Yer but most of the birds who use these forums aren't single anyway!!

I am just making an observation, that is all.
The photo (to me at least) means so little it may as well not be there at all.
That itself is quite surprising because I actually thought that it was important to start off with!

Not that being good looking is a bad thing mind you!!

im not going to deny it i do go for peoples looks first but then again i have been realy attracted to a few people on here who arent amungst the best looking people but have amazing personalities and i would rarther be with them because theres no point having a pretty box if its empty.

I think it really strange how we all seem to rate the first impression so much, especially as there is nothing worse with being someone attractive as hell, but dumb as a post.
I know when I was younger, looks were the ONLY thing that mattered, and boy did I pay for it!
As a test, just flick through some pictures on the main site, and compare them to your own personal favourite person from the forums, personality does play a bigger part than we all think!

I will talk with anybody as long as they can type fairly fast. That is my only requirement. If they want to date me then, yes, i would like to see who it is first. I dont think this is being shallow at all.

i always ask if someone messages me without a pic why they havent, and i tend to assume a lot of them havent as they dont want to be caught out on here, or is that me just being cynical ???

When i first joined i didnt have a pic up. Several people commented - on the forums as well as pm - i felt embarrassed to admit a) i had a very old small/slow computer b) no pics of me on my pc c) no way of getting one onto the pc (didnt have a digital camera or scanner).......No one ever takes photos of me anyway so it was really hard to get one on my pc 'just for flirtbox'.....the one i've got up now is about 4 yrs old and crap (taken late one night at a friend's just before he died, feeling ill and unhappy,...) that was emailed over to me.
So I do realise that sometimes a person might have a genuine reason for not having one up.

I agree with megalone, and I dont think its shallow to go by looks. But photos do not tend to be a good guide to someone looks, or whether there will be any real attraction.

Personally I think these sites would probably work better without photos. I have met loads of people off dating sites and the majority look better then their photos, some don't look as good as they have flattering pics up, and a minority look like their photos. I have had it said to me I look better in real life then most of my pics . But people do not do themselves favours by having flattering pics on prifiles.

Actually Jeggae I really agree with you there, of all the people I have met I would say that 99% of them looked better than their photos in real life. Only a tiny minority looked worse or not like their pic.

I'm one of the guilty ones!
I was one of the people who asked clemelpol why she had no pic.
And before I spoke to her, I wouldn't speak to people without pictures.
As it turned out, she isn't a scamming Nigerian, and is actually pretty cool.
So you can just write off the people without pictures, but it would be a remarkably strange way to make (or not make) friends wouldn't it?

jeggae i think you misunderstood what i was saying i didnt mean i was cynical because of what they would look like it was more their reasons for not having a pic i.e not actually being single etc. but i have also come across lovely people who dont have a pic for other reasons such as work, lack of technoligy as others have said.

I have been brutally discarded by women when I put this picture up last year , and when I questioned a couple of the women they did admit it it was because of my picture. One said she doesn't chat to men with pictures she dont like, and she admitted she doesn't care if that is shallow. Before that they were telling me how nice I was and I had a great personality.
But to some women these sites are a bit of a meat market, looking at men then discarding them like meat on a shelf

Hertshottie wrote:

jeggae i think you misunderstood what i was saying i didnt mean i was cynical because of what they would look like it was more their reasons for not having a pic i.e not actually being single etc. but i have also come across lovely people who dont have a pic for other reasons such as work, lack of technoligy as others have said.

Not sure I did misunderstand you, that's why I said 'There are a lot of reason people don't want to put pictures up'. Some women do think men are hiding something if they haven't got a picture. But I know that isn't always true.

There are a lot of women that put up pictures that are doctored, psychedelic or blurred etc, which is as bad if not worse then putting no picture up.
Nice picture you have up Hertshottie, nice and honest.

I wouldnt not talk to someone on here if they didnt have a pic (although I would be cuurious as to why they didnt have one)

With regards to meeting someone with no pic I DEFINATELY wouldnt

If I had been chatting for a while then they put their pic up or sent it to me and asked to meet me they i would be honest if i wasnt attracted to them.

Like I've said before I have to be attracted to someone intitially, and that doesnt mean someone who looks like a male model, everyone had different tastes