hoodfishing

Cambridge Dictionary (opens in a new window) entered it in July 2025 as “the practice where someone pretends on their online dating profile to live in a more fashionable or wealthy area than they actually do, in order to seem more attractive to others.” Its earliest citation is a lifestyle site in August 2024, which described people who lie “about where they are from or where they are based out of.”

The same citation objected on two grounds, in this order: “it is extra work making the distance work, but more importantly, it just isn’t ethical.” The logistics came first. On a dating app, where someone says they live is a description of them and also a statement of how far apart two people are, and the second figure is the one that has to be driven.

Under load, the neighbourhood is a credential, chosen for what it says about the holder and checked only when somebody has to travel to it. The first date settles the question, because a venue has to be chosen, and the claimed area is where the other party proposes to meet. The distance the profile left out is then paid in full, in minutes each way, by whichever party offered to make the drive.