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Ever spent more than a few minutes trying to compose the perfect status update for your Facebook profile? One that will impress your potential crush but not make your sibling or best friend accuse you of the ultimate Facebook faux pas: trying too hard? It's nothing new, say social scientists: it's called impression management, and they've been studying it since at least the fifties, likening human interactions to a theatrical performance. Or as Chris Rock so brilliantly put it, "When you meet somebody for the first time, you're not meeting them, you're meeting their representative." (Seriously, you can read the entire transcript here: the man's a relationship genius.) The only difference is that social networking sites let you watch impression management in real time--a news feed on Facebook can sometimes read like the inner dialogue of someone trying to define themselves.

And online dating sites provide an impression management buffer zone--your online profile can be the thinner, smarter, better read, wittier, younger version of you. The aspirational you--at least until the first date. Or, as one over-excited prof tells the Times, today's social networking and dating sites are "like impression management on steroids." We're no social scientists, but...no shit, right? So...do tell...how much exaggeration would you forgive in an online profile (or allow yourself)? A few pounds...or 25 pounds? A slightly receding hairline...or suddenly Kojak? And how about in person: how does your early-dating representative act? Ever lied and said that you also preferred the book to the movie? Or ordered something you hated just to impress? And at what point in the relationship do you normally send your representative home?

Oh, and by the way, if you are using your Facebook profile to attract mates, you should know that the sociology nerds claim to have disproved the Paris Hilton hypothesis. The heiress reportedly once said that "All you have to do in life is go out with your friends, party hard and look twice as good" as the woman next to you. But actually, a recent study found that Facebook users whose profiles had messages on the wall from hottie friends were deemed to be way better looking than those with messages from butt-ugly friends. In other words, if you can't face the nose job or the gym, you could always just manage your friend group instead.