Dating Online Safety – Is It Possible?
Posted Under: Dating for Men and Women,Online Dating
Dating online strikes me as being safer than traditional dating. You can proceed at your own pace, get to know someone well before meeting them, and you don’t have to worry about anybody putting something in your drink!
Still, the online dating process places a barrier between you and the one you’re communicating with, making it difficult to truly get to know them. One problem with online dating is that you don’t truly know who you are talking with online, at least initially. All they are to you are a set of words and a photograph. With that kind of ambiguity it can be easy for your mind to fill in details that were never there in the first place.
Critics of online dating will always hold up physical meetings gone bad as examples of the dangers of online dating. I would venture to say, however, that such examples are actually rarer than similar stories involving traditional courtship.
However, the stories do highlight some guidelines that you should follow before you begin the online dating process. Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to ensure that your online dating experience is safe and successful.
Most importantly, you should never proceed at a pace that exceeds your comfort level. While in a physical setting you can use eye contact, physical appearance and someone’s mode of speaking to get a “read” or a “vibe” on them, this kind of gut impression is much more difficult with online dating.
It can actually take several online chats before you feel comfortable enough with someone to consider actually meeting them, and that is perfectly acceptable. After all, you want to make sure that a person’s story is consistent and coherent, that they can provide multiple pictures of themselves In different settings, and so on.
If they try to pressure you into a physical meeting sooner than you feel comfortable with, consider this a warning sign. If they drop you simply because you aren’t interested in meeting on their timetable, then they probably weren’t worth meeting in the first place.
In many cases, you can find out more about your correspondent through an online search; the Internet has made the world considerably smaller. However, this will not be possible until the two of you have dropped your anonymity, something that you should not do in the beginning.
When the time does come to meet, a little common sense goes a long way. Meet in a public rather than a private place. Until you know your dating partner well enough, avoid the seclusion of dinner and a movie at home and opt for a night out at a restaurant and theater.
Provide your own transportation. That is, meet your date at the venue the two of you have scheduled together, rather than allowing yourself to be picked up at your home. Finally, be sure to tell a friend and family member where you will be going during a date, with whom, and what time you expect to arrive back. It is also not a bad idea to bring your cell phone with you in case of emergency.
If you read the safety tips on whatever online dating site you choose and you follow a few simple safety precautions, you will find that online dating can be just as safe, if not safer than, traditional dating.
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