In the online dating world the misrepresentation, exaggeration, and falsification of one’s attributes is as common as a duckface selfie.
But a new kind of dating website is countering that by having users confess their flaws up front, as well as their good points.
David Wheeler, co-founder of the site SettleForLove.com, got the idea to bring authenticity into online dating after getting burned on popular sites like Plenty of Fish and eHarmony. He would invest time and energy getting to know women online, only to find they didn’t match up to their profile upon meeting them in person.
“I'd meet up with them and they didn’t look like their picture—whether they posted a picture from a long time ago or maybe they just snapped a picture that doesn’t look like them. And it’s not just looks, but it was also so clear that online everybody was just trying to say all the perfect things about themselves,” says Wheeler from his home in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
