If you’re looking for the perfect way to find romance, you’re going to be searching for a long, long time. Dating is still the Wild West where the good, the bad and the ugly mingle and play together. Online dating is no different. But if you’re serious about finding friends and love, online romance sites are the best way to go. You just need to be prepared for what’s to come and the wonderful world of online dating will be much easier to navigate.
There is a rumor going around that there are bad people on dating sites. I’ve been there and I’ve seen it to be true. All you have to do is look at the headlines and you’ll hear all sorts of horror stories. There’s the man who bilked an unsuspecting widow out of $100,000 by getting her to invest in his company. In Russia, a man robbed and photographed women after meeting them on dating sites. And in Australia, a woman used sex to tie a man up and take what she wanted from him — and she wasn’t after a loving relationship. Online dating sites are a modern miracle for helping people connect with relationships that they wouldn’t normally be able to find but it’s no different than meeting someone any other way. There are bad people out there who only want what’s best for them. You need to be prepared. Knowing that they exist is the first step in protecting yourself when searching for love online.
“The vast majority are people just like you – people looking for love in the best way available to them.”
Pictures speak a thousand words but not everyone is as they appear. If it hasn’t happened to you, it’s probably happened to a friend of yours. You go on a date and the person you meet looks nothing like they did in their pictures. They may have aged 10 years, gained 50 pounds or they may not be the person they appeared to be at all. If you think Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, a stork delivers children and the Tooth Fairy has a license to print money, you may not want to read the next sentence. People lie. They misrepresent themselves. If this comes as no shock, you’ll be okay to read the following: these people are a small minority. As long as you’re aware of this and are diligent about the questions you ask and the responses you get, you can avoid the ugly people and scenes that come from hooking up with the wrong person.
Thankfully, the vast majority of people are good people! In close to four years and countless dates, I’ve only had two that were remotely bad. Both involved people who fudged their photographs and I was asleep at the wheel and wasn’t thorough enough to catch them. Both dates went fine but it was less than ideal. You’ll probably find the bad ones easy to spot. They’re the ones asking for naked pictures in their introductory email. They have blurry photos of themselves or only have one picture and a bad excuse as to why they don’t have more. They are the ones that want to know how much you make, the car you drive and what your credit card number and expiry date are. Stay away from these people! But the vast majority are people just like you – people looking for love in the best way available to them. Online dating isn’t a wonder-cure or all that ails you. It’s just a wonderful tool to help make your search for romance a little bit easier!