Tips for meeting people and dating online:

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Dating Online can be a wonderful thing, it can be one of the best possible ways to find and meet people who share your interests and passions. Tens of thousands of people meet great friends and even get married as a result of meeting through some online service every year. Whether its a "dating service" or a "just friends service" or online club of some kind. People all over the globe are enjoying the freedom and relaxed atmosphere that any online service provides, it is regarded as a very safe venue for meeting potential friends, riding partners, romance and more.....
However!! Your online safety begins with educating yourself on how to improve your overall experience and be safe doing it.

Below are 10 Ten Critical Online Dating Safety Tips;

1. Use a "New" Free Email Account
Most online (lets call them "introduction services") use an internal email address for you that is not seen by the sender, the sender sends you an email and then you log on to your"introduction service" website and read your mail, however some "introduction services" limit your access to emails sent to you unless you pay for that service and they will not allow you to give out your contact information online as that is considered bypassing their service and getting connected for free when their intention is to have you pay for their service. At some point during your communication with someone you are interested in you may feel that its time to communicate outside of the "introduction services" website and talk to the person on your own using your own email address or instant messenger name. We highly recommend that you create a new email address just for "introduction" purposes. Its easy to create a new email using MSN, YAHOO, GMAIL, AOL, or many other free email services out there. The reason for this is that you need to protect your identity until you really know this person very well and this allows you a anonymity buffer so that if things dont work out then nothing is lost and you have never given that person your personal private email address and if you begin to get harassed on the new email address its really easy to just delete that email and make another one and start over, deleting your email just for use with "introduction" will not affect your private email and you wont have to tell all your friends hey i got a new email... Saves you alot of trouble. When making the new "introduction service" email address we ask that you dont put your full name on it, maybe just your first name or use something else. This also prevents someone from doing a search on your private information and finding more details about you.

2. Listen to your Gut Instinct

We all have it !! That feeling inside us that tells us something just does not feel right. Your gut instinct can be such an asset at times like this, learn to trust that feeling. Use that as part of your skills to know when its time to go to the"next step" or "step back" sometimes depending on the situation it can be a clue to stop all further communication all together before you get in too deep. Be sure its your gut instinct your listening to and not something else such as just being too shy or afraid to reach out, our experience has been when its your gut instinct you'll know it, always remember if your not ready and it does not feel right then dont commit to anything, if they truly like you they will wait till your ready. Your gut instinct can be one of the best instruments you have on your tool belt, any time you communicate with anyone online look for signs that dont seem right, we are not saying in any way that you need to be paranoid here, however we are saying that when your gut instinct tells you something is not right, listen and respect those feelings and proceed with caution.

3. Marital status

Through our own experiences and researching the stats we have found that people are at times not truthful regarding their marital status. This can be hard to verify at times, but whichever marital status they choose, married, separated, single,divorced, widowed, just use precaution here. There are many married people that use "introduction services", just be aware.

4. Look for Red Flags

As you get to know the person look for things that might be red flags. Are they possessive? Are they Jealous? Do they have a good sense of humor or do they get upset easily? Do they avoid parts of your conversation? Do they beat around the bush or hesitate when answering a question? Do they interrupt you constantly? Do they seem dominant in the conversation? Do they react in strange ways to what your telling them? Do they press you for personal information? Do they want to meet right away? All of these should send up a red flag that its time to slow things down and proceed with caution.

5. Personal Information keep it private

Once you tell someone your personal information you cannot take it back so keep your personal information to yourself until you feel very comfortable to give it out. This can include your full name, home phone number, address,work number, what you do for a living and what school your kids go to. Provided with any of these tidbits of information someone can very easily search and find other private information about you and your family. Remember keep it to yourself until you feel comfortable giving it out.

6. Share Photos

Share mutual photos with each other, its only fair if they share theirs that you share yours also. Ask them to share their photos with you. Its ok to ask for picture first and if they say they dont have a photo then its ok to ask them to get a recent one done for you. Afterall wouldn't you like to see the person you might eventually meet. This is not only important from a physical standpoint but its also important because putting a face with the person you have been chatting with gives you a whole new perspective on who they are. During this process of picture sharing dont lie about your pictures and if you find they lied about their pictures or anything they may have said about themselves then you can make your decision whether to continue with them or end the communication entirely.

7. Be completely truthful in your profile

You can't expect to ask anyone to be honest about themselves unless you set the example first and be truthful about what your looking for. If you say things like "looks dont matter" and "seeking long term" and "i dont play head games" then be sincere about it, otherwise you come off looking like the lier and the hypocrite. Be completely open about what your seeking, after all when someone sees your profile it is their first impression of you so take the time and think about the questions on the site, think about what you really want and put some time into painting a complete picture of you, including the good and the bad about you, honesty will get you what you want eventually but being deceptive will only get you nowhere fast. Remember they are probably applying the same techniques in discovering red flags about you that you are with them.

8. Apply same principles as if it was not online

Its important that you respect that fact that your meeting people via an online service but try to apply same principles to this that you would if it was not online. For instance dont get hung up on the fact that every person that uses an "introduction service" is a looser or a creep of some kind. You dont really believe that every person that goes to a singles dance or a singles bar is a looser or a creep so apply the same principle here. In time online just as in person you will learn who is for real and who is playing you. And that same thought process goes for being disappointed and for rejection also, just as in person you will get rejection and disappointment online and people may say some pretty hurtful things to you at times, the positive thing is that when that happens then you have just made it easier to eliminate that person from the equation allowing you to focus on someone else that might be more suitable. Online just as in Person, its all a selection process. Think Positive Always!!!!!

9. A word about background checks

Many online and offline "introduction services" say they offer background checks, please be advised that legal requirements and laws differ from state to state. Just like anything else make sure you read the fine print and dont really on this one topic to offer you peace of mind and security because not only is it expensive to do these checks but also in a few states they just cannot be done with any reliability. There have been cases where people with criminal records and people with wrong intentions have become members of even the most exclusive of web sites even when that site praises its background check security. Our point here is just be cautious and aware.

10. Public place/Safe call/Safe friend

Ok so the day comes after some time that you decide to finally meet in person, here is some advice. First of all meet in a very public place such as a mall or someplace that your "not" isolated from others seeing you, besides not all malls but many malls have internal camera's so that may offer you some comfort. Try to pick a place of your choosing and that your familiar with, or maybe pick some place your both familiar with. Always get there on your own and never accept and offer to be picked up at your house, if at all possible use your own car or even take the bus, this will prevent them from seeing what you drive just in case or have a friend take you and ask them to wait for you. Always get there early if you can, this whole thing about being fashionably late being a good thing is a load of hogwash and it will just send a bad message to the other person that its not important enough for you to be on time for this important event. Being early also provides you some time to scout the area for any signs of trouble in the event you have never been there before. Use a Safe Call or Safe Friend, what this means is that you have a friend or relative that you notify in advance that you need them to call you or you will call them at a certain time or both. If they are a friend they dont need to know all the details unless you want to tell them, works better if you do, at least let them know where you will be, but we recommend giving them all the details, its much safer for you that way, tell them who your meeting and where and the time, give them profile name and their info. Just tell them you need them to contact you at a certain time to check on your status and if you do not answer then something might be wrong and they need to investigate more. Now again stay positive this is an exciting time, wow the first meeting after getting to know each other so well, now its time to finally meet, its a wonderful day and you will learn so much about this person the first time you see them in real life.

Footnote: the proceeding information is our attempt to help you gain the perspective and the awareness to keep your online dating experience as safe as possible, this can be and is a very rewarding way to meet people from all over the world for a wide variety of purposes, again this is our way of advising our readers ways to help keep it safe, there are many other ways and ideas out there of how to keep this process a safe one, we do not claim to know them all and for every situation, so we ask for your feedback in the interest of everyone involved.
Have fun with it and enjoy the experience !!!

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