Please stop lying about owning dogs in your dating app profile
Where I went wrong on dating sites: Not looking for men who own dogs
I blame no one but myself. I was on a dating spree on OK Cupid and Match for a few months from 2017 to 2018. I ended up dating one guy for a couple of months that almost made me delete my accounts altogether. Then we had a feud and I took all of his stuff out of my place, moving on to re-dating this guy and a few others. Good times but never, ever again. It was more of a learning experience about what I won’t tolerate in my 30s that I would’ve breezed past in my 20s. But there’s one group who I totally missed the boat on and other dating app users had the right idea — dog owners.
According to New York Post, 39% of people have swiped right because they wanted to meet the dog in someone’s dating profile photograph. Not only that, but they wanted to meet the dog more than they wanted to meet the person. It was like FetchaDate, but for people who were more ice cold and faked like they liked people that they didn’t.
In a OnePoll survey of 2,000 Americans who have used a dating app (exactly half of which own a dog), a cute dog in the dating app picture significantly helped respondents find success matching online by 63%.
As someone who was too exhausted to keep trying to buy a condo that allowed dogs, I’d given up completely on the idea. I became a dog walker and dog sitter instead, but I was hell bent on being around dogs — especially after being a dog owner for 22 years. If you love dogs, abandoning this idea is slim to none. But dating someone with a dog when dogs aren’t allowed in your place can become a wee bit of a headache. Your schedule really does revolve around that dog unless you hire third-party help.
But there are other questions I have for those who keep posting dog pics without actually owning the dog.
Who says the dog will like you? There’s nothing wrong with being a dog lover who wants to meet fellow dog lovers and owners. But you’re also creating an admirable level of confidence that may not play out how you want it to. For example, what if that dating app user likes you but the dog doesn’t? Some dogs eventually warm up to people; other dogs just don’t mess with you like that.
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What if your future dog and his current dog hate each other? An hour before I wrote this post, I ran into two of my favorite dogs for dog boarding and dog sitting. One growls and barks at everything going by. The other breed is notorious for hunting small prey. I freaking love them both equally. The hunter was calm and happy to see me — immediately stopping cold when she noticed me walking another dog across the street.