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Safety and Privacy Cautions
If you pursue online relationships there are some important things to keep in mind.
For safety and privacy reasons, never provide any type of personal identifiable info—full name, phone number or home addresses—on your profile.
Realize upfront that although you’re too classy to use glamour shots from 10-20 years ago, others are not. One woman told me, “I thought I was meeting a man in his early 40s. Turned out he had kids that age.” Go figure.
All first in-person meetings should be in a very public place. Tell a trusted friend where you’re going. Check someone’s background before you meet him or her. Always carry your cell phone.
Online long-distance connecting offers advantages, but also a high degree of risk and uncertainty. Think again, if you’re going to a place you’ve never been to meet someone. Too many told me they couldn’t get a plane ticket fast enough to get out of town.
Many men purposely go online to find the culture best fitting their desire for a certain type of spouse. For example, the stereotypical ‘submissive’ wife from an Asian country or the young orphaned, beautiful Russian woman looking for U.S. citizenship who wants to emigrate.
Red Flag Warning Signals
If any of the following red flags come into play, rethink your on-line romance.
Offers excuses not to meet family or friends.
Refuses to make calls from their home. 30% of online customers are married or living with a significant other
Pressures for physical intimacy
Served time in jail.
Asks to borrow money.
Manipulates your emotions.
Seems overly interested in your children, especially teenage girls.
Listed on a state or national sex offender registry.
Appears on America’s Most Wanted (Kidding! But you’d be surprised.)
Do You Want to Put Yourself in the Hands of Experts?
Rest assured dating services know what appeals to people’s wants and wishes. Some online dating sites target every imaginable user wish. The more scientific sites are almost like a diet plan. If you do this, this will happen. Some are subversively manipulative or debased at the lowest denominator. Others appeal to your intellect, while others tug at your emotions, taking advantage of your emotional vulnerabilities.
For the pragmatic online dating user connecting online seems more efficient. I can avoid getting ready for the date. Why would I want to waste two hours of my time going to a singles’ group, church, hiking group, or some bar and risk that nobody I'm interested in will be there?
Is There a Better Way?
In the not-too-distant past, community played a much larger role in meeting people. Today people substitute online communities for the lack of real world community.
What do people really hunger for? Real relationships that matter. God created every person for relationship. We probably agree that we need good friendships. According to recent Gallup poll, the number one need of Americans is friendship.
Everyone longs for genuine intimacy. Some of us need to consider deepening our current friendships and or/seek new reciprocal, honest friendships—where you can be yourself. Encouraging, challenging friendships where God’s grace and truth is the standard of acceptance take time to develop.
I’ve seen it countless times that people who invest in other’s lives more than their own for God’s purposes discover their needs met in Him through the community of people they do life with.
Now, be discerning won’t you? “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
Ephesians 5:15-17
