SLSF Articles

There’re a bunch of friends of mine who’re online and looking out for the ‘just right’ person. They’re all doing well professionally and have pretty much run out of people to meet in the ‘physical world’. Every single one of them meets an interesting person ever so often, but the realization these friends of mine have come to is - there’s a whole world full of people out there, and it’s possible to reach out to them online. Thus they’ve taken the plunge, into the ’slightly uncertain’ world, of online dating. Since this is turning out to becoming quite a popular trend, I decided to do some looking into the safety of the entire process and spoke with a few of these friends. Here’re some of the tips I’ve gleaned for remaining safe, when dating online.

Is your personal profile, ‘personal’ enough?

Keep to revealing adequate enough information to make your profile exciting. The cyber world has its fair share of louts out to cause individuals harm, so protect against these. Avoid listing your personal contact information and absolutely refrain from putting up your name. Preferably, create a free online e-mail account, which you should use for matchmaking websites. Keep financial information to yourself; never expose any of it to any individual. There are enough cases of people being break into of their money online, because they’ve let slip information that reveals their bank or credit card details. It is also vital to keep your security questions that you would use for any of your accounts completely private.

Understanding a person’s mind - via IM

There are chat and messaging interfaces available on most dating sites. check-out, understand and utilize these features extensively to begin and maintain contact initially with someone you like. Look into the psychology of the person you’re communicating with as far as you can reach via the systems available to you online. Prepare a list of questions that you would help you understand a person better and make sure you bring these up during chats. You should reason that questions you ask may be put to you as well and you should not ask something you’d not answer yourself. Always enquire if the photograph fixed on a profile is the most recent one, and you actually should ask for the most recent picture of the person you’re communicating with. It’s advantageous to get hold of as many pictures as possible of the person you’re reaching, so that you’re clear about the looks of the person before proceeding further.

Going from chatting to speaking

Trust your gut reaction; it is a tool that will serve you well. Most people can make incredibly good use of their intuition to come to verdicts. You’ll know immediately which profiles to skip through just by how you feel about these. But where your instinct gives you a good vibe, don’t get carried away either. Once you’ve confererd with a person via chat, you may want to speak over the telephone too. The rules of disclosure don’t change at this point, so stick to the same protocol you’d follow when making initial contact online. At no point in time should you reveal your locality in a way that will enable someone determine where you live or work. A differentcontact number is essential when you get about to online dating. If possible, get yourself a mobile phone so that you can carry it about. This is especially handy when you need to go meet with someone.

The initial meeting

Once you’re convinced that you’d like to meet with a person (and this may last through quite a few meetings with the person), see to it that your rendezvous is somewhere with people about. Places with a constant stream of people would include a coffee-shop or a bistro. Meeting a person for the first time can be unnerving so having people about eases the nerves too. With the numerous tactical services built into the premium services on dating websites, it’s always advisable to go in for a paid package, especially when you want to keep security at the forefront.