relationships
Enough With The Lies!
May 9, 2023
A few days ago we conducted a twitter poll asking people whether they would lie about meeting their spouse on Muzz. It was so refreshing to see that the majority of people would rather tell the truth than make up a story about how they met!
It really does feel like the stigmatisation of meeting your partner online is dying down, and we are progressing as a community.
But do you know what would be even better? If people would stop lying on their profiles, even if they are just tiny, white lies. I remember once I swiped right for a guy on Muzz, his profile said he was 24, Turkish, and working a full- time job. Once we start talking, he admits that he’s actually 19, that he’s still studying at university, and if that wasn’t enough, that he’s not Turkish but Pakistani.
Obviously, I was mad that he lied. He literally deceived me and all the other females he had matched. When I asked why, he said it’s because he didn’t want anyone he knows to recognise him on the app…which didn’t make sense because his photos are still up there, surely they would recognise him from that alone?
This encounter left me feeling disgruntled, and so I did some research and found that many people actually tell small lies on their profiles, or within conversations when first talking to someone.
Here are a few of the most common ones:
Height
Unfortunately, height really does seem to matter to some people. Maybe it’s due to the fact that when we meet people online, more emphasis is placed on characteristics that may not even matter to us in real life. It is quite a superficial thing to base whether someone is your future spouse or not, however, that doesn’t make it acceptable to lie about your height (or anything else).
First of all, there is the issue of when you actually meet in real life and they realise you lied. How do you get out of that sticky situation? Then there is the even bigger issue, being that you told a lie. Your match will definitely be questioning why you felt the need to lie, and what else you have lied about.
It is always better to be 100% honest on your profile, because you do not want to get stuck in these types of situations. And if someone swipes left because of something as shallow as height, then they were clearly never the one.
Playing hard to get
For some reason playing “hard to get” has always held a certain level of attraction to it. Is it because the person seems more mysterious and we are left wanting to know more about them? Or perhaps it’s because we enjoy a good chase? Whatever the reason is, it works. But apparently, people playing hard to get aren’t always as interesting as they seem.
Individuals lie pretending to be busy and mysterious, when really, they’re not. The fear of appearing too available or desperate is largely a reason behind this. People pretend to have more going on than they really do to make themselves seem more interesting. And then when they’re done playing hard to get, you find out that they’re not even someone you want. It is best to just be yourself from the beginning because the right partner won’t find you needy.
“Sorry, I didn’t see your message!”
Have you ever been in that situation where you’re running late to meet a friend, and when they call, you respond with “I’m on my way, just left 5 minutes ago!” …When really, you just came out the shower and still need to get dressed? Well in the online world, people do similar things with texting. When they take long to reply to you, they may make up excuses such as “Oh sorry, I saw your message but just forgot to reply!” or perhaps they change it up and drop a “omg sorry I didn’t see this!” (which, I can’t lie, I have also been guilty of).
This is quite a small, forgivable lie. Perhaps we don’t always like to respond straight away, or we want to let the message marinate before responding. But if you are doing it constantly, and the reason is actually because you do not want to talk to that person, you should set them free, it’s not fair to keep them waiting for you when you’re clearly not interested.
Avoiding meeting face-to-face
Believe it or not, some people actually make up lies to avoid meeting someone. Believe it or not, I was actually one of these people. But to be fair, I had been previously stood up by someone. And I also wasn’t sure what their intentions were with me, so I fabricated some sort of story to avoid meeting up with him, which was silly. I should have just told him I didn’t want to meet him and ended things.
However, the fact remains that quite a lot of people make up excuses to avoid meeting up with someone (these individuals must have been thriving during lockdown). It may be that they feel nervous, or maybe their intentions were never serious and they were just on the app for fun. But at the end of the day if you don’t want to meet up with someone, you clearly don’t want to marry them, so there’s no point in lying. It would be much better to be upfront and say you don’t see this going anywhere.
Although the lies listed above may seem small and harmless, simply used for strategic purposes; they are still lies. Once we start telling small white lies it becomes difficult to stop, and as Muslims we should be doing our best to actively avoid this.
Remember my brothers and sisters, “Honesty is the best policy”.
Looking for your soulmate?
You won’t find your soulmate on this blog post but you might find them on Muzz - the world’s biggest Muslim dating and marriage app.
muzz
