Those Online Dating Sites

<a href="http://www.indiatimes.com/news/world/relationships-before-and-after-social-media-314099.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

If you are thinking of joining an Online Dating site, stop. Just stop and  think. Think of what you are doing, and consider how dangerous it can be.

This isn’t a Message Board where you use an Avatar of some gorgeous actor or actress. This isn’t a place where you can chat about events of the day and keep yourself masked.

This is a dating site which requires you put out a lot of personal information.

It is not of much use for you to lie about your age, your race, your desires, or where you live. For this would lead to ridiculous matches. Imagine a forty five year old divorced mother of three claiming to be twenty two and being contacted by a twenty three year old guy who lives on the other side of the world.

What’s the point? You joined to date. To date a real person. And you have to be near honest.

Further, Scammers consider  Dating sites Prime real estate.

<a href="http://malecelebnews.com/2011/08/25/david-filipiak-by-scott-hoover/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

 

Imagine this image over the name Scott Grant He claims to be a Peace Corps worker in Lagos, Nigeria. He responds to your posts so sweetly. You’re in love. He asks you to marry him. He says he’ll fly to you next week.

Then, a sad post; he had to use the ticket money to buy medicine for little Ade, who would die without it.

You send him the fare. And wait at the airport. And wait. And Scott never arrives.

This is not a fiction story.

A nineteen year old Yoruba man used the image, used the ‘Peace Corps’ to explain why he had a Nigerian I.P. and went after every woman that responded.  He made a lot of money.

<a href="https://unfashionablylost.com/2012/05/17/go-cupid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Source</a>

When you join these sites, they demand a lot of information. Screens and screens. This may lead you to believe they really are matching you to your perfect other.

This is not true.

Outside of sex preference, age limitations, race/religion [if you select those options], no matching is taking place. Doctors have been matched to Gardeners,

Maybe in ancient days there was real matching, and computers were burning electricity to get that special match. But today?  No.

Secondly, the first ‘free’ weekend you get from these sites, where there seems dozens of wonderful people all available is bait. The most fantastic ‘Possibles’ no longer participate on the site or never existed. The names and photos are used to make it seem there are forty fantastic possibles, and if you join, and pay the fee, there will be hundreds more. There aren’t.

People who join these Dating sites are desperate or looking for something.

For example, someone might wish an all expense paid vacation in your house, and will do or say anything to get you to believe in love and desire when all he or she wants is free lodging.

Don’t be fooled by images of palaces and mansions. Don’t be fooled by those beautiful photos. If the person looked so good and had so much wealth, why is she or he on the dating site?

If you really want to try a dating site, this is the wisest way to go about it.

First; create a new user on your computer who participates in the dating site. In this way you physically have to log out as you and in as the dating person. The importance of this is that it allows you the freedom and privacy to be involved when you chose to.

Many ‘Matches’ will become extremely possessive. You will be unable to do anything except respond to their email or messages. Hence, if you set aside a specific time of day to log on to your dating site, you will prevent the all consuming Match from controlling your every keystroke.

Secondly, create a new email account for the dating site alone. This keeps the mail for your potentials away from your business, family, and other email.

I can’t emphasise this enough.

Many ‘Matches’ will email you five times a minute. Will load your mail box to overflowing. To have a totally different email account, one you only assess when you log in as the Dating You, prevents your life from being captured.

Thirdly, limit the amount of information you post. Do not be too open. You don’t know who is out there. Stalkers are given a welcome mat when they know what you look like, where you live and other details. Do not take photos of you with your car if the license plate is visible, do not give your real address. A town in Mississippi is good enough.

Yes, you want a lot of info about the Potentials, just as they want about you. But there is a difference between 1406 New York Avenue, and ‘Brooklyn’. A difference between working at Merrill Lynch and working for ‘a stockbroker’.

Fourthly, stay on email/texting for as long as you can. Email and Texting is not as intrusive as the instant messaging services. Email requires preparing a message, reading it, responding to it.

Email quickly exposes those who are too intense or too disinterested by their responses. If you are writing about a news bulletin and they are ‘so what’ or don’t reply to it, you might have uncovered that scammer early in your foray.This should alert you to discuss affairs of the day not of the heart.

If this person can not carry on a simple conversation on a topical subject, then exactly where is this relationship going?

Fifthly, because you have control over when you log on as your “Dating user”, you can keep track of those who send ten emails in ten minutes, those who correspond every other day, and those who seem to want to know too much.

If you become uncomfortable, log off..

Sixthly, if over a period of time you really are attracted to the person and want to meet, arrange something in another city. In this way, you are not at his or her mercy because you are on their turf, nor are you responsible for him or her being in your city.

This is easy to do.

Find something that is happening in a near by city, in public places. A football match or fair or museum… or anywhere there are people around.

If you live in New Jersey and your match is in Philadelphia, find a place to meet in New York City.

If you are afraid, carry someone with you. They can stay in the background and observe from a distance if you want.

The most important thing is your safety, never forget it.