Dating Goddess reader Steve asks:
What is the best approach when you begin emailing someone from an online dating site, get interested, then exchange photos and lose most of your interest because the person is unattractive to you? Is this something worth pursuing? Sometimes people look better than their photos. Sometimes as we get to know someone better we become more attracted to that person. However, if there is no or very little attraction based on the photo despite the interesting email exchanges, is it worth pursuing the relationship?
There’s something backwards about online dating. You get to know the person before you ever find out if there’s a physical spark.
Dear Steve:
I’ve had this exact same issue. If a guy doesn’t have a pic posted but his profile sounds interesting, when he makes contact I request a photo saying, “Please email me a pic so I can see with whom I’m communicating. After all, you have a pic of me.” If he doesn’t comply, something is amiss so I stop responding.
If he sends a pic and he is totally unappealing, I pull back significantly not asking him any questions hoping the communication dies. If I need to, I say something directly about not feeling we’re a match.
That said, I have met with some men who were much more appealing in person than their pictures, as I explained in “Clothes make the man.” But that has been the exception rather than the rule.
If you have the time and interest to meet the person, only commit to coffee, as usual. If you’ve developed some fondness on email or the phone, it would be easy to suggest dinner or a longer initial meeting. But stick to something short so you can extricate yourself gracefully if there’s no appeal in person.
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