Yes, very. Why? What is the difference between what is said (or not) and what the reality may be – the photo helps us decide?

When you enrol for the first time with an online dating agency,  you complete to some degree or other, a personal profile of yourself. You may or may not load a photograph at that time. You then search the profiles of others to seek potential partners. Some profiles you view may have photographs of the other person or sometimes not.

No Photographs on a Profile?
If there’s no picture on a profile when you search, then it could be for several reasons:

• The default search criteria that you are using excludes profiles without photographs. This is easily dealt with by changing those settings in the search panel.
• The person is not technical (though most people today can load a photo or get someone to do it for them).
• The person has just started setting up a basic profile and hasn’t organised a photo yet.
• They have loaded a photograph and it is awaiting approval by the agency (this can in some circumstances take several days).
• The person doesn’t think other people will find them attractive
• The lady is very attractive and wants to restrict her picture to those who are interested in her profile first.  Private photos (e.g. for Favourites Only) help to get around this problem.  This is not usually a problem for men.
• Some people are just nervous or cautious about a visible online presence, and that is quite reasonable. In that case they may well have photographs ready and waiting to send you; alternatively, if the site has the feature, they may have private photographs loaded to be viewed by invitation only.

So,  you can see that there are several valid reasons why photographs may not be present at a given point in time. And, the very person you seek may be one of those!

Importance of Photographs.
Photographs are important, because if someone’s appearance is not attractive to you, then that’s not a good start (and similarly from the other person’s point of view). Of course, when it comes to a photo of yourself, then you will get a much lower response ……….

This is only half the article about photographs….for the full story get my Online Dating Guide!

The Online Dating Guide is unique, containing much distilled experience from years of online dating by Phil and his friends.

(C) 2009 Phil Marks

There is no question that with the availability of online dating, the amount of dating has increased way beyond what was usual in earlier days. Distances are shortened and the sheer range of potential partners is there before your eyes. So, people meet more potential partners before settling.

Now, as in most things, there are people around who are less than honest and can be seen to be dating cheats. By ‘cheats’ I mean people who describe a false history about themselves, claim to be single when they are not, and so on. They have rehearsed their stories well and, like many cheats, can be very credible.

I have some great friends who I have met through online dating and their experiences, together with my own, have enabled me to put together these tips. Patterns emerge, and cheating individuals may become known in the dating community. The very best cheats though are very credible and can bluff the best of us. I have friends who have been ‘conned’ for many months by serial cheats.

OK, so what about the tips for spotting these characters? None of these hold true in all cases, and of course you cannot easily tell if a genuinely single person is not interested in a long term relationship unless they say so (and assuming that is what you also want).

Tip #1 – Telephone Talk – Phone Numbers

You have gone past the initial exchange of emails and arrange to start talking on the phone. From a male perspective, a genuine guy would usually offer his phone number, recognising that a lady may not want to disclose hers at an early stage on security grounds. If the arrangement is always that the other person calls you, then that is a potential signal.

If the other person says that they can only be called on their mobile phone or that they don’t have a landline phone number then that could be another signal. In today’s age, there are people who genuinely do not have landline phone numbers, relying on mobile phones and Skype. So, you should be able to Skype them at home in the evening (though of course you cannot be absolutely sure that they are at home).

Tip #2 – Telephone Talk – Timing

Most working people cannot take personal calls at work, and that is fine. However, if you find that the other person is saying things like:

Only call me on Tuesdays and Thursdays… or
I can’t do evenings because mobile reception is bad at home (and don’t have a landline)…
I’ll call you on Wednesday at 7pm…

..then these are also signals of potential dishonesty.

Tip #3 – Where do we Meet?

Most often, the first one or two dates are on neutral territory. After that, people will start travelling to each other’s areas or towns. If though, there is reluctance on the part of the other person to meet you on their territory, then this could be a signal that not all is as stated in their online dating profile.

Have they given you their home address? You can test this by saying ‘I’d like to see where you live’.

These are 3 great tips – don’t ignore them if you want to avoid disappointment! There are another 2 great tips in the Online Dating Guide.

In Conclusion

None of these tips are, on their own, absolute identifiers of less than honest people, and the best liars will always keep as close to the truth as possible. Watch for patterns though.

Of course, at the end of it all, there are people who are intensely protective of their privacy (and may themselves be very cautious). However, if you are detecting a few of the signals I have listed, then you would be right to be suspicious.

There is the always chance that the other genuine person, protecting their privacy, would consider some of your ‘test questions’ to be intrusive or prying. However, you can always plead ‘I’ve been hurt before and do not want to be hurt again’. Most people would understand this.

In spite of all this, most people are genuine, so enjoy your dating!

The Online Dating Guide is unique, containing much distilled experience from years of online dating by Phil and his friends.

© 2010 Phil Marks

You have made the decision to enter the exciting and hopeful world of online dating. You are eager to meet that special man or woman and fall in love. You are eager to start join an online dating service, writing your profile and start searching for matches. You just need to determine which dating site you should use.

Use these guidelines to help you decide which online dating service to join.

(1) Set a budget for yourself. Decide how much money you are willing and able to spend on an online dating service. Most dating sites offer memberships for one month, three months, six months and one year. If you are planning on staying on a dating site for several months, it is often more economical to register for a three month membership rather than a one month membership which then has to be renewed. Fill out the basic personal registration information on a dating website and see if they email you any discounted membership offers. There are a variety of quality, popular online dating services that are free that are worth checking out.

(2) Ask trusted family members, friends or colleagues who have experience with online dating sites to give you their recommendations for the best service to join. Ask them to give you an honest opinion. If they had negative experiences with a certain dating site, take their advice seriously in making your final decision about what service to join. Once you have made a decision about the online dating service that you will join, ask these people for advice regarding writing your dating profile, posting photos and responding to matches’ emails and messages. Consider these friends, family members or colleagues to be valuable resources for you.

(3) Invest time in searching through popular and reputable online dating sites. Research as many different dating services as you can before deciding on one to join. Try to figure out which online dating services are the most popular, especially for singles in your state or province or even country.

(4) Think about joining a specialized online dating service. There are a wonderful variety of specialized dating sites available that cater to a specific market. Some dating websites are for a specific country or geographical region. Some dating websites have a religious orientation and are geared toward people of a certain faith, such as Christian or Jewish dating sites. Some dating websites are for seniors.

(5) Reduce your choices down to your favorite three online dating services. Compare them with one another, making note of the advantages and disadvantages of each dating site. Read each site’s “About Us” page, “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)” page and “Privacy” page to gather detailed information. Consider each dating service’s success rate, membership fees, number of members, special features, profile formats, and customer service.

After several of your good friends met their romantic partners through online dating services, you have decided to give the world of internet dating a go. You will be more successful and have a more enjoyable experience if you follow these beginner’s tips.

(1) Decide on which online dating website you wish to join.

Visit each website. Look at the special features and format that each site offers. Look at the costs involved with membership. Look at the payment types accepted, such as VISA, Mastercard, and PayPal. Ensure that the site offers secure and safe payment options.  For detailed information, read the “About Us” page, the “Frequently Asked Questions” page and the “Privacy Page.”  Find out if the service caters to professional people, seniors, single parents, people from special ethnic  groups or members from specific religious groups.

Some online dating services offer you a chance to search through profiles and photos before you commit to joining. Some dating sites offer a free trial period.  Search for a dating service that offers members the ability to send email messages through a special email address provided by the service and the ability to send instant messages (IMs) to fellow members.

Talk to friends and family who have participated in online dating for their personal recommendations. Ask them to share their personal experiences with you about the various dating services that they utilized. Value your friends and family’s advice, as it is more authentic than the advertisements and testimonials used by dating websites.

(2) Decide what characteristics and values you are searching for in your “perfect match.”

Work on building self-awareness so that you know your own abilities, preferences and relational needs. Take time to reflect seriously on the traits and values you desire in a future romantic partner. In a journal or using a word processor, record a list of “Top 10″ or “Top 20″ characteristics that you want most in a mate. Think about your dreams for yourself and your future relationship partner. Characteristics including intelligence, sense of humor, integrity, honesty, faithfulness, patience,  playfulness, and respectfulness usually rank among the top traits people desire in their romantic companion.

Decide on the items that are “Deal Breakers” for you, such as someone who smokes cigarettes, does drugs, drinks too much alcohol, gambles, is disrespectful or has anger management problems. Decide whether you would prefer someone who has never been married and has no children, or it you are okay with dating someone who has been married or who has children. If your religion is very important to you, then make finding someone who shares your moral and religious values a priority for you in your search for your ideal partner.

In a world filled with busy, career-oriented people, many professionals are deciding to join online dating services in the hopes of meeting their future romantic partner. A reputable online dating site provides each member with a detailed dating profile to fill in and usually offers a compatibility questionnaire before a member joins the site. Well-organized dating services employ sophisticated match-matching processes that enable each user to receive quality, well-suited matches. As online dating sites grow in popularity, with a variety of sites having millions of members, more and more men and women these days are discovering the love of their lives online.

Follow these guidelines to help you find your Mr. or Miss Right online:

(1) First of all, before you can be happy and fulfilled in a romantic relationship, you need to be happy and complete in yourself. Don’t buy into the famous line from the movie Jerry Maguire, “You complete me.” Each person has to be whole and holistically healthy within themselves before they are ready to find their life partner.

(2) In order to prepare yourself for meeting your perfect match, devote time to taking care of yourself, physically, emotionally and mentally. Invest time in your favorite hobby or special interest. Make sure that you are maintaining and healthy diet and exercising regularly. Think positively about yourself and work on developing a healthy self-esteem.

(3) Create an imaginative, genuine and well-written dating profile. Include special stories that illustrate your authentic personality. Share details about your favorite interests and hobbies, memorable anecdotes about your education and career, and charming stories about your family, pets and friends. Paint an appealing and lovable picture of yourself through your profile essay.

(4) Once you have joined an online dating service, take the time to complete all aspects of your dating profile. Your matches will be able to tell if you are serious about finding a partner by the amount of care and detail you put into your profile. Make sure that your writing is free from spelling, grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure mistakes. Take time when selecting your photos to upload to your profile. Make sure they are respectable, attractive and welcoming photos of yourself.

(5) Remember that finding your Mr. or Miss Right is a journey and give yourself plenty of time to be matched with the best possible partner. Devote some time every day or every other day to reviewing your new matches, responding to messages or emails from matches that you are interested in, and pursuing contact with any match that catches your attention. Part of the process with online dating is trial-and-error. When you are matched with people who don’t meet your expectations, because their profile turns you off, your values aren’t compatible or you don’t feeling physically attracted to them, then kindly but firmly close the match and send them a polite but assertive email such as “Thank you for your message. I don’t feel that we are a match. Good luck in your search.” Think positively. Every day you are getting closer to meeting your future soul mate.

So you’ve met someone online and you’re interested in getting to know them better. Where do you go from here? What do you ask that will engage them in conversation while at the same time not make them feel like they are being interrogated? Those early email conversations can be a very useful screening tool to help you figure out if you want to go further.

The main things that you have to determine right from the beginning are:

a) What is their relationship status?
b) What kind of relationship they are looking for?

The answers to these two questions should be answered in their profile on the online dating service. There is a good chance that you would not be matched with a person who is not what you are looking for in this regard. It’s a good idea, however, to be sure that the two of you are clear on these issues before you invest any of your time in this person. As a safety precaution, make sure that you match is not married, engaged or already in a long-term relationship.

Certainly, you should ask their age, their occupation, their religious beliefs and their thoughts about marriage and children. All these things typically matter a great deal and again you want to screen out right from the start those people who are not right for you.

If the person meets with your approval with the above criterion, you can progress to the business of finding out their interests and hobbies, their likes and dislikes.

Here are some unique questions you might ask:

• What is on your iPod right now? (What would you put on an iPod if you had one?)
• If you could only watch three TV show a week, what would they be?
• If you could eat any food that you wanted without any negative results, what would it be?
• Have you ever won an award or a contest?
• If you could have chosen to be born at any time in history, when would you choose?
• What jobs did you have as a teenager?
• What are your favorite fiction and non-fiction books?
• What the most memorable class you’ve ever taken?

Finally, if you are really interested in that person as more than an online fling, you will want to discern their values and gain insight into their personality.

If you determine the answers to these three questions, you will know a great deal about that person:

• What makes them laugh?
• What makes them cry?
• What makes them angry?

You will want to skillfully and intelligently navigate your way through this phase and you just might find a person with whom you are truly compatible.

You are seriously considering joining a reputable online dating service. You are hopeful at the prospect of possibly meeting your soulmate. You are eager to get started with the process of receiving matches and reading dating profiles. However, you want to stay safe and approach online dating in a smart way.

Although the majority of members of online dating services are honest, good and genuine people, unfortunately hundreds of thousands of people are taken advantage of by internet dating scams. Be aware of any “red flags” that you notice with any of your matches.

Follow these helpful tips to avoid an online dating scam.

Be observant of discrepancies in your match’s emails. Be very cautious if you experience any of the following problems:

a) The email communication from your match is difficult to understand, is repeated or is oddly vague.
b) You receive a response from the match within ten to twenty minutes every time you send him/her a message, even though you never discussed when you would be online again.
c) You notice that emails from your match change in grammar, spelling, style, language or overall tone throughout your communication with him/ her.
d) Early on in your communication, your match shares a heart-wrenching story that quickly turns into an emergency, and he/she informs you that you are the only one who can help.
e) Your match fails to offer you any personal or detailed information about himself/herself.
f) He or she does not respond to your emails or messages in a personal way, but instead change the topic each time he/ she sends another email.
g) You sense that the emails or messages that you are receiving from this match don’t contain meaningful and appropriate responses. Consider whether or not the person is sending you copied-and-pasted responses from a pre-written script or outline.
h) The person asks you to cash someone’s money order or check for him/her. Say no!
i) The person asks you for money. Avoid giving anyone any money.
j) Be weary if the match’s profile photos look fake or unrealistic. It likely means that the photos have been tampered with, or worse, the photos might be of another person entirely and just used to hook potential matches into communicating with him/her.

Safety and Privacy Tips

Be very careful not to reveal you actual last name to a match until you feel that you have gotten to know the person and you feel that they are trustworthy. Be careful not to reveal your personal email address until you have been communicating for a good while through the online dating service and you feel comfortable sharing your email address with them. Do not share your phone number with a match until you feel very safe and comfortable with them over email. Never reveal your personal address until you have gone through the process of communicating online for a good amount of time, have had many successful phone conversations, and have met in person in safe, public places a variety of times.

While there are a lot of benefits to online dating, you will occasionally be presented with a situation in which you have to turn somebody down. It might be because you perceive that other individual to be physically incompatible with you, too old or too young for you, too far away geographically, or it can be that you simply do not think that the two of you share enough values and interests in common. How to delicately handle the situation so as not to create a problem for yourself is something that people have struggled with since the advent of online dating services. Here are some suggestions that might make the process significantly easier for both you and the other person.

To the extent that this is somebody who you have not had any previous contact with, the best course of action is often to simply close the match. Some dating websites such as eHarmony offer users the opportunity to simply press a button labeled “Close Match” if you are not interested in pursuing contact with the other person. You simply select one of the “reasons” for closing the match and the person is moved to your “closed matches” file.

With other online dating sites, ignore any messages the individual sends you. While this may seem a little bit extreme, some individuals might react negatively to a comment indicating that you are not interested. So if you have had no previous contact with somebody and they initiate contact with you, and you decide that an incompatibility exists, most experts agree you should not respond at all.

If you have had a series of contacts with an individual and you decide for whatever reason that an incompatibility exists, experts suggest being very firm and friendly in explaining that you don’t think enough compatibility exists to continue having contact with the individual. You need to explain that you want to move on and that you would appreciate if the other person understood and respected your decision. After this, experts agree you should have no further contact with the individual whatsoever.

The final scenario is one in which somebody continues to incessantly make contact with you despite your having clearly indicated that there is no interest in pursuing a relationship on your part. It is important to you than block this individual from being able to contact you through the dating site, and that you report your concern to the administrators.

By following this advice, you will be able to better manage the contacts that you have with people whom you meet via online dating sites.

You are at a place in your life in which you are ready to settle down. You have a good college or university education, and you are established or getting established in your chosen career. Something, more precisely, someone, is missing though. You long to be in a long-term committed relationship with a loving, intelligent, caring woman or man who would one day become your future spouse. You have had several long-term relationships, but unfortunately they didn’t work out. You are busy with your career and you don’t have any friends or co-workers that would be good possible girlfriends or boyfriends. Several of your friends from university suggest to you that you join an online dating service. They were able to meet their wives through online dating services, which is a good testimonial in itself.

Your friends try to encourage you to register with an online dating service. They offer you several compelling reasons why you should give online dating serious consideration.

1) As a member of an online dating service, you are enabling yourself to be matched with and interact with possibly hundreds if not thousands of fellow members. Many popular dating services have millions of members. You are increasing your potential “dating pool” of possible matches exponentially.

2) As a member, you are expanding your geographical search for your future mate beyond just your own city or town to include your state or province, your entire country, or even several other countries if you choose to look for love in a broader geographical setting. Many online dating services allow you to list the states or provinces or countries that you would like your matches to live in, and some services allow you to type in a specific distance, such as a 500 mile radius or a 1000 mile radius.

3) A high percentage of men and women discover their wives or husbands through online dating services. Many people met their current girlfriend or boyfriend online.

4) If you take a relaxed and positive attitude, joining an online dating service can be a fun and rewarding experience. It is an easy and exciting way to receive matches from various states, provinces or even countries, all from the comfort of your home computer. Members find it to be a memorable time in their lives, as they look forward every day to discovering their new matches and reading new messages from matches.

5) Online dating services offer helpful and easy-to-use features. Members are able to easily access a tremendous variety of personal profiles which contain information about each match’s personal interests, career, relationship goals, religion, age and place of residence. Members can view one another’s photos, which is a popular feature.