I have been thinking about this question for a while and I would also like to hear from all the friends on italki. What do you think about this question?
There are several points that occur to my mind.
1. We should not judge people by their appearances but in real life it's kind of hard not to do that. It's natural for people to be attracted by beautiful things in our life.
2. When it comes to personal profile or photos, does it really matter if you are a hottie or not regarding finding a language partner here?
For me, I chose to upload an animation figure as my photo because I like this character but sometimes people think this kind of image makes them feel that I am not that sincere? Do you think so?
3. Even if I use a real life photo for my profile, it could be something I copy and paste from a website.
4. What if someone tries to ask you personal photo? I used to talk to a guy on a mobile app. At the very beginning the conversation was quite good until a point he started asking me whether I could send him a photo. For me, It's okay to talk to people on skype via video but this is not like a dating website or something and I didn't know how to talk to him after that.
What is your thought on this question? Feel free to leave your comments. Thank you!
It's Shawn here. I'm a native Chinese speaker with two years online English hosting experiences in English corners. Hopefully we can help each other to improve language learning together. You can contact me via msg in the forum or skype ID: shawn_loveenglish
Truth, when I scan through possible partners to pick people to ask to do an exchange with me I scan the photos and make sure that they look like NICE people. They are smiling, open, facing the camera etc. If there is no photo, I don't reach out. If someone is half dressed or sideways or only half there etc.... no message from me. If someone reaches out to me and says something interesting I won't judge by the photo but by what they say, but when searching... the photo is super important... not for beauty or age or anything like that, but for other things it says about the person. You can tell if it's really the person or not and if it's not real... I skip those faster than other images. A lovely image could be OK... but not someone I myself would reach out to unless they say great things in the discussions first. I have found some good friends here scanning photos. The photos usually end up being accurate depictions of character with how I use them. People that I didn't have a good feeling from based on the photo but was in contact with anyway turned out badly in the long-run. I now trust my intuition based on the photos. It's what works for me. This is the only place I put a real photo of myself because I think it's just too important on a website like this while searching for language partners for me not to have one. Language exchanges are super important to me and unless someone has a sense of who I am in the picture, they won't have an idea of what they are getting themselves into getting onto skype with me. I ask that others do it for me... so I have to do it for them.
Photo reveals your character, but without photo you are characterless. :D
I think that as you talk with a person for a while, and they share their personal life with you, it's reasonable that your decision to hide your face can start to poison your friendship, because there is not a reciprocity in being open and vulnerable (if they show their face, of course). Personally, I just have my photo on Skype.
You can indeed decide to keep it private, and so the people you talk to can decide that they don't want to keep talking to you.
This is regardless of how good looking you are, if someone just wants to talk to good looking people, hiding yourself will just delay the moment when they stop talking to you.
You can use somebody else's picture, true, and people can do a reverse google image search on it, realize what you are doing, and then act accordingly.
Dear friends, I disagree some of you.From your words exit that we must not put here our real pics,we must not use real name.So we must live as liar.In internet or in life I am same.I can not live in other way.We must trust one another.If someone wants to do badness ,he or she will do it.
Before I did not put my real pic, but I showed my age,some people did not pay attention my pic,they sent strange messages.
There are many users without their real pics,I did not know how they are,but I like their ideology,I respect them.I would like to see people's real pics whom I respect:) They are interesting for me.
Your photo say more than you can say. On your personal photo, your clothes, our posture, your facial expression etc. say many things about you.
All of us post photos on profiles, that they like. So if you have an animation figure, I can google, who is it, and I know many things about your personality, because we like persons, who have similar personality as otherselves. The other point, I know your hobby, I know, what you do in your freetime, and animation as hobby say many things about personality too.
1. Yes, we all like attractive things /people, but anyone of us has his own ideal. That means, if you find one person attractive, maybe your friend don't find so.
2. Yes, photo is important, to find a language partner, to find a friend, to find a life partner. Even you are the boss and want to find a employee. Par example, you see photos of you language partners. On one photo is a beatiful girl, which carrying by 3 guys or another photo, a girl, who stretch her tongue. Does it mean nothing for you? Or you begin to think about what she is a person?
3. Since I have my own photo on webportals, I become the messages. But I'm afraid too, that it can be copy and post on other sites. That's why, I have a photo without details of my face.
4. I don't send my photos to other persons. If they want to see me, they can you skype or meet me. But no photos.
