Why is it that so many profiles show an image of a person with a certain age, and then in their profile they give a totally different age. I don't mean a year or 2, but more like 6-8 years difference.
What am I missing?

Time-lapse photography.
For sure.

Considering that many are scammers, liars and click bait it is to be expected.

As for the real people with real profiles there are a few reasons.

The person has low self-esteem
The person wants to attract younger people
The person has a current photo included but uses one they like better as the 'Front Photo'

Personally, I try to update my photo whenever there is a lasting change to my appearance. If I meet someone, I want them to recognize me as I am, not as I was. I include older photos so she can see how my looks have changed over time. I even include very young photos of myself in my profile. I could, at anytime, use one of those photos as my main. It is MY CHOICE.

Time lapse photography.
Header e.g. 56 looking for.......
Profile.
I am a 48 year old woman........
H well, back to the drawing board.

Hey Tom, maybe I'm just nieve, I like the what you see is what you get adage

Who knows.

Some people use fake pictures.

Some people look younger/older than their actual age.

Some people photograph well/poorly.

Some people use old photos.

Some people signed up on the site 10 years ago and used a picture from the day they signed up, and then never signed back in after they set up their profile.

Some people use glamour shots.

Some people are here to troll email responses, or perform personal "social experiments," so put up a picture of a young hottie, to measure the number of responses they get, and may not actually even be the gender which they put.

Some people mess up their registration and enter the wrong date of birth.

Some people put the age of those they want to date as their age, where the photo is actually of themselves, recent, and honest, but maybe they want to date someone 15 years older or younger, so put that in the birth date slot so they are shown matches of that age.

I don't know what you're missing. Depends on the profile you're looking at.

hi salsa, I understand what you mean...
the difference in the header age and the age in the About Me
can be explained by this...

When the member created their profile, at that time she was 48 years old and said so in the About Me section. Then years passed and the member never edited their About Me profile... but the header age is automatically changed so the age difference.

Reasons why a member do not edit their profile...
- they already found someone and are living happily ever after
- they are no longer looking or had stopped looking
- they are no longer active here on Mingle2
- they created the profile and had forgotten all about it.
- they are dead.

whatever the case, just move on... if they had not bothered to edit their profile, chances are no longer looking so I suggest you just ignore and move on to another profile.

Good luck, salsa

Thank you mzrosie,helpful as always
Great picture, by the way
Cheers salsaheart

Because they friggin lie.. they shave a few years ( or more) off.. why?.. who knows?... hiding behind a keyboard, maybe ?..

I mean really.. you going to lie about your age and when you meet... then what.?

who knows why people do that.

I like the woman that posted she was 200 years old. I was curious,so I asked her what it was like to live in Abe Lincoln's time. No response! I was disappointed.

They are time travelers. lol.
I've seen this too many many times. We have all changed with time and a lot of people believe they looked better when they were younger. I know I feel that way. These people will use old photos of themselves thinking no one will notice I guess but hey, we DO.
I usually point it out to them and ask for a recent pic. Anyone with a camera on their cell phone can take a selfie and post it. If they refuse to do this then I move on.

That's a great idea. Think I'll change my age.

Sorry, that's BS. You yourself fill out your date of birth which is what the header info is based on.
Read Rosie's explanation, as the same goes for most dating sites, not just Mingle.
If there's a big gap in age in the way OP explains, they haven't updated their profile blurb, that's all.

there time travelers : ) ~

No one believes I'm 21

DEAD!!! You mean they now look like this!!!