Meet the face of a fake online dating profile! I discovered this fake Match.com profile after I was supposed to meet the guy. This really shouldn’t be a shock, but since I was supposed to meet the guy, I’m slightly freaked out – for all I know he could have been a serial rapist. How did I discover it was a fake profile? I was Googling facial expressions when the guys profile photo turned up in the search results!  

A veteran online-dater friend of mine, Jessica, said, “Oh yeah — as soon as you see a professional photo you’ll know it’s a fake profile.” Not a bad theory, but I’m a photographer — I’ve photographed guys for online dating sites. So I’m prone to think if the guy has attention to detail, he’s potentially going to get a real photo taken of himself, no?

How do you weed out the wackos? And what was the guy’s real intention? And who the hell was it, really? And why must everyone lie? This guy’s fake profile just set-me-off thinking about the guy I just broke from, and the gigantic, heart crushing lie that he told. Do you see the can of worms it opened?

I’ve reset the 1 Year Of Single date twice now, but it looks like three’s a charm! I think part of me was still hoping for some kind of divine intervention, where a higher power bestowed a great-partner reward on me even though I shouldn’t have been looking in the first place. And yet part of me can’t help but realize that between my fabulous little son and myself, we don’t really need anyone else.

In any case, what do you do if you discover someone has been lying? I would think it depends on the severity of the lie. Someone who tells you that you look good when you’ve clearly gone overboard in the Tostitos department shouldn’t be sliced from your life. But if you’re like me and you’ve been told a whopping lie so shocking that it sets you sputtering for an hour, these are just a few of my suggestions:

Completely Cut It Off
This is much easier said than done, especially when you’ve been blindsided after finally believing that you may have a future with the fool. But my suggestion is to cut off everything about them immediately. This includes:

• No calls
• No Emails
• No “friendly reminders”
• No fulfilling “Well, we always used to…” routines
• No attending bars, gyms or clubs that they go to
• No chit-chatting with their friends or family
• Remove them from every friend list on every site you know
• Change their cell name to “Do Not Answer” or change their name to describe their lie “Do Not Answer – Lied About Divorce.”
• Remove all reminders of them from every calendar you have so it doesn’t pop up when you least expect it

Remake Your Fun Wish List
I’ve been slacking on this more than I thought I’d be. I have yet to climb a rock wall or even make a goal list. So far the most I’ve done is complete a Match.com profile. Bad. Bad girl.

The meatier tactics you could take are:

Change Departments or Jobs
After Halle Berry told-off Eddie Murphy in Boomerang, she got herself a new job. Consider it. Chances are if you’ve accepted behavior like this from a lover, you’re probably allowing it at work from co-workers or bosses as well. You deserve more.

Change Your Cell Number
I always found this one shocking, and it feels very mean – but if you can do it, you’re golden. If they ever try to contact you again it sends a clear message that you won’t tolerate their sh!t. Uhm… No, I haven’t… But I’m working on it.

Whatever you do, do NOT – I repeat, do NOT:

Do Not Stalk Them
So they left you for a whore or a man-slut. If they can’t see how fabulous you are, they can’t be too bright now, can they? The last thing you want to do is provide fodder for the fool to feel justified. Hold back the crazy and refocus on yourself.

Do Not Stalk Their New Partner
Ew. Why would you want to, anyway? Again – if they’re not bright enough to choose you, why bother? It’s like standing at the meat counter in the grocery store and yelling at the folks who choose chuck over sirloin. Seriously – if you have to explain it, you’re better off without them.

The last few weeks for me have been a wide slap in the face, considering I gave the same person a repeated chance, then ran into someone else’s fake dating profile. Oh we’re all fools for love, don’t pretend otherwise. It’s the few of us that are able to bend our energies into refocusing on what we want, instead of what we don’t want, that make it through the wreckage.

— 1YOS