I went on three first dates this past month, and every man was polite and nicely dressed. That part went well. Recognizing any of them from their profile photos proved considerably more ambitious.
Each time, the person who walked through the tavern door looked so different from his pictures that I couldn’t connect the two. I’d agreed to meet a man and apparently prepared by studying his archives.
One profile showed a man with thick, jet-black hair. The man who arrived was entirely bald and had a white beard. Perfectly ordinary features for a man to have. Just a substantial departure from the reference materials.
Another had photos of himself skiing in Colorado, looking about 38. There was a digital camera timestamp from 2009 right in the corner. You have to appreciate a photograph that provides its own evidence.
I’m dating in the over-50 crowd. Nobody needs to explain aging to me. Wrinkles happen. Hair thins, changes color, or decides it has contributed enough. Gravity remains committed to its work. I expect the people I date to look like adults who have lived through the intervening years.
But I’d like those years included in the picture.
Showing up for a first date already takes a little nerve. You’re trying to recognize someone, settle into a conversation, and see whether the connection from the messages exists in person. It gets awkward when the first thing you have to sort out is whether you’ve identified the correct man.
And because they were all courteous and had made an effort with their clothes, the mismatch felt especially strange. They were clearly prepared to meet me as they are now. Their profiles hadn’t received the update.
By the third date, I was wondering whether this is simply standard practice in my age bracket. Are people choosing the picture they love most and forgetting that the rest of us need it for identification? Or is accepting a current photo harder than I realized?
I don’t need anyone to have the same hair they had in 2009. I would, however, like a reasonable chance of recognizing them before the appetizers arrive.
