Drew Gaugler wrote:Good point Sarah. I'm not hiding anything, I'd email you a pic. It's just strange to put a picture out for people to focus on when I'm not focused on looks. I want someone comfortable with and happy with who they are and not caring what others think. I'm focused on who a person as a whole. I guess ask if you want a pic, I'll email.
I understand what you're saying. Are you looking for a platonic partner? If so, this makes sense. I feel that the means to privately contact (such as email address) is much more personal than a photograph, since it's a means of access, so I'm not willing to share something personal with a stranger on the internet who is unwilling to expose his face publicly. It's a matter of safety for me.
There are scores of men on online dating sites who are purposefully vague and/or withhold basic information for deceitful purposes. They seek to misrepresent themselves or delay exposing themselves so that they have time to sort out what the intended victim is vulnerable to so they can construct their false identity and/or manipulate accordingly. To me any deliberate omission of information commonly used to assess compatibility or interest is in itself deceitful.
I'm not at the point where I'd consider a romantic relationship with someone I don't find physically attractive. Celibacy is not so bad. Much better than being bamboozled.
I do have pictures listed in my own
thread, however photobucket is a
jerk and has introduced bandwidth limits and blurs my pictures now. I have yet to address this problem.
One time I started talking to this guy on the internet, he lived nearby and was writing sermons for a church and had built his own tinyhouse and all this stuff that sounded amazing. I thought for sure he was exactly the right person. The photo he sent looked okay, but it was kind of vague. Let me tell you. He didn't look anything like that picture, it was close up and angled to hide what he really looked like. When I told him (the very day we met!) that I didn't want to date him, he became very angry and said I should have told him sooner (the day we met) which was a very frightening situation for me. Fortunately I had a friend who lived nearby who came and got me out of a potentially dangerous situation. So I will be the first one to tell you, that you can easily think (mistakenly) that you know who someone is and that you have feelings for them from talking online, but reality can be completely different. This is a small snippet of the grave mishaps I call my dating
experience, which prejudices me strongly against posters who are not as transparent as I'd like them to be. Insisting that you're honest and open without actually exposing yourself (not in the flasher sense) publicly is also a red flag for me.
If you're just not comfortable posting a picture of yourself on the internet, that's fine. It's your right and no one here is going to try to force you. I personally appreciate when people are just straightforward about these things.