Maybe 10% of the ladies I've met online were bang on with their profiles. I truly appreciated that and our dates lead into 2-3 month relationships.

The other 90ish percent were not at all what I had expected, weight, photo and age... Always the gentleman, I was gracious through our date and ended it with a "thank you and goodnight."

Well the hope it is bang on... with men I would say about 60% of the time they have sent recent and accurate pictures of themselves and about 20% of the time the personalities match what they portray online and who they portray themselves to be... now this doesn't mean they are lying it means that some lie some don't... some people are shy but online they open up and are able to put aside the shyness and be outgoing funny etc but when you meet them face to face they are withdrawn and like a completely different person from online...

Then there is the chemistry and that is something that has to be judged face to face you can chat online, talk on the phone and it comes down to that chemistry those sparks in your head that so rarely go off face to face!

You very rarely see a guy with a "Glamor Shot" profile photo either

Well, I usually won't seek to meet a woman until I've had lengthy telephone conversations with her which should provide me with a level of comfort that she's not a maniac with a Lorena Bobbitt blade in her purse along with a mace perfume atomizer. This may seem somewhat incongruous but, even though I fully understand your sense of hesitancy in meeting a person for the first time, I also would be hesitant to meet a person who takes precautions to the extent that you do. Such precautions would be a red flag to me in that it might indicate to me that you might possibly be a tad neurotic and, from the other side of the coffee shop table, you could easily be someone impossible to end a new relationship with if you wanted it to continue. In this day and age, you have a number of resources that you can go to (such as Google) as well as your own intuition to check out your perspective date. I realize that I'm a guy who can fend for himself easier than most women can but, at the same time, I know that I'm not a serial killer/rapist and take offense being treated like one.

oh you are so wrong there.... so many guys on there with cheesy sears portraits, jacket slung over their back so posed it is not funny... in today's day and age how hard is it to get a casual decent picture..

I have seen a ton of guys with the poses.. that or else their fishing pictures nothing says turn me on like a guy holding a dead fish.. and he isn't making sushi with it!

I respect that but I also respect my safety.. I usually have talked to people enough for some form of comfort but two things make me a tad paranoid friends who are police officers and probabation/parole officers who tell you about the guys who say they are Dr's Lawyers Indian Chiefs whose online dating profiles seem sane rational and normal who on the phone and in court seem great... but when you hear the crimes they are convicted of or accused of you go wow... and these aren't cases that make the papers they just are everyday.

That doesn't worry my too much.. but after I spent my birthday filing a restraining order for a guy I wasn't dating had never met who was stalking me.. I got very cautious... he dated my friend and when she was out of the room one day he took her cell phone and address book and took her best friends numbers and addresses out of it.. and when she dropped him he started stalking us to get to her... so that incident where the guy seemed normal right up until getting dropped and then we found out this was a pattern and he had done it to several other women made me cautious...

When it happens to you, you wake up fast.

You see guys. Men aren't the only sex that starts off with looks and a picture requirement.