BBC Learnings · Section 1

English for dating online

Nowadays, many people use online dating apps to find love and romance. This involves writing a dating profile.

Level: B1 · 92 sentences

Transcript

  1. Nowadays, many people use online dating apps to find love and romance.
  2. This involves writing a dating profile.
  3. A short description of yourself which you hope
  4. makes you appear attractive to other people looking for love online.
  5. Online dating started with the internet, but the idea is not new.
  6. In the days before the internet, people put dating adverts in newspapers.
  7. Because they paid a price per word,
  8. people described themselves in as few words as possible,
  9. using abbreviations like GSOH which meant a good sense of humour.
  10. Eventually, GSOH became part of everyday English.
  11. Amazingly, the same thing is now happening in the world of online dating.
  12. In this programme, we'll be learning some of the newly invented words
  13. and phrases being used by people
  14. who are looking for love on the internet.
  15. Every year, thousands of romantic relationships start through online dating apps.
  16. But, as always with information found on the internet,
  17. there's a danger that someone's dating profile doesn't tell the whole truth.
  18. That's right, Roy.
  19. So my question is this.
  20. According to research, what do men
  21. tend to lie about in their dating profile?
  22. Is it... a their hair, b their height, or c their age?
  23. Well, most people want to appear younger, so I'll say it's c.
  24. Their age? We'll find out if that's the correct answer later.
  25. The person behind the online dating research I mentioned was Dr Nicola Fox Hamilton.
  26. She describes herself as a cyber-psychologist and has interviewed both men
  27. and women about what they hide from potential online dating partners.
  28. Listen as she tells BBC Radio 4's
  29. Word of Mouth what she discovered from her interviews.
  30. If you're very deceptive,
  31. so if you have no friends
  32. and you never go to the pub and you
  33. said in your profile that your
  34. most fun thing to do is hanging out with your friends on a Saturday night,
  35. then that becomes a problem because then you've been very deceptive.
  36. If you occasionally do it
  37. and you made it sound a bit more like you do it all the time,
  38. that's more exaggeration.
  39. A lot of people do that where they exaggerate things about themselves.
  40. To make them seem more attractive.
  41. But they're walking a fine line
  42. and trying to balance between being attractive and not completely disappointing.
  43. People often exaggerate things about themselves to seem more attractive online.
  44. For example, that they love hanging out or spending time with friends.
  45. Nicola also says there's a difference between exaggerating and being deceptive.
  46. Deliberately lying and making someone believe things that...
  47. Are not true.
  48. Nicola says deceptive daters are walking a fine line.
  49. They're finding a balance between two opposing attitudes or ideas.
  50. Online dating has also created new vocabulary of its own.
  51. Here's Nicola Fox-Hamilton again explaining the meaning of two new words,
  52. catfishing and wokefishing, to BBC Radio 4's Word of Mouth.
  53. Wokefishing is a version of catfishing and catfishing
  54. is where someone creates a profile that isn't them at all.
  55. So a complex false identity, usually with the purpose of looking for
  56. or pretending to get involved in love or romance.
  57. Wokefishing is where the person is generally who they say they are.
  58. But they say that they're much more liberal in their values
  59. and political attitudes than they actually are.
  60. Catfishing is when someone tries to be more attractive.
  61. By creating a false profile and pretending to be someone else
  62. on social media.
  63. Related to this is the term woke fishing.
  64. Here someone asks about your political and social opinions
  65. and pretends to share them in order to get closer to you.
  66. They may pretend to have more liberal or progressive attitudes
  67. than they really do.
  68. Looking for love is never easy.
  69. The internet has helped thousands find romance
  70. and created some interesting new vocabulary.
  71. But there are dangers and disappointments too.
  72. Speaking of which, it's time to reveal the answer to your question, Sam.
  73. You asked what men tend to lie about in their dating profiles.
  74. I guessed it was their age.
  75. You were wrong.
  76. According to research by Dr Fox-Havilton,
  77. men tend to lie about their height and women about their weight.
  78. OK, let's recap the new vocabulary we've learnt
  79. in this programme about the language of online romance,
  80. starting with dating profile a brief written description of yourself
  81. which you hope will attract a partner.
  82. Being deceptive means lying so people believe something that is not true.
  83. Hanging out is an informal way to say spending time with someone, usually friends.
  84. The phrase walking a fine line means finding a balance between two
  85. opposing ideas or attitudes or between two opposing sides
  86. so as not to annoy either side.
  87. And finally, we learnt two newly invented expressions.
  88. Catfishing means trying to appear more attractive
  89. by pretending to be someone else.
  90. On social media.
  91. And woke fishing is when someone pretends to share the same
  92. liberal opinions as the person they are attracted to.