I’m well aware that it’s not all that uncommon for e-folk to bend the rules around realistic internet representation from time to time by posting a flattering profile picture that may not exactly look like themselves 99% of the time. Whether it be a photo from last summer when you were five pounds lighter and five shades darker or a photoshopped, wrinkle-free still captured by a professional photographer – in moderation, I feel that this is acceptable. You want to look appealing to the ladies – it’s understandable. To an extent that is. Lines get crossed when I meet up with you and you appear to have a head of balding, gray hair when I was previously presented with a picture of your long, dark locks flowing in the wind. Or if you suddenly have man boobs and a protruding beer gut when you posted a picture of your trim physique “on vacation 2 months ago”. So, I apologize if I turned away upon first glance while you were frantically waving at me from the restaurant booth and did a full lap of the premise before I put one and one together – I truly and honestly didn’t think it was you. But can you really blame me? Here I was expecting Price Eric and was handed Quasimodo – A whole new world indeed. I feel I’m going to have to start asking everyone to take a picture of themselves holding up a copy of the current day’s newspaper so I can confirm that they’re legit. Now, albeit, while traipsing around fellow female profiles I can only imagine that we are about ten times worse at this little charade: Slimming, high-angled face shots, upping the contrast levels to hide unsightly blemishes, the infamous full lip duck face pout. It’s safe to say that us females pretty much wrote the book on profile appearance deception. But fuck! Why is this collective gender karma seemingly biting me in the ass? What you see is what you get with me. I mean, I totally wear this bee costume 365 (sometimes even 366) days of the year!
