HEALTH TIPS, GUIDES AND RELATIONSHIP ADVICE

Online Dating – Some steps to keep yourself from getting stung

According to the statistics, one in five relationships now begins online, and the numbers continue trending upward as the internet makes time and distance irrelevant in people’s quests for love, joy, and happily ever after.  More reliable than trusting to chance or fate, online dating sites let you search for and correspond with people who seem attractive and compatible.  In fact, the most reliable and successful online dating sites stress compatibility over superficial attraction, and they provide you with more than enough information to make intelligent, well-informed choices.  Just as you would out there in the big-bad dating jungle, so online you must trust your instinct and intuition.  If it seems too good to be true, it is.  If it seems like love at first sight, it isn’t.  And the more you genuinely wonder, “How can you still be single?” the more you must assume he or she isn’t.  The more you are counting on the internet to help you find “the one,” the more you must proceed with extreme caution, because there are emotional landmines and mantraps all around.

• Know what you want, and set boundaries. It could be the start of a bad joke or a tragic story: “Girl walks into a chatroom…”  Keep firmly in mind that you control how the plot (or plots) develop from there.  Demand honesty and trustworthiness from yourself, and expect nothing less from the people you meet.  In get-acquainted conversations, keep a list of “deal-breakers” nearby, and stay true to them.  If you cannot under any circumstances date a person who loves cauliflower, do not hesitate to say, “It was nice meeting you,” and move on.  If your gut screams “fake alert! Fake alert!” trust it; do not even waste time and energy checking your hunch, because your gut seldom makes a mistake.  Just as importantly, resist the urge to settle for less than everything you want or to make trade-offs.  If he is gorgeous but does not want children, remember that gravity will steal-away the gorgeous and you will end-up bitter that you had no children.  Online dating will test your own values and self-esteem as aggressively as you intend to test the character and expectations of the people you meet.

Consistent with your stress on authenticity, you must make decisions about how you will manage online intimacy, including web-cams and voice chats.  On one hand, web-cams and voice-chat give you opportunities to validate all your partners’ claims about appearance and values from first-hand experience; on the other hand, they challenge your willingness to make yourself vulnerable, allowing other people to catch little snapshots of how you live.  For many men and women with little dating and sexual experience, online relationships afford opportunities to explore their fantasies and sophisticate their love-making techniques.  No matter where your fantasies lead, the internet will show the path to their fulfillment.  For others, however, free and frank discussion of sex seems overwhelmingly uncomfortable and embarrassing, or they have wisdom and experience to know that introducing sex into a relationship too soon can distract from the more substantial connections on which durable relationships depend.

• Use a reputable dating site. The best online dating sites do all they can to screen-out fakes, flakes, and fast-talking philanderers, but they are only as reliable as the data they receive from subscribers.  Using a reliable online dating site, you gain the advantage of letting the machines do the majority of the searching.  Perfectmatch is a reliable site. You can even get perfectmatch coupon codes for cheaper rates.   The site’s bots will work the algorithmic magic to suggest potential partners according to your preferences and others’ wishes, so that you have reasonable assurance you will meet people in whom you genuinely feel interested.  The best sites demand you complete extensive questionnaires as a condition of registration, and they use your questionnaire data to find appropriate matches.  Of course, you always can read between the lines on the questionnaires and “tilt” your responses toward the outcomes you imagine rather than those that are most likely to work for you.  A good site will challenge your fidelity to your promises of honesty and authenticity.  One prominent example amply illustrates the point: Your conscience and compassion dictate that the presence or absence of hair on a man’s head ought not make any difference in the quality of your relationship, because character always counts most. You would like to think you are big enough to accept a guy regardless of tonsure; but if thick-wavy hair really is a must in your world, you will be wiser and happier when you disclose your true desires.  The more important the value, the more you must both disclose and choose honestly.

• Don’t hesitate to Google. Anticipating the internet’s flourishing, a late nineties song refrained, “You can be anyone you want to be in Santa Monica.”  Substitute “online” for “Santa Monica” and the message remains the same.  It does not require a vivid imagination or criminal genius to assemble the elements of a good story.  Men impersonate women except when they impersonate war heroes; women pretend to be super-models except when they play the roles of desperate housewives.  The more impressive the story, the less likely it is to be true.  Stories of scams and deception abound, and some of them are so sinister and heatless they almost defy belief.  In one case, men took the identities of American soldiers killed in Iraq, impersonating them and persuading unsuspecting women to send them money and gifts totaling tens of thousands of dollars.  Somehow, portfolios of pictures and tons of details make the fictions seem plausible, and people fall for them every day. 

Therefore, when you feel a relationship growing serious, start using your online resources to authenticate all of your would-be lover’s claims.  Naturally, you should start with Google, searching all the versions and combinations of your new friend’s name and location.  If you fail to find satisfactory answers, spend the few dollars required for online background and credit checks.  It’s tempting to say, “You would be amazed…!” but you probably would not be all that surprised to discover the kinds of things people hide.  Most of all, studies suggest more than half of all online daters conceal the fact that they are married.

• Be honest, but do not disclose too much.  Online dating comes with a built-in paradox.  The internet’s relative anonymity and the presence of an “ignore” command encourage you to share your wishes and desires more openly than you probably would in face-to-face conversation.  In fact, most online daters say they are more talkative and more emotionally vulnerable in their e-mails and chats than they would be in a series of “coffee dates” and drinks after work.  The paradox develops around how much personal data you share.  The experts say you should pour-out your heart but hold on to your address, home phone number, children’s names, and any kind of information about anything you value or cherish.  Never transfer money or make travel arrangements for an internet lover to come and visit you.  No matter how much you imagine you love the person typing all those pretty words, it still could be anybody just typing pretty words.