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 have a client who is lovely. She is 55 years old but looks 45 (which I rarely say!), extremely physically active, and has a smile for miles. I’m helping her manage her Match.com account—selecting men, helping arrange dates, etc.

She had a first date recently with a gentleman from the site, and they met at a dimly lit wine bar. I have clients fill out a short survey right after each date that I set up so I can get a sense of how it went. With permission from her to post, excerpts from the survey read: “Yes, this was a quality guy. Good find!” and “I found myself more and more attracted to him as the date passed.” On the scale of 1 to 10, she gave the date an 8, saying, “I liked him – he has a laid back disposition, he speaks calmly but he is very interesting and has done a lot of interesting things in his life – we had a lot of similar interests.”

I was thrilled. She was thrilled. They arranged a second date. That second date happened, and I received this email right afterward:

“I am just back from my second date. I am completely perplexed… I feel [he] is not what he put forward on his profile. He is laid back and very adventuresome… or was. But something tells me something is not right… such a difficult feeling to sort through. It’s not like I can say, ‘What year were you born? Show me your birth certificate!’ He is nice, but I feel he is much older than 58. Or, am I not in touch with myself and this is what a match is for me??”

I was certainly disheartened when I saw this note. The power of dim lighting on the first date perhaps had more of an impact than she thought? Much worse than the date not going well, though, my client started to doubt herself.

Now, I never do this, but I was curious, so, using the little information I had from his Match account, I did a bit of sleuthing and found her date’s profile on LinkedIn. (Honestly, I was surprised she hadn’t beaten me to it!) Assuming he graduated college at 22, using my elementary school math skills, that would have put him at 64 years old, not 58. For the record, lying online is not okay. Not ever.

When my client and I spoke, she was very upset. Rather than simply being upset with her date for portraying himself inaccurately, though, she was upset about her dating life as a whole. In her eyes, what message was she sending to attract this “old man”? Was she lowering her standards? Was this really the only type of man she could “get”? She went as far as asking me if she should start grilling all of her next dates about the year they are born and their past relationship history.

I cut her off with a resounding NO. She was, unfortunately, letting this one man’s lie impact her self-worth. He should not, nor should anyone, have that power. I told her that his lack of confidence made him hide his real age. That had nothing to do with her. I told her that she can’t project this one man’s behavior on other dates, thereby penalizing them before she even meets them.

She had a major high after the first date and then a major low after the second. I encouraged her, as I would with any client, to remember that your dating life is not only as good as your last date. Take each date for what it is—one date. Like in the law of large numbers, the more dates you go on, the less sway each one should have. With not very many in her sample size, each one can really impact what she perceives as the average. As she, and you, go on more dates, you’ll see that it’s important to treat each one separately, not let one person determine your self-worth, and try to go into each new experience with an open mind and an open heart.

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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 with someone on a first date, and that’s what I advise my clients, 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. 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.

Earlier this 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 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 behind. 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 us 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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