The Risky Side of Online Dating

Let’s take a minute to look at the hazards of the online world so you can make some educated steps towards finding that love of your life – safely.

Women Halting Online Abuse released some interesting statistics that revealed that their organization alone deals with up to 50 new cases a week of cyber-stalking. In 2004 they recorded that 69% of those being stalked online were women, 18% were men and 13% did not provide their gender for statistical purposes. 48% of those who were stalked online were between the ages of 18 and 30.

Now it’s important to realize that these are only reported cases and for every one person that reports such harassment there are perhaps 10 others that don’t. However before you get too daunted by those statistics keep in mind that your chances of meeting a weirdo in a bar or at the library or while strolling in the park are just as high.

The majority of online harassment comes through the form of email stalking and secondarily through harassment in Internet-based chat rooms. One of the ways that you can lessen the impact of such potential harassment is to use one of several web-based email services such as Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail in order to protect your privacy and remain somewhat anonymous.

This practice will also keep you safe from computer viruses, unsolicited bulk email and freaky con artists hunting down your ISP and your address and showing up at your door declaring their undying affection and “one-true love” for you while skimming from your purse.

As Cyberflirts - a web-based Internet dating guide - shares with us if it “seems too good to be true, it is!” You might not be the only one protecting your anonymity or identity while cruising for a partner online – that tall, dark and handsome 35 year old with boyish good looks and an oil-field inheritance might actually be a geeky 15 year old whose father owns the local corner gas station. Don’t get me wrong, he could be exactly what he says he is, but don’t go falling in love or handing out your phone number until you know for sure.

An easy way to find out if someone is genuine is to ask them something innocuous – then ask them again later to see if you can catch them in a lie. For example, try asking what year they got out of high school, or what their college degree was, or what their ex-girlfriend/boyfriend’s name was.

People that are lying about whom they are often change the details of their life story along the way or forget what they actually say.

You might think that getting a picture is the solution to the problem of knowing their real age and personality, but it's by no means a proof of identity. You have no way of knowing if the picture is really of who it is supposed to be.

While a picture may speak a thousand words, sometimes that just isn’t enough to convey who a person really is and tell you the whole story about them. Pictures capture us at different ages and points in our lives and often the snapshot they give of us is not accurate months or years later.

Going by a picture and a gut feeling alone is a sure-fire way to set yourself up for disappointment when you meet your potential paramour and their personality is nothing like their picture conveys.

Web cams are a little bit different in that you can watch the person on line and gain some insight into them through their body language. However nothing replaces meeting the person in a safe, neutral place after you have first carefully screened them through email, chat and phone conversations.

Exercise caution when looking for love online. There are people out there on the Web who lay in wait to con you out of money, emotional energy, and personal security.

It’s just important for you to remember that those same people exist in the offline world too and the likelihood of meeting a lying, cheating, no-good, kinky freak on the Internet is probably as likely as meeting them at your neighborhood bar or local "meet market."

The same precautions you would take in offline dating should be taken on the Internet, perhaps more so because of the anonymity factor.

The odd and unusual things in life; finding love online, watching a car accident on the freeway, checking out natural or man-made disaster sites often fascinate people.

You get the idea?

Not everyone that you will meet online is going to have a wholesome and sane outlook on life or be looking for quite the same things you are, or even necessarily looking for what THEY say they are. You just have to use your wits and intellect and do some research along the way to ensure that you are connecting with someone who is real, genuine in their interest, and not crazy.

Cyber-dating has it’s advantages, if you make sure you know the person and, ironically, don’t spend more than a couple of months getting to know them online before you meet them for real.

I’ll cover how to approach the scary real-life first meeting in great detail in a later chapter. For now, understand there is no point building up a fantasy if there is no reality to it.

As a general rule of thumb, the longer that you wait to set up some sort of safe meeting place to see if your online flirtation is going to translate into the real world, the less likely your relationship will work out in the long term.

Sometimes people are more curious than serious about a relationship. And knowing how to tell the difference will save you a lot of heartache.