Truth-telling, part three

Age — now there's a touchy subject. The first thing you notice on Match is a person's photo. Then you look at the age and notice a disconnect between the appearance in the photo and the stated age. If you move on to meet the person, you might learn that the photo dates from five or ten years ago. (Did you see "Must Love Dogs"? The sister writes the profile and posts a high school graduation photo. The guy says, "She's going to really be something when she grows up.") After I had posted several photos, Mr. Match pointed out the one he thought was most flattering and said I should make that my primary photo. But the photo he prefers is almost three years old, and the primary photo is [now] three weeks old.

I told you about the guy who revealed on our first date that he was really 10 years older than stated. Photos and profiles are approved by the Match administrators prior to being viewable, but the administrators don't verify facts.

Mr. Match had a brilliant suggestion. When one registers on Match, the registrant should have to submit a copy of his or her valid driver's license. (I've actually seen several guys who scanned the photo on their driver's licenses and used those as the primary photo! Ah, but they didn't scan the birthdate.)

The other suggestion Mr. Match had was that a woman had to submit a photo of the back of her hands. The older we get, the more riven our hands are with blood vessels and those darned age spots. I think he may be on to something.

To demonstrate my theory, I looked for old photos of my hands. The first photo, my law school graduation, dates from May of 1991. I was a few weeks short of 41. Look at those smooth, unblemished hands. For that matter, look at the wrinkle-free face! I took the second photo just now, with Rudi being very patient for the demonstration. Did I make my case?







And while we're on hands, why don't men's hands show wear the way women's do? I look at Mr. Match's hands, which are a handful of years older than mine, and they look much younger than mine. When I was seeing justafarmboy, I noticed what spectacular hands he had. He had spent 30 years making mud pies almost every day, and his hands looked fabulous, unblemished, young. Okay, they're two years younger than mine, but still! Is it all that dishwashing and cleaning and scrubbing that normally falls to the woman? Is it the fact that we lose our hormones in our 50s whereas men retain their hormones? Or is it so they can capture all those young chicks? Whatever the answer, it just ain't fair!