hehe, you are soooo unfair!! Do you want to say that you are not crazy about pretty male face? Or you want to say that you feel better when men are saying that you are bad looking? haha, I have three sisters, so I think I know what I am talking about. In this case there is no much difference in male and female thoughts ;-) Ok ok, mabe I can help you... if you feel that here are many men who made friend with you only because of your photo, you can send me friend request and I will refuse that, lol My answer to your second part is: I think that number of friends on italki is not related to photo, more time you chat, more friends you have, that's all. Have fun :-)

Men are programmed biologically to react to visual stimuli.

If people have a choice, they will always pick that which is aesthetically pleasing. Now, here are some facts: 1) Most people (guys and girls) on this site, and other networking sites, are hoping to have a relationship with someone. (Like you didn't know that...) 2) Even the more reasonable people (that understand that they cannot easily form a bond with somebody who is thousands of miles away from them) like to have lots of pretty pictures on their friends lists =) 3) You can always decline somebody's invitation if you suspect that they only want you for your good looks. I, personally, came here to improve my 日本語, and then I figured - "What the heck, I can make friends from all around the world." I'm also aware that a lot of people are not who they say they are (you yourself could be a 40 year old fat man impersonating a cute Chinese girl), and I'm also aware of the fact that even if I actually meet somebody I really like, the chances of us meeting in person are astronomical. That's why I just chill out, enjoy my time on this site, and try to make some new friends, regardless of what they look like (but if they're jerks, they're off my friends list - that hasn't happened yet, though...=) ).

I would be crazy about a pretty face like yours if we were in real life. but since we are just on internet, I don't care that much, there's very little chance that we will ever be able to meet in person. on the contrary, I prefer to add users who don't have a pretty profile photo, because somehow I just think they are more likely to be really serious about learning language.

women do the same thing, a guy on italki that looks handsome in his profile photo will have a lot of female friends. a lot of people are on here because they think it's a dating site, not a language learning site. i'm learning japanese, but i get a lot of friend requests from people that don't speak japanese! i'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish with this question... if it's a complaint that you don't have enough male friends on italki, then i'm sure your status of "would you like to be my lover?" will get you all the male italki friends you could ever hope for!