Dear Ringer,
    Sorry dude, no. For a whole bunch of reasons. What if the fake photo is someone's husband? What if the person who sees it is his pastor or his wife? You don't want to be responsible for a divorce just because you couldn't handle a little ribbing from the guys at the office.
    It's also wasting people's money. It's not like the good old days of the Internet, when everything was free and the Pets.com sock puppet was just a puppy. It costs money to contact someone, and you're misrepresenting. You might think your replacement is just as good, but attraction is complex. It's not as simple as matching brown hair and brown eyes to brown eyes and brown eyes.
    If you're still a fraidy cat, you can use a fake photo. But try your brother or best friend/close buddy. Say somewhere in your profile that you're using a fake photo for work reasons, and try to come off as non-sketchy as possible. The pro is that you won't be weeded out of photo-only searches; the con is that most women will think this is pretty weird. Because it is.
    Option two: don't include a photo. Describe yourself as best you can, maybe throw out a few celebrities that look like you (the more esoteric and quirky the better; no big Hollywood stars). The pro is anonymity, the con is that you probably won't get a lot of contacts.
    You also need to rethink this bias you have against online dating. Name a bar or coffee shop where you can assess a hundred available women without embarrassing yourself, moving your ass or changing out of your underwear. You're one of millions, and no one is paying as much attention to your dating efforts as you might think.

Dear Roommate's Mate,
    First of all, I'm not invisible. My superpower is that I can see through walls. (By the way, I saw what you were doing with that kaleidoscope, Roommate's Mate, and I think it's disgusting.)
    Tell your roommate to stop being such a nancy. What's sleazy about asking your own girlfriend for sex? If there are people brave enough to ask total strangers to piss on them, he can muster the courage to ask his girlfriend to jump his bones now and again.
    As for approach, I wouldn't insinuate that she has some sort of deeper, underlying problem. It's better to try positive reinforcement first — "Honey, remember that time you…" — and delve into psychological stuff as a last resort. This is particularly true if one (or in this case, both) partners are more reserved when it comes to talking about sex. I know that sound like I'm encouraging WASP-like repression, but sometimes that's what it takes to get things done. If he's too shy to ask his girlfriend straight out, he might want to reference something she's done in the past that's aggressive and ask her when she's going to do it again. Most of us are egotists at heart. We'll do just about anything when paid a compliment.
    Is the long-distance nature of their relationship making him feel insecure? Is he worried that she's not as eager to rip off his clothes because she's cheating? Because that really shouldn't be a worry when they're sending each other candygrams and spending two hours every night talking on the phone. Translated into roommate-speak, this is a long way of cracking open a beer and saying, "Dude, you're being paranoid."  n°