Survey Results

Men and women who resort to online dating sites frequently lie about their looks, physique, jobs and financial status, a survey of 1,000 single adults commissioned by online dating community BeautifulPeople.com, discovered.

The survey, conducted across leading dating sites in the U.S. and UK, by global research agency OpinionMatters, found that women lie about their looks while men are more inclined to lie about their jobs, in order to find a partner.

A majority of the women (58 percent), according to the survey, lied about their appearance by projecting an image that was slimmer than they actually were. Approximately one in five women used old photographs to make themselves look younger.

As far as men were concerned, 44 percent of them admitted to having lied about their appearance, adding a few inches to their height and/or adding or reducing a few pounds from their body weight. In addition, more than 40 percent of them admitted to also having lied about their incomes and had tried to make their jobs sound more interesting. By comparison, 32 percent of women lie about their jobs to make them sound more glamorous.

Americans turned out to be bigger liars than the British, with 53 percent of respondents from the U.S. lying about their appearance, as compared to 44 percent from the UK.

The survey also identified another pattern, evident by comparing the respondents' age and the false statements they made. It turns out that as people got older, the tendency to lie became less prevalent.

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