Sex and the Sixty (Year Old): Show Me Yours and I’ll Show You Mine

The long and illustrious history of photography began many centuries before the first photograph was actually produced. Brilliant, creative minds like Chinese philosopher Mo Ti and Greek mathematicians Aristotle and Euclid described a pinhole camera in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. The first actual “modern” photograph of people,“Boulevard du Temple”, was taken by Louis Daguerre in late 1838 or early 1839.

The incredible vision and commitment of these people over the years has culminated in what we see today: a photographic Golden Age that allows ordinary people to pay homage to the brilliant minds of the past by posting doofus photos of themselves on internet dating sites.

My friend Susan, with a lot of encouragement from me, recently jumped back into the internet dating cesspool  scene. She has had a couple dates with intelligent, charming men who possessed full sets of teeth and didn’t blow their noses into their shirt sleeves. Or worse, hers. I don’t care about these people. They do nothing for my blog. What I care about are the recent experiences Susan has had with men who post random photos of people other than themselves on their profiles.

One man looked too good to be true. After Susan fell onto the floor in a love-struck swoon, she looked more closely at the photo. It had been taken directly from a magazine ad. Only then did she realize that other men had done the same.

Another man, who we will call Mr X because Susan won’t tell me his real name, had five photos posted on his profile.  All looked very different. When Susan asked why, he said “I don’t know how to remove pictures, just add them.” Susan, being a full service internet dater, sent him instructions on how to remove old photos.

He removed all but two photos. One was totally blurry of him with a hat on and the other one was of a svelte, gorgeous looking guy, camping. Susan again asked him which one was the correct photo, to which he responded “Are you shallow? Why do you need a picture?”

Susan, who should have ended the communication at that point, is nothing if not dogged. She responded that she wanted to make sure she sat down at the right table when they met for coffee because twice in her dating history she sat down at the wrong table because she didn’t see anyone who looked like the picture that had been sent to her. And actually the two people she sat across from were much better looking than who walked through the door and was her “real” date.

So, in the face of such compelling verbiage, he sent Susan a recent photo. It was taken through a bus window. It was a picture of him taking a picture of the bus. It was difficult to separate him from the bus, as they both had the same body type and weighed approximately the same. Susan wrote back again and said that she thought he had totally misrepresented himself, having a picture on his site that was probably 30 years old and then blocked his profile so he couldn’t write back to her.

Later that day, Susan received an email notice of her latest match. It included the following photo:

I am aware that this is a thumbnail and that many Boomers will not be able to see it. Trust me. You don’t want to see it anyway.

Now, for the umpteenth time, Susan has declared an end to the internet dating thing. She has, once again, dramatically removed her profile and declared that if the universe wants her to have a man, he will fall on her head. She has done this before, and her head has remained intact. I’ll give her a couple of days and then start sending her Match.com profiles to lure her back. My readers demand no less.