I said no. But, that doesn’t make it right.

People lie for all different reasons: they want to date younger or older, they have an aspirational weight that they like to believe they are, they want to appear more financially successful. When it comes down to it, the main reason people lie is a lack of confidence. If you’re 100% confident in who you are, then there’s no need to lie to get the date. You may go on fewer dates being the real you, but at least you’ll know that you haven’t hidden anything. Everyone has that “thing” that holds them back or is perceived as a red flag to others: height, weight, age, religion, race, level of education, etc. I would have encouraged the groom in the article to write to anyone he wanted, even if her height minimum was taller than his stature, but to be up front about it. He was trying to come up in people’s searches, when a lot of the success in online dating actually comes from who you pursue.

Here’s the thing: People prefer to cite a one-off story like the one of this couple and use it as a precedent to condone lying—and do it themselves—rather than the hundreds of stories like mine where the lie, or lies, far outweigh the desire to see the person behind the lies. A male client who I found out was lying about his age online—subtracting five years from his age of 67—rationalized his behavior by saying, “Everyone lies.” First, that’s not true. Second, if everyone went around robbing banks, does that give you the go-ahead to rob a bank, too? I don’t need to answer that.

I’m obviously thrilled that things worked out for this couple! In the end, though, lying, especially about something that will become apparent the minute someone meets you, generally only bites you in the you-know-what. While you and your date may get along, you got the date under false pretenses, and he or she may be wondering what else you lied about. And we know most people are online stalking us anyway, so it’s best to stick to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

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