Cute, isn't she? Makes you smile. At least it made me smile, when a friend sent it to me.

I don't imagine, however, that it elicited quite the same response from the "meet your on line hopeful honey baby sweetie fellow" my friend had sent it to in response to his request for a full body photo. Amend that, for a recent, full body photo. 

While Tom had Renee at Hello, apparently for the rest of the mating, dating, forever and ever crowd, the requirements are much more exacting. 

"How did he make the request, and maintain some semblance of delicacy in doing so?" I asked. He wrote, she offered, "I normally don't reply to emails with only one photo posted. Not that I get a flood of emails or that I consider myself a trophy. Just that that criterion has been a fairly reliable guide in the past—one which I have ignored to my great loss (of, time, travel and expenditure").

Needless to say, she didn't hear back from him. 

Can't really fault him for his request. Consider, really, the time, travel and expenditure consequences. 

I did ask her how many hopefuls she responded to that either had no picture posted, or whose picture was, oh, how does one put this gracefully, scary? She agreed, somewhat sheepishly, that her shallow button was easily pressed, and regardless of the accompanying wonderfully written prose, she was apt to hit the delete, delete, and move onto the next. 

He's vindicated. 

So now what? 

Is it really the overworked, overused, beaten into submission request for chemistry at play here? 

How's about this branch of the science?

I think all the on line seekers of beauty and truth should take classes in the art of Alchemy. They can, if they are clever enough, learn how to transmute (like that word?) the base metals (hopefuls) into a more valuable and precious metal (a date) with a flick of a wand and some magical incantations. No photos required.