When Users Who Use Pictures... Of More Beautiful People.

[JonahLynx]

I have a confession... I am in fact not a cyborg.

 

[tourist]

Mr rodgers died?!?! Yous all just ruined my childhood! :'(

He took the trolley to a better neighborhood.

 

[Oncefallen]

If I suspect I am a catfish and I don't know it, how do I determine for certain whether I am or not? Now I'm going never going to get to sleep tonight, because I will be worried that I am secretly a catfish.

How does it feel to be both predator and prey?

This thread makes me very happy:

Wait a minute........NTW1103 is really Michael Weston?!?!?!

 

[AuntieAnt]

I use a pic of some monkey from a zoo somewhere

Wow, what an extraordinarily pretty monkey, too!

 

[AuntieAnt]

Oh no, I might be a catfish too...I am a photographer and I took my own profile picture...yikes!

Yeah, and you're very attractive in your photo, too. So you must not be real.

(I know MM is real fo' reals! j/k LOL)

 

[CharlieGrown]

Wow, what an extraordinarily pretty monkey, too!

I have no idea why this thread exists, but it's been a barrel of monkeys.

 

[49]

Recovered?! What were you boys up to?!

Too funny . Had a rotator cuff surgery a month ago, and have months of healing to go.

Met popeye here a few months ago and had lunch. A real nice fella, and he loves The Lord. Never thought I'd meet a fellow CC'er...kinda neat.

 

[49]

Recovered?! What were you boys up to?!

That bottom frame looks like something my friends and myself would have done when younger. Actually looks pretty fun(ny).

 

[AuntieAnt]

I have no idea why this thread exists, but it's been a barrel of monkeys.

 

[49]

I have no idea why this thread exists, but it's been a barrel of monkeys.

Are those monkeys real?

 

[AuntieAnt]

That bottom frame looks like something my friends and myself would have done when younger. Actually looks pretty fun(ny).

I raised 3 "adventurous" kids ~ my two sons and their younger sister, who did her best to keep up with them. They've pretty much attempted everything including the above stunts or were at least involved in equivalent acts of jackass proportion. The most bizarro shenanigan they've pulled was jumping their bikes out of a tree. I'm not sure whether they took part in the actual jumps along with our neighbors' 2 sons or were the brilliant engineers who rigged the bikes up in the tree. I didn't really want to know. But they all laugh about it to this day.

 

[49]

I raised 3 "adventurous" kids ~ my two sons and their younger sister, who did her best to keep up with them. They've pretty much attempted everything including the above stunts or were at least involved in equivalent acts of jackass proportion. The most bizarro shenanigan they've pulled was jumping their bikes out of a tree. I'm not sure whether they took part in the actual jumps along with our neighbors' 2 sons or were the brilliant engineers who rigged the bikes up in the tree. I didn't really want to know. But they all laugh about it to this day.

Either way, simply ingenious! Preferred riding horses to riding bikes as a kid. We would get bored and do stupid stuff, which was fun to us. Matter of fact, just deleted a few fun things before posting this .

 

[Lynx]

How does it feel to be both predator and prey?

Same ole, same ole. Cats are accustomed to being both predator and prey. That's why a cat needs to trust you a LOT before he will let you give him a tummy rub.

 

[ntw1103]

Can we see your sad face for contrast lol

Wait a minute........NTW1103 is really Michael Weston?!?!?!

I used to be a spy...

 

[shineyourlight]

I have a confession... I am in fact not a cyborg.

I don't believe you.

 

[Sonflower]

I used to be a spy...

until....."We've got a Burn Notice on you your blacklisted."

I love this show too much.

 

[crosstweed]

Hey Everyone,

I was just curious about this, because I've seen it happen time and time again: what do you think of using pictures in avatars, profiles, and albums... that are of someone who isn't really you (but is extremely good-looking), and quietly allowing people to believe that picture is actually of you?

I have to be honest. I'm certainly no online expert, but I've been on and off the online dating site/chat circuit for maybe 8 years, and in all that time, I've never once heard of a user who represented themselves with a photo that looked like a model... and was actually that person in the picture.

While I've never been a mod, and I'm usually the last to know what's going on, people do often talk to me about their lives. And what I'd find happening is that (unsurprisingly), the most popular people were the ones with the most beautiful photos. Everyone was trying to talk to them, whether the person in the picture claimed to be taken or not.

Eventually, someone would try to meet one of these beautiful people in real life... and word would get out that these beautiful pictures... were just that--a flat picture with a mystery person behind it... who was in love not with the people they met, but with all the attention these pictures were getting.

What do you think?

* If people use beautiful photos of beautiful people who could very easily be mistaken for them, should they put some kind of notice in their profile that says, "This is not actually me"?

* Does everyone have a right to choose whatever photos they wish, allowing others to believe that picture is really them?

* What about using pictures that really ARE you... but, let's say, from 10 years (and 50 pounds) ago? What should the guidelines be regarding honest online representation of oneself?

* If you're in a relationship (or claim to be in a relationship), is it ok to use someone else's picture then, because you're technically "not looking" anyway?

Now I know there are some exceptions. One user here in Singles used a photo of an actor for his avatar, but this actor is known for a specific genre of work. Someone who obviously didn't know who this actor was mistakenly thought it was an actual picture of this member, and I doubt this member meant to deceive anyone with that picture.

However, I made a post in another thread that I've gotten to a point where I don't trust pictures in which the person looks like a model. In my experience, they'll usually say something to the effect that they have a friend/relative/cousin's uncle's stepfather who is a photographer... and can make anyone look like model. Sure... and I have an oil well in Texas I'd love to have you invest in.

Maybe I'm just turning into a hardcore cynic.

Or maybe I'm just more than a little sad to hear about yet another deceit via a beautiful online picture--that represented someone else.

I would love to hear about your thoughts and experiences!

P.S. Once again, I'm sorry for the typos in the title. I actually changed it three times and obviously didn't delete everything from the last edit.

It just wouldn't be an SS post without an entire list of errors.

I conducted an experiment with this years ago in partnership with another user (this was back in the days when I had my first account and PM in chat did not require a subscription).

On average, I received 2-8 unsolicited PMs from men I didn't know, ages 18-40 (I was 16-17 at the time) on any given day in chat. That was without an avatar at all. (Most of them would ask for pics almost immediately.) I would just rebuff them, sometimes irritated with how frequent the PMs were, sometimes amused at how stupid some of them thought I must be.

I heard someone else in chat (I don't remember who now) talking about how they used an image of a less than attractive woman as their avatar in order to discourage PMs from random men. I decided that would be kind of fun to try a little social experiment by using at first an unflattering avatar, and then an attractive one, and keep track of the difference in unsolicited PMs.

I told some of the other chatters about my little social experiment and shared some of the results, and one of the guys in chat decided he'd join in on the experiment and do the same thing. He thought it was kind of funny until he started using pictures of a Greek model (he added some pictures of the same guy to a public album too, to make it look more legit) and a chick started semi-stalking him... (he changed back to his original avatar after that.)

Using an unflattering picture of a woman in my age range, the unsolicited PMs dropped to mostly Pakistani and Indian men, averaging 0-5 PMs depending on how busy the room was.

With a picture of an attractive woman in my age range, however, it jumped from 0-5 to up to nearly double, and one day on an extremely active day in the Lounge, it jumped to about 15 or more (back in the day when "busy" meant 40+ people in chat).

NOTE: I never ever claimed that I was the person in the avatar, either in the flattering or unflattering one, and these were unsolicited PMs. If a guy asked if it was really me in the picture (it was almost always one of the first questions they would ask, along with especially when I had the "more attractive" avatar), I would either tell him it wasn't me, avoid the question, or essentially tell him it wasn't his business, which it wasn't.

I've never used a picture of myself for an avatar unless it was seriously 'shopped/cropped (by "seriously 'shopped", I usually mean I turned myself into an alien). I don't like having my face on the internet... in fact, I ask friends not to post pictures on fb if I'm in them.

 

[Mitspa]

I conducted an experiment with this years ago in partnership with another user (this was back in the days when I had my first account and PM in chat did not require a subscription).

On average, I received 2-8 unsolicited PMs from men I didn't know, ages 18-40 (I was 16-17 at the time) on any given day in chat. That was without an avatar at all. (Most of them would ask for pics almost immediately.) I would just rebuff them, sometimes irritated with how frequent the PMs were, sometimes amused at how stupid some of them thought I must be.

I heard someone else in chat (I don't remember who now) talking about how they used an image of a less than attractive woman as their avatar in order to discourage PMs from random men. I decided that would be kind of fun to try a little social experiment by using at first an unflattering avatar, and then an attractive one, and keep track of the difference in unsolicited PMs.

I told some of the other chatters about my little social experiment and shared some of the results, and one of the guys in chat decided he'd join in on the experiment and do the same thing. He thought it was kind of funny until he started using pictures of a Greek model (he added some pictures of the same guy to a public album too, to make it look more legit) and a chick started semi-stalking him... (he changed back to his original avatar after that.)

Using an unflattering picture of a woman in my age range, the unsolicited PMs dropped to mostly Pakistani and Indian men, averaging 0-5 PMs depending on how busy the room was.

With a picture of an attractive woman in my age range, however, it jumped from 0-5 to up to nearly double, and one day on an extremely active day in the Lounge, it jumped to about 15 or more (back in the day when "busy" meant 40+ people in chat).

NOTE: I never ever claimed that I was the person in the avatar, either in the flattering or unflattering one, and these were unsolicited PMs. If a guy asked if it was really me in the picture (it was almost always one of the first questions they would ask, along with especially when I had the "more attractive" avatar), I would either tell him it wasn't me, avoid the question, or essentially tell him it wasn't his business, which it wasn't.

I've never used a picture of myself for an avatar unless it was seriously 'shopped/cropped (by "seriously 'shopped", I usually mean I turned myself into an alien). I don't like having my face on the internet... in fact, I ask friends not to post pictures on fb if I'm in them.

Hey ...its not about looks anyway...right?

 

[crosstweed]

Hey ...its not about looks anyway...right?

Exactly. Some of them were really demanding about asking for personal images of me, though... and I'm sitting there thinking, "Look, dirtbag, you don't just get to message me at random and DEMAND MY pictures..."

I wouldn't have seriously considered online dating at that time anyway (I was like 16), but any dude who thought he could just demand pictures of me to know if I was pretty enough to be worth bothering with ended up having himself another think.

 

[crosstweed]

This gif reminds me of when I got my new running shoes... they are so incredibly bouncy that I actually felt more like running. ntw1103 noticed my new bounciness while we were in Walmart and asked if I was having fun.

I admitted that I was contemplating risking the consequences of running up behind the Walmart employee who was walking ahead of us and kicking him from behind and running away...

It was like parkour in a box.

The bounce was that invigorating.