Andrea Orr, author of Meeting, Mating (...and
Cheating): Sex, Love, and the New World of Online Dating, says there
are some things you should and should not do when you venture into
online dating.
DO..............
TRY IT. You may be hesitant about online dating, but it has become
mainstream and will certainly connect you with a lot of people you
would not have met otherwise.
POST A PHOTO. A lot of people only look at the postings that include
photos, so find a flattering one and upload it. For the
tech-illiterate, many dating sites will post photos that you mail
in.
BE HONEST ABOUT INTENTIONS. If you are looking for marriage,
friendship or just a lot of dates, there are plenty of other people
looking for the same thing, so be up front.
BE POSITIVE. Too many people use loser lines like “I can’t believe
I’m doing this” or “I haven’t had much luck in the bars.” Sell
yourself!
BE SPECIFIC. Dating sites let you write about yourself — a far cry
from the abbreviated format of print personals (SWF for single white
male). Avoid clichés and list your unusual qualities and hobbies.
Search Members
Join
Women with Photo Message for
FREE
DON'T...........
Don't
GO TO UNSAFE WEB SITES. This is the ONLY Trucker Dating
Service that Pre-Approves people BEFORE they can join! Truck driver
sites are not in abundance but TruckerCupid.com is the only service
that has this practice and CALLS each person personally to verify
they are who they say they are. NO PREDATORS ALLOWED!
Don’t become so consumed with online dating
that you overlook social opportunities offline. If your closest
relationship is with your computer, that’s a problem.
REVEAL TOO MUCH. Guard personal information, especially about
finances and where you live and work. E-mail and talk on the phone
until trust develops. When you decide to meet, do so in a public
place.
STAY IN A DEAD-END. While e-mail is a great way to get to know a
person, your goal should be to take the relationship offline. If the
interest is mutual, you should be ready to meet within a month.
TAKE ALL DATES TO THE SAME PLACE
IF POSSIBLE. Be discreet when dating more than
one person from the same town.
DATE IF YOU ARE MARRIED. Plenty of marriage-ending affairs have
grown out of casual e-mail flirtations by people who were just a
little restless or bored.
Chatroom Scams
The Scam: Russian cyber-crooks have
developed a software robot that
poses as a human in chatrooms. These bots can chat with up to 10
people simultaneously, and easily persuade them to hand over phone
numbers, photographs, birthday, address, and other personal
information. The site claims "Not a single girl has yet realized
that she was communicating with a program!" Information harvested by
these bots can be used by fraudsters to carry out various forms of
fraud. Unsuspecting victims may also be tricked into visiting a
'personal site' that could load malware onto their computers. Sergei
Shevchenko, Senior Malware Analyst at
PC Tools said CyberLover, "employs highly intelligent and
customized dialogue to target users of social networking systems. It
can monitor Internet browser activity, automatically recognize and
fill in the fields in the web pages, generate keystrokes and mouse
clicks, and post messages, URLs, files and photos."