False advertising, or misrepresentation, is standard in any marketplace; the dating market is no different. While American dating sites have taken a laissez faire approach to lying, Asian dating sites have implemented serious measures to keep users honest. So Jiayuan developed a means for people to verify the claims they make on their profiles. Users can provide documents to the site, such as government-issued ID cards and paychecks, to back up their claims. Those willing to pay additional fees can have an in-person interview that gives a higher verification rating on the site. Similarly, a large dating site in South Korea, KoreanCupid. First, there was a significant amount of stigma and skepticism when online dating was first introduced. Perhaps cultural differences made it harder to break down that mindset in some countries, forcing websites to work harder on verification and building trust with their clients. Second, Jiayuan may have implemented their verification system simply due to the bad luck of a few scandals attached to their site. The third explanation, which I think is probably most important, is driven by the economics of the online dating business. Dating sites and, for that matter, other online markets are largely a fixed cost business. A company has to design the site, the user interface, and the matching algorithm. Though a site needs to add more servers as it grows, scaling is a relatively easy and low cost proposition if customers start arriving in large numbers. Verification kills the scalability of a dating site. Economists Soohyung Lee and Muriel Niederle tried to help users be more credible in how much they were interested in a person on a Korean dating site. The site ran a special event over a nine-day period that was sort of a cross between online dating and speed dating. Participants browsed online profiles. Over a five-day proposal period, they could show up to 10 people on the site that they were interested in a date with them. This, in effect, told the recipient that he or she was among the highest choices of the person offering the rose. That is, if you sent a rose to one person, you could not send it to someone else. The experiment worked, in that invitations sent with virtual roses were more likely to turn into a date. First, many online daters have unrealistic expectations. But sending a signal to those people is a waste because they already know everybody wants them. Be realistic or, as she puts it, , stop daydreaming. This article is part of , our home for bold arguments and big thinkers.