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Online Dating Advice
Well today I want to talk a bit about online dating and discuss these points with everyone, but first I want to make really clear that:
* I am not against online dating, I met love online several times and I married a lovely caring wonderful absolutely awesome person who I met online =) But on the other hand I see in all avie related sites a lot of problems related to Online Dating. So here is some advice and I would like to discuss on it, see what you think ok? It is very, very easy to lie. That 16 year old girl you're talking to from Canada just might be a 30 year old woman from Washington in truth. The avatars you see posting and around the forums are just that, avatars. They don't tell you a thing about the person who is on the other side. Even if they show pictures and even if you spend a lot of time talking to that person, even if he or she seem your age and seem to know about your likes and what is on vogue , it is not telling you not their gender, not their age, not whether they're attractive or not. They are just pixels. Keep this in mind at all times and be cautious about who you trust and what you say. Personal information is best kept personal. Now this is extremely important! As much as we sometimes wish it otherwise, there are some shifty people around the internet. People who will pretend to be younger (it is so easy to steal an identity) and try to get pictures, images and other information from you that they can use to harm you or find you, or even the worst kind, with a sexual purpose. Do not give out your name, address or phone number! The last thing you want to do is give someone a way to find you and hurt you if they indeed are out to cause harm. There are some scary people out there, and most of them do not wear signs telling you that. Always be cautious when it comes to what you share, and who you share it with. If you do meet an online friend, bring company! Have you ever seen a movie called "Hard Candy? What you see of someone online is not necessarily who they are. Pictures can be forged, ages can be lied about, and so on and so forth (noting a pattern here?). If you do decide that you absolutely have to meet someone that you met online, bring a parent (sounds crazy ? well then multiple friends) This way you won't be putting yourself in a dangerous position and your friends or family can bail you out if things get dangerous. Meet in a PUBLIC PLACE. Meeting in public like at a coffee shop a Mcdonald's like place or a shopping mall gives you an open, friendly place to meet. It also puts you in a place with a lot of people so that, just in case things don't go exactly as planned or you feel like you're in a dangerous situation there are people around that you can call on for help. Even if you're convinced that the person you're about to meet is the person of your dreams PLEASE take care of yourself, If you're right and this turns out to be unnecessary, you can always meet them somewhere more private later and if it happens that way. So what do you think about all these advice? boring? useless? useful? |
heheh.. I tried online dating when I was younder xP
I quit though because all of the guys had been lying about something. x) and I found it's better to get them face to face, atleast for me :) and those are some really good points that Trinity posted there! so better take them seriously. |
I think it's great advice, but I would never want to date someone I hadn't met in person.
I'm not a very trusting person, so I never tend to believe that online people are who they say they are. So I'd not want to fall in love with something that could be an illusion, so I'd not want to get to the stage where I'd want to risk meeting an online friend in the first place. Also, I don't really understand how internet relationships where the people haven't met each other before can be considered to be two people dating. if I was 'dating' someone I'd want to go out with them to places. ...dinner and a movie. That sort of thing. I don't really understand how chatting to someone over the computer can count as a 'date' o_o |
I like to make friends and all online, but I would never want to date someone online who i hadn't first met in person.
also, without even the whole sterotypical 30-yr old man pretending to be a 14-yr old girl, lot's of people can take photos of themselves that are actually quite different than what they look like. and i'm not even talking about messing with the image any with photoshop, which if you do can make the original picture look even MORE different. and theres always the personality differences. I know just naturally I am alot different on the internet than irl, so online dating overall = not a good idea ): |
I did some online dating before.
My friend hooked us up. We met and then broke up like a month later cuz he spent christmas at his cousin's with hookers. He had to go. If you can't trust them then there's obviously a reason why. |
I have never found love online, but I always find true friends. I would never date someone I met online. But I might meet you all in a public place, if you'd like. Oh-my-god, Mene booth at Acen, anyone?
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Hehe, I agree. ^-^ I once dated someone from off Myspace. I actually went to meet him with my mom because he was going to be staying at my house for a while. :'D Surprsingly, he was exactly like he was online, just a bit shorter than I thought he'd be. xD @ Somercy ~ There should be Mene booths at cons. :0 |
Pretty wise advice, as there are people who have tried to get personal info from me against my will, and I've resisted so far because, like the starter of this thread, I like to keep such info personal. The Net isn't the safest place to hand out personal info, and it is best if we are known more for our personalities than anything else. I mean, who really cares who someone really is? It's how they are inside that counts :)
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Very good advice, TrinityDoll.
I hope that the younger users on the site see this thread. I'm not very interested in online dating. Or any form of dating at the moment... It's always a little awkward when guys that I chat with online ask to meet. I'm aware that there are many happy stories of people meeting online, but there are also a lot of bad ones... I just don't think that it's right for me. hehe |
I think you should try to find a guy in your area, Guys that are online lie and are usualy thinking about one thing...
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I think that's pretty sound advice for people that are beginning an online relationship or just for the younger generation in general.
My girlfriend and I met online almost 6 years ago on a site called groupboard, I don't know if you all are familliar with it. We talked and got to know each other for a about 6 months until I had asked her to be my girlfriend. We didn't share pictures until about three months after that and it was a plesant surprise to both of us. We tried using a microphone every now and then to hear each others voices and even then, we didn't talk on the phone until about 3 years after we were going out because neither of our parents knew about either of us. Even then, we still haven't had met because we lived in different states. When we were finally ready to meet, both of our parents talked on the phone for about 3 hours about things and it really eased the pressure about getting to know her parents, since I was going to be the one flying down to see her. When we did meet it was the most fulfilling moments of our lives, it was really worth it. We have met together about three more times for about a month at a time and maybe 6 month intervals and our relationship couldn't be better. I'd have to say that it's really worth giving it a shot because you really get to know the person on the other side a lot better at first on the computer if they are being truthful. You still go through the normal relationship woes, the trials and tribulations of love and not being able to be together, but in the end I think a lot of poeple would find that it's worth it. We're now going on 5 and a half years together and I think if someone were to be involved in an online relationship, I think that being too personal at first is just not the way to go. Just get to know the other person over a period of time and you'll see that it's worth it. I think that if you really have doubt about what's on the other side of the screen, a webcam would be your best bet in seeing real-time images, even though these can be altered and hacked in some ways I would assume. |
Very useful advise. I met my husband online as well and he is wonderful, so I do know that it can be a good tool to use. As long as people remember to keep safe, be smart, and a tad paranoid (it's not a bad thing in small doses!) they'll be fine.
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I always just do webcam to find out if they're real or not. I mean, i guess you could still fake it, but its alot harder to fake a video then it is a picture.
My gf and i met online. I beleive meeting online is a GREAT way to start a relationship (well if they're not lieing). You get to know the person's personality before you get to know their looks. |
I'm pretty damn sure that my girlfriend isn't some 30 year old woman from Canada, haha. I've taken precautions like that because I'm pretty serious in my relationships. There's enough proof to show that my girlfriend's real, and I can't wait to meet her personally for the first time.
<333 |
I tried internet dating once, it was on Gaia and my sis went to talk to the guy and it turned
out he was a child molester so I'm done with Gaia now and I trust no one on the internet. >_> [/b] |
Oh wow, that's ironic. I met my girlfriend on GaiaOnline.
I'm damn sure she's no child molester though. Heh. x] I trust her, and I love her dearly. |
I tried it once, on gaia, it wasn't that great, he turned out "dating" another girl online o_O
It maybe the internet, but I still don't like that. :| One of my sisters friends met a guy online, they're getting married in April, I think..It's really sweet :] |
o_o;;
Oh dear God, that's scary, my sister once met a guy online, he ended up being 25..she quit going on the computer that day x] She was like 14, too, he said he was 16. x[ |
I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t meet people online as long as you’re smart about it. I think that the advice is a good idea to listen to. There’s too many people that are way too trusting with people, especially over on MySpace and facebook. I’ve seen profiles that have phone numbers and things like that on them where anyone can look at it. I think that because their friends look at it, people tend to not think about having a public profile and having someone they don’t know look at it.
On the plus side of the internet, I’ve met my husband online. I knew him for 6 years before finally meeting him, but I was still careful about it when I did meet him. You just never know about people, no matter how well you think you know them. I view the internet as being like a club or bar. The same rules apply for real life. You shouldn’t run off with people you hardly know. |
I once met a girl online.
And she told me she was 16. Buuuuut. In all truth, I checked her profile. She was 12. Oh, I love how honest people are. ... Well. She wasn't very literate. It almost gave it away from the start. XD |
i think online dating is pretty stupid.
i've met people off myspace before, but i'd never date someone without meeting them first. i don't think meeting people you've met online is a bad thing, as long as you're not an idiot. i mean, getting in their car the second you meet them would be a retarded thing to do. but i thought hard candy was a stupid movie. =/ the acting was horrible, and it just dragged out. but i know this discussion isn't about that. |
I've made some good friends online, that I've gone on to meet IRL (one of them even travelled from the US to see me~!) and next year I might be even travelling with some online friends,
BUT. I don't like the idea of online dating. Besides the fact that someone can easily misrepresent him or herself, there is so, so much intimacy that's just... lost. I'm feeling it right now with my boyfriend -- last year he moved to a different city for university and since then we've done most of our communication over the internet. He visits every couple of weekends or so and over the holidays, but it's not the same. Talking to him over the internet is not the same as... going to dinner, catching a movie, partying, or even just hanging out with my boyfriend. And I don't think I initially would have been attracted to him had we met online. He's one of those people that's very standoffish and a little strange at first, but I had a girly crush and thought he was pretty fine, so was determined to get past that. It's physical attraction that gets me interested in the first place, but then a killer personality that keeps it. Oh, good sex helps too. You can't get that over the internet. And, fuck it, I'm an adult (a young one, but an adult nonetheless), and I want a good sex life with my partner. also this reminds me.. lol, a friend of mine from high school met Marc Jacobs on Myspace. Marc Jacobs flew him to Paris, and now they're dating. LOLOLOL. Wow this was much longer than I intended it to be at first. |
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Eh, I don't really mind putting my cellphone number up on Facebook, since such a limited number of people can see it: only people in my university network/my friends. And it makes things much, much easier for me, because it means people can easily get my cell number. I don't do that anywhere else, though -- Myspace, Gaia, even LiveJournal. HELLLL NAW. |
yeah i understand what you are saying many of my friends have found love online but you hear so much stuff on the tv and on the radio about people faking who they really are that i just cant trust these people as much as i try to
i feel lucky to have a boyfriend thatri cant hug kiss and see each day whereas they have to daydream and even after that only get to talk to them on msn or something and if they aren't online thats tough luck and they can block you so easily if only i could do that in real just say your blocked and then i cant hear what they ate saying i just see this shouty expression on their face tee hee that would be cool but it would ruin the world and make us all robots anyway thats straying from the subject good luck in your love lives existent or not everyone :D |
i have a boyfriend I met online and we have been dating for almost 4 years. He lives in Australia though and I'm in Canada so we only see each other for a few weeks a year...it is not the most convenient set up, especially at this point (about halfway through the year) cause I a limited attention span...
Funny story about meeting though. I will say at the onset I was safe! I brought a friend and we met at the airport. Anyways, we left work early (my friend and I worked together) and went to the airport about half an hour before his flight got in. We waited at the gate and no boy who matches my picture gets off the flight. We go down to information and have the desk page him about 10 times in the next hour or so before we give up. I was paranoid that I had been stood up and that the guy I had spent two years getting to know was a creepy jerk who wasn't really coming after all. I called my mother from a payphone (no cell phone for me yet) and then found out that his flight from Hawii was late so he missed the connection in Vancouver...I was so relieved >.< He showed up 6 hours late but he really did come ^-^ |
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