Here's the real reason why everyone lied about their birthday on Ashley Madison


You know when you're filling out a dating profile and it asks for your birthday and the default is January 1, so you just say, "whatever, could be true," and click "next"? Well, turns out you're not alone.
In fact, one in every 12 users of the affair website Ashley Madison said they were born on New Year's Day, The Washington Post reports, crunching numbers made public by hackers last Tuesday. And because there are 36 million registered users on the site, that means a whole three million people were claiming they were born January 1 — a statistic that is highly unlikely to be true.
Most people were probably just too lazy to change the month and date, and just changed the year when asked for their birth date, the Post surmises. Furthermore, users who did take the time to change the month and day often picked the same number for each — February 2, March 3, April 4, and so on. "After all, it's as easy as hitting 6-tab-6 on most computers," the Post adds.
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Another popular alleged birth date users chose was February 14 — Valentine's Day. A whole 124,000 lovesick romantics looking for an affair registered as having been born on that day.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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