Fake it ’til you make it.
With Christmas just around the corner, an astonishing number of singles are admitting to bringing a fake boyfriend or girlfriend home for the holidays, a new survey reveals.
Flirtini, a dating app, interviewed 2,000 adults to find out how they feel about their love lives during the so-called most wonderful time of the year.
“The holiday season is known for its family-centric vibe,” Anastasii Pochotna, Flirtini’s dating expert, told The Post.
“This brings a certain pressure for single adults.”
In fact, a whopping 73% of singles confessed to feeling the weight of familial expectations when gathering to celebrate.
That could explain why more than 40% of respondents admitted to having asked a friend to pretend to be their date during the visit — with more than half, or 53%, saying that they’ve filled in as someone’s “fake date.”
About 42% of adults were single at the start of the season, with one in three actively on the lookout for love.
“For everyone, the reason behind that is different,” Anna Hintsyak, a representative from the dating app Pure, told The Post.
Half of singles said they suffer seasonally through questions from nosy aunts and uncles and younger cousins showing off their engagement rings.
While most young adults today don’t hold marriage in the same regard as their elders do, they don’t want to explain that to grandma and grandpa and many would rather lie.
Just be careful which lies you tell — and be prepared to back them up, warns dating coach Cher Gopman, also known as the NYC Wingwoman.
Gopman told The Post she has a client who brought a pretend partner home for the holidays, but it didn’t go as smoothly as expected.
“Last year he asked a close friend whose family lives in another country if she would spend the holidays with him and his family, and pretend to be his significant other just to avoid the family interrogation,” she shared.
While the ruse worked for the holiday, it didn’t help in the new year, when the man’s family continued to follow up with questions asking how the couple was doing — and why the woman wasn’t around anymore.
“He regrets doing that, which is why this year he decided to seek out coaching,” Gopman shared.
The dating coach said that she sees a spike in clients around the holidays every year — as do most dating apps.
And as Gopman’s client learned, a relationship doesn’t quiet curious family members.
“Once you have a boyfriend or girlfriend, the interrogations don’t stop,” NYC-based dating coach Grace Lee told The Post.
“They’ll want to know when you’re getting married. After that it’s when are you gonna have kids. Then it’s where they are going to school, then college.”
When inquisitive loved ones begin to ask unwanted questions about your dating life, Lee recommends responding vaguely and asking the question back, focusing on sharing things about your life outside dating and setting boundaries with your family.
But if you’re not up for that, do like nearly half of Americans — just ask your bestie to be your holidate.