Date Tips Making Real World Contact How to Date Online Safety Guide

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Date Tips - How to Date online - Safety Guide

When you finally decide to make contact with someone you met online, in the real world, the most obvious first step is to speak to them on the phone.

Get a phone number!

You should call them, instead of giving out your number. Make sure you know how to block your phone number from being recognised by Caller ID. This information should be in your telephone directory. Hang on a minute! If everybody reads this advice, then nobody will give their phone number out, so how do we contact each other? Hey, I said you could be as paranoid as you liked with this. It is probably more of a concern for women, so come on guys, be a man, and give her your (friends) telephone number! All joking aside, it is a serious matter, but at some point in the contact, one party has to trust the other with a means of contact. Men tend to be more confident in these kind of potentially vulnerable situations, and in any case, if a chap has honourable intentions, he won't mind his new friends checking up on him.

Verify the phone number!

Assuming your date has revealed some real world information like their name and address, you can call Directory Enquiries and check that your date's phone number matches the one they gave you. If your date's number is unlisted, Directory Enquiries will verify that 'so and so' has a number, but its unlisted.

Chat on the phone a few times, and listen to what you can hear in the background. Use these important dating tips: Listen! Do the background noises match the information you have? Is the household supposed to have children, pets, etc.? Also ask questions about what you can hear, and see if the description given matches the sound, and makes sense. Does your dates description sound natural? Also, remember to block Caller-ID until you're happy to let them know your telephone number.

Meeting in Person

There will come a time (if you're not too paranoid after reading this!) when you will finally want to meet in person. You are now definitely back in the real world and so you should take all the precautions you normally would. This is all pretty straight forward stuff.

Meet in a public place. Meet in a pub, bar, cafe, or a restaurant in a busy place. It’s much easier to make your excuses and leave. Have a ready and convincing alibi if you feel you need to make a quick getaway. Plan your exit strategy and have a quick look to see where all the nearest exits are. Avoid hotel bars in the early dates (could be misconstrued).

Tell someone where you are going and who you are meeting. Let them know what time to expect you home. If you decide to stay out later, call them and let them know you will be late. If it’s convenient, notice your date's license plate number and leave the information on your answering machine at home or with a friend.

Don't rely on your date for transportation. Don’t accept a lift or offer a lift home to someone until you feel you know them well enough to do so. If you need to end the date and make a hasty exit, make sure you have your car with you!

Take your mobile phone. Ensure it’s fully-charged and it’s never a bad idea to have the number of a reliable cab company handy, whatever the situation. If you've got your phone with you, you might want to ask someone to give you a call at a prearranged time, just to make sure that everything is going smoothly (and to give you an excuse to get away if it isn't).

If in doubt, take some back-up (no, no, not your ‘Dirty Harry’ Colt 45 Magnum. A little moral support from a good friend never hurts. Or even try a double date. Your best friend will want to know all the juicy details anyway, so they might as well see them first hand! If you think that'll be too awkward, you might be able to manufacture a 'chance' meeting, and then hook up for a while.

Plan Ahead. Know in advance where police and fire stations are so you know where you can get help if needed. Anticipate some snags, and pre plan your response.

How much information to divulge. When you meet in person, you may still not want to give out a lot of personal information about yourself, until you feel comfortable and know that other person.

Inviting people home. Until you know someone well enough, it’s best not to invite people to your home or accept an invitation to theirs.

Checking background

OK, everything's going well. You've chatted online, sent each other e-mail, and you've met in person. You like them, they like you. Well, there are still a few things you can do before letting your guard down.

Take time to give you perspective. Have your date's mood, language, or habits changed inexplicably (having a bad day at work doesn't count here - we all have those occasionally)? Does the friendship still feel right, or are you becoming suspicious of something over time?

Try calling at random times. If this person is really turning into a friend they will be delighted to take your call (but maybe not at 3 am in the morning. Who answers the phone? Someone you expect (your friend) or 'the maid' (at 3 am)? Is your friend happy to hear from you, or do they sound irritable. This isn't always a terrible sign that they have something to hide. I get grumpy if someone interrupts me while I'm watching Star Trek (yes, I know; sad, sad person aren't I. Well at least I haven't succumbed to daytime soap opera yet, but they could call 1 minute after it finishes, and I'll be all sweetness and light. The trick is to not be a pest, but just test the water by calling a couple of times to see how you're received.

Ask to see a family photo. Is your date a 'family person' (hopefully without the other adult half)? Do the kids seem to match the details you were told? How do they sound when they're talking about their children, and are they proud of them?

Get their real address and send them a greetings card. If you want, use a return address that will not reveal your own real address (i.e. just use a PO Box or work address) and see if the card is returned for any reason. Allow a minimum of 10 days to receive returned mail.

Ask them about their previous relationships. Was your date previously married or in any long term relationships? Why did it end, and how do they feel about it now? Have they recovered from the separation? While we all carry some emotional baggage around from previous relationships, you probably want to avoid getting too close to someone who is still unable to move on. Again remember to listen. If it feels right, ask questions. If it all feels wrong, ask more questions until you are happy with what you hear.

Conclusion

As you can see from all the advice above, if you were to follow all these rules rigidly, it would very probably be over kill in most situations, and if you feel the need to follow all these rules in all situations, with everybody you ever meet, then I think maybe you need a little therapy!

My general advice is to use whatever of these techniques you feel is appropriate. In terms of personal information hiding, while you may be able to successfully stay anonymous for as long as you want, you have to remember that you're joining a friendship agency because you want to meet real people and make new friends. Sooner or later you have to come out of your closet (so to speak).

My approach would be to take things gently, be attuned to any warning signs that things might not be what they seem, and if you get any uneasy feelings, then you can go into ‘Perry Mason’ overdrive, using the above techniques to try prove or disprove your suspicions.

It's always worth remembering that if everyone's expectations are clarified right from day one, there is much less likelihood of things being misconstrued or misinterpreted. If you are both on the same wavelength you are less likely to get hurt, and you know what they say; It takes less than 10 seconds to decide whether you like someone, on meeting them. This is again down to our evolutionary conditioning. We immediately look for subtle signs of whether this new face is a friend or a foe, and we do it pretty quickly when we're face to face.

So, use your common sense, take your online communications fairly steady, and when you do meet up, use your natural instincts. Don't let down your guard any sooner than with a 'traditional' date, and apply what you feel comfortable with from the advice in this document. May you have many happy and amusing dates!

For those of you wishing to really get into Perry Mason mode, see the resources below. These can be used to perform certain types of background check to see if people are who they say they are. Most of them are US oriented, because they have an enlightened 'freedom of information' policy over there. For the rest of us, it seems we will have to pick up the Yellow Pages and look under 'Private Detective'.
Telephone checking:

Reverse Phone Detective
Find out the owner of any cell phone or unlisted number. Results include name, current address, carrier, and location details when available. Your search is 100% confidential.
Government Records
Instantly Search Millions of Public Records & Resources Using their Public Record Databases.
Search any record you're looking for in 1 minute
Public Records
Get access to full birth, death, and other vital record information, which includes (when available): Birth records, death records, marriage/divorce filings, county public records, criminal background records And more!

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