Perhaps a big reason women immediately dismiss contact with no pic may have less to do with a looks requirement and more to do with a numbers game. When I tried online dating I quickly found the formula didn't work so well for me because, particularly with a free site, women immediately get bombarded with emails overnight. When you're employed and only have maybe 20 minutes to sift thru tons of messages and profiles, or if you're unemployed but simply not that devoted to the cause, you have to do a quick process of elimination -- you're unable - or unwilling - to take the time to check out every single person that hits you a "whatsup." So the "anonymous Joe" is the obvious instant elimination. Ask yourself this: with a blank profile - no pic and nothing much to say, what reason have you given her to respond? What exactly have you given her to base a choice to reply to you over anyone else? Even if you were the only person to contact her, if she replied could you assume it was cause she was interested? Interested in what? "whatsup" from a (literally) nobody? A nonperson? I may be delusional, but I think a less than attractive pic is better than no pic. At least a message from an unattractive person is contact from a person. With no pic and a generic profile, you get no sense of the person. It's like you're not a person, but a typed fake name on a computer screen. And I agree with the other poster that said "the privacy concerns" line is offensive (my word). I remember once a no-pic guy (I must assume it was a guy) got pissed cause I didn't respond to his messages. I responded finally something like "what reason did you give me to respond? Respond to who/what? WOPR (remember War Games)?" He replied with "because of my line of work I have to be concerned for privacy," and I was thinking "So your privacy is more important than mine?" Remember the scene from the movie Taken when the naked virgins were paraded on stage before the audience of anonymous 'important person' bidders? That's what it feels like for a girl to put herself out there and have an anonymous no-pic guy demand her attention, claiming to be in special need of 'privacy." And he finally admitted that he was a judge (who I appeared before at times) but that only made it worse, like he was so special, that his privacy was somehow more important than everyone else's. Do you think women generally like the idea of putting their pics out there on the world wide web? Of course not, but it's a risk we take to play the game. Would you have messaged her in the first place if she didn't have a profile pic? I hear ya that online dating doesn't always work out for a number of reasons, mainly I think cause it's only as good as your geographical location. When I tried online dating I didn't know about IR sites, but I did a search on whatever site it was for African American males within a hundred mile radius, and when the search returned with not a single match, I signed off forever.