Putting your photo on the web?
In writing about meeting Charles I forgot to mention that he didn't have a photo in his AOL profile. When we talked about meeting he offered to got o Kinko's and scan a photo. I told him not to bother. I already knew that I wanted to meet him. To be honest he did have his height and weight listed. I told him that his stats were appealing. When I learned that he was skinny because he is perpetually ill I felt like a creep. And grateful that he didn't cut me off then and there.
As I've recounted I met people through personal ads in the 70s and online in the late 90s. I never met anyone who didn't strike me as attractive. There was one exception in the 70s. But he was so sad and introverted I went to bed with him anyway.
Most were exceptionally good looking. I've read plenty of horror stories from the quickie hook-up crowd. I guess there's some fortuitous filtering for folks looking for something more fulfilling. Angels watch over us silly romantics.
On my ISO website I had a couple of dozen photos of myself. Might seem overboard but I was so damned ticked with the IBM branded webcam I bought. I'd take a photo and rush to the bathroom and look at the mirror. Did I really look like that? Whew! No, thank goodness.
When my best friend, Gordon, recently stumbled across my website he said my photo was anything but flattering. Vanity isn't one of my vices so I don't know if I agree. Obeying Charles' wishes I've let my 'naturally curly hair' grow back out so it doesn't really look like me anymore.
I bought the Conaire home haircutting kit as an easy way of dealing with my hair which when it gets long begins to resemble a broccoli plant gone mad. Not knowing what I was doing I set the thing on the closest shave and found myself looking like a Shaolin priest. It hid the grey that showed up in my 30s so I was happy. (Charles has offered to 'wash away the grey' but I haven't asked him to yet).
I'd had a mustache ffrom 18 'til about 40. It went because it was even greyer. Circa the early 70s the moustache wsa a real plus with the boys.
So not at all happy with the webcam's reproductions I put a couple of dozen up doing my damnedest to give as accurate representation of myself as possible. I'm not foolish enough to deny the power of aesthetic allure and would rather head off disappointment ahead of time.
In my self-description below the photos I admitted among other things that I had awful teeth (there's a long entry in itself). One callow cretin wrote to damn me for admitting it but not show my teeth closely in the photos. I hadn't done that willfully. Heck, it took enough time to take a couple of hundred pictures and weed them down.
I've come close to removing my LJ photo several times since it is a year and half old. But a i work to get myself back in shape and hopefully buy a tolerable digital camera I figure it can wait. And I'll admit I glory a little in being able to use my real name, my real image and even make it easy for anybody who would like to to find me where I work. Other folks have good reason to be discreet and careful but no one can possibly ever to me any harm. I've always hoped that being really me on Yahoo, AOL, gay.com and the other venues that maybe, possibly it'll help a closest gay man triumph over his own phobias. (This has nothing to do with those of you who have good reason to guard your privacy.)