When it comes to my online photos, I'm just a vain gay man

I reckon it’s important to have up-to-date photos to share with guys on gaydar or gay.com before one meets up face to face. But it’s hard for me to get suitable photographs. I can’t say to boyfriend number 1 “Can you take some sexy photographs of me to help my online cruising activities?”

I’ve admitted before that my Internet age is not the same as my real age (What's your internet age?), so up-to-date photos are vital. I’ve met hundreds of guys for fun over the Internet, but there was only one occasion around seven years ago when I arrived and the guy said to me “Sorry, please go, I was expecting someone younger”. Although I was upset, the guy was definitely fatter than he’d said so I managed to reply, “No problem, I was expecting someone slimmer”. Needless to say, this was an occasion when we didn’t exchange photographs before agreeing to meet.

Up-to-date photographs are the best way of ensuring that I don’t get myself into that situation again. One might think if one has an Internet age that is different from one’s real age, then it’s OK to have an old photo to back up the lower Internet age. But I reckon the shallow gay world works on impressions rather than realities, so as long as one’s photos are accurate the truth about one's age is secondary.

Luckily my (antique) digital camera has a timer which allows me to set up a shot with a 5-second pause before the picture is taken. So once a year I wait until boyfriend number 1 goes out and then carefully take new photos of myself. Although I make sure my face will not be on my gaydar profile, I also have to make sure that there’ll be nothing in the photos that could be identified as being in our house.

Before Easter there was a guy who I’d met for some fun last year who said he would take some new photos of me (There's no point in living if you can't feel alive). That would solve my problem. But I want to co-ordinate my new photos with a recent haircut to make sure I look my best. When I’ve logged on to gaydar recently this guy hasn’t been around, so I’ll have to do it myself. My online photos are now over a year old, my haircut is almost a week old, so thank goodness boyfriend number 1 went shopping on his own yesterday. But will my new photos increse or decrease my success rate in the months ahead?