We've all heard of catfishing by now but kittenfishing is the new fraud of online dating. Last night, a Spin1038 listener sent in a story about how she had been so-called kittenfished on a Tinder date.
The lad in question told a few porkies online and when they met in person, he was little short of shite. Kittenfishing is when you exaggerate your character and appearance on an online dating profile for the purpose of scoring a date with someone that wouldn't look at you otherwise. It's a very mild form of catfishing.
According to dating website HingeIrl, kittenfishers "craft profiles that cast themselves in an overly-positive light". When the site did a survey of their users, 38% of men and 24% of women said that they had been kittenfished. Interestingly, only 2% of men and 1% of women admitted to being kittenfishers.
It's hard to tell where the line between showing your good side and kittenfishing is, so we're here to help you out.
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You could be a kittenfisher if...
- You got your wittiest mate to write your Tinder/Bumble bio
- You've listed an inaccurate height because you're insecure about your real height
- You purposefully use pictures from years ago because you look better in them
- You plan your messages in advance using tips from weird websites
- You listed hobbies that aren't your real hobbies (watching Transformers six times doesn't make you a film lover)
- You tell people that you're in the marketing side of things in your workplace, but you're really not
- You skim a few years off the top
- You say you study general Arts as a way to cover up the fact that you study religion
Now that you know what kittenfishing is, you know how to avoid being either a victim or a perpetrator! It's always best to follow the most clichéd but true dating advice of all time: just be yourself.
