Following on from Gal Pal's question this week comes a small bout of timely musing.

Dating, especially first dates, is all about looking at your best. For the ladies, the hours in the bathroom and in front of the mirror, choosing just the right outfit and padding for the bra. For the guys, actually doing laundry and making sure your lucky underpants are clean and ready to rock.

But that is just the physical. Far more important for both sexes is making their personality seem attractive. Since many people out there have all the charm, poise and excitement of a snail, that means one thing and one thing only.

Lying.

We all do it. Exaggeration of ourselves for effect (Yes, he really does work for a big Wall Street trader. He's the janitor.), omission of inconvenient facts (Oh, yeah, I am married. Should have mentioned that), or outright bullsh*t (I'm a virgin.) are all part of the arsenal. Like the rule that 90% of the statistics on the internet are made up, a good 40% of what your first date says can be discounted.

You gals know it. We know you do it too, and, in the main, both sexes are totally cool with it. It is the way the game has always been played, we know it and accept it.

Even before the first date though, the lying comes into play. How else are you going to stand out from the crowd to grab her (or his) interest? You examine yourself and come up as distinctly, boringly average at best, merely boring at worst. So you big yourself up slightly in conversation. Nothing major, you just make yourself a more interesting person to talk to and be with.

That gets extended to the online world. Maybe a few white lies on your dating site profile will increase your chances. Knock a couple of years off, perhaps? Add a couple of years to give you more gravitas? Make yourself more interesting by putting in some obscure references to classical literature that you haven't actually read? It can't hurt, right?

That knock on the door you just heard is the Department of Justice and they want a word with you right now. Don't argue, don't run, just get in the van or get tased.

Apparently, lying on a dating site, or on your Facebook profile, or on Myspace if you are stuck in the past, is totally illegal and the violation of the Terms of Service can be prosecuted by bored attorneys who have obviously dealt with all other crime, everywhere and forever.

Seriously dudes, I got coke dealers round here (crack isn't all that popular for some reason) that actually have posted office hours, and you lot are worried about a white lie or two on a dating profile? I know it is far easier and more lucrative to punish the law abiding than to make the effort to catch the criminal, but [CENSORED] your [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] asses.

By the terms of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which they are currently considering extending the scope of, my very existence online as a thing of ghosts and shadows is threatened, as a person who has never put his true name to anything published online ever. So is yours.