BBC 英语学习 在线约会英语

From BBC Learning English. Hello. This is 6 min English from BBC Learning English.

I'm Sam, and I'm Roy. Nowadays, many people use online dating apps to find love and romance.

This involves writing a dating profile, a short description of yourself, which you hope makes you appear attractive to other people looking for love.

Online. Online dating started with the Internet, but the idea is not new.

In the days before the Internet, people put dating adverts in newspapers because they paid a price per word.

People described themselves in as few words as possible, using abbreviations like GS O-H, which meant a good sense of humor.

Eventually, GSOH became part of everyday English.

Amazingly, the same thing is now happening in the world of online dating.

In this program, we'll be learning some of the newly invented words and phrases being used by people who are looking for love on the Internet.

Every year, thousands of romantic relationships start through online dating apps.

But as always, with information found on the Internet, there's a danger that someone's dating profile doesn't tell the whole truth.

That's right Voice. And my question is this, according to research, what do men tend to lie about in their dating profile?

Is it A, the hair, B, the height, or see their age?

Well, most people want to appear younger, so I'll say it see their age.

We'll find out if that's the correct answer later.

The person behind the online dating research I mentioned was Doctor Nicola Fox Hamilton.

She describes herself as a cyber psychologist, and has interviewed both men and women about what they hide from potential online dating partners.

Listen as she tells BBC Radio falls word of mouth, what she discovered from her interviews.

If you're very deceptive, so if you have no friends and you never go to the Pope, and you said your profile that your most fun thing to do is hanging out with your friends on a Saturday night, then that becomes a problem, because then you've been very deceptive.

If you occasionally do it, and you made it sound a bit more like you do it all the time, that's more exaggeration.

A lot of people do that, where they exaggerate things about themselves to make them seem more attractive, but they're walking a fine line and trying to balance between being attractive and not completely disappointing.

People often exaggerate things about themselves to seem more attractive online, e.g.

that they love hanging out or spending time with friends.

Nicola also says theres a difference between exaggerating and being deceptive, deliberately lying and making someone believe things that are not true.

Nicholas says, deceptive days are walking a fine or thin line.

They're finding a balance between two opposing attitudes or ideas.

Online dating has also created new vocabulary of its own.

Here's Nicola Fox Hamilton again explaining the meaning of two new words cat fishing and woke fishing to BBC Radio force, word of mouth.

Well, fishing is a version of cat fishing, and catfishing is where someone creates a profile that isn't them at all, so a complex, false identity, usually with the purpose of looking for or pretending to get involved in lower romance.

Woke Fishing is where the person is generally who they say they are, but they say that they're much more liberal in their values and political attitudes than they actually are.

Cat Fishing is when someone tries to be more attractive by creating a false profile and pretending to be someone else on social media.

Related to this is the term woke fishing.

Here. Someone asks about your political and social opinions and pretends to share them in order to get closer to you.

They may pretend to have more liberal or progressive attitudes than they really do.

Looking for love is never easy.

The Internet has helped thousands find romance and created some interesting new vocabulary.

But there are dangers and disappointments too.

Speaking of which, it's time to reveal the answer to your question.

Sam, you asked what men tend to why about in their dating profiles?

I guessed it was their age.

You were wrong. According to research by Doctor Fox Hamilton, men tend to lie about their height, and women about their weight.

OK, let's recap the new vocabulary we've learned

in this program about the language of online romance, starting with dating profile, a brief, written description of yourself, which you hope will attract a partner.

Being deceptive means lying, so people believe something that is not true.

Hanging out is an informal way to say spending time with someone usually friends.

The phrase walking a fine line line means finding a balance between two opposing ideas or attitudes, or between two opposing sides so as not to annoy either side.

And finally, we learnt two newly invented expressions.

Cat fishing means trying to appear more attractive by pretending to be someone else.

And so media and woke fishing is when someone pretends to share the same liberal opinions as the person they are attracted to.

Once again, our 6 min are up.

Good luck if you are looking for love online.

And remember, there's probably someone out there interested in the real you.

Bye for now. Bye.

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