|
|
 |
Online Dating
There is a huge range of online dating websites online, from premium sites with extensive profiling and matching tools and safety precautions, through to those with a strongly 'adult' theme and few protections for the user.
The first part of this article focuses on choosing a dating website and setting up your profile, while the last half focuses on setting up safer face to face meetings and possible warning signs. Please contact the NetSafe Contact Centre for more information or support.
Dating sites - the basic model
Most dating sites share a number of underlying features. These include:
- A free trial membership to get you started with limited functionality. Depending on the website, free members may not be able to initiate messages, contact certain members of the website or do a search for your 'perfect' match. The next step is to pay to become a full member.
- Full membership, which allows you to harness all the tools on the site, and importantly allows you to initiate proper messages through an anonymous email service.
Things to look for
There are a huge variety of dating sites. As a minimum you should look for the following features in a site before you use it:
1. Privacy policy. To interact with a dating site you will typically provide three types of information: public information that you make visible to other users, private information that is not visible, and financial information. The privacy policy should clearly identify these three types of information and what measures it?s taking relating to storage and protection.
2. Terms and conditions. The terms and conditions are a legal contract that people must agree to before joining the site. You should review this to ensure that it prohibits inappropriate or criminal behaviour by users of the site, and outlines the responsibilities and obligations of users. The fee/refund policy should be clearly detailed, as well as the response to any behaviour that violates the terms and conditions, e.g. reporting to law enforcement where necessary.
3. Information about Explicit language or photographs. Sites deal with sexual language and photographs in very different ways. Some websites allow members to post explicit material on their profiles, while others do not. If the member profiles contain anything offensive (that you can't screen out), or if you receive inappropriate messages, you can report it to the administrator of the site. If you are not happy with the approach the website takes toward sexual material, or offensive behavior, you should quit the site.
4. Customer service and support. You want to be sure that if something happens that you are uncomfortable with, there are people whose full time job is to help you sort it out.
5. Affiliations or links to other sites. Some dating sites will provide links to other well-known sites. Many also provide links to community support organisations like Relationship Services, Rape Crisis etc.
Some sites also have a code of ethics which can help set the behavioral norms that are expected of members. You should review the code of ethics and make sure that you are comfortable with them before taking out a trial membership.
Many sites have webpages which offer information about how to safely use their service. Whether the page is offering Safety Tips or displaying Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), it can be useful to take a look at this information before you sign up to give you a feel for the website and the support it offers.
Getting started - what's normal?
So you've found a site that appears to have the right features and looks inviting enough that you'd like to take out a trial membership. What next?
You might like to take a quick browse of the summary information provided about the current members. After taking a good look around, if you feel that the website might be what you are looking for, you can begin the process of filling in the profile and match finder screens.
When filling out the screens you might like to consider the detail of information you are being asked for. How comprehensive the screens and assessment procedures are, provides another good indicator of the quality of the site. Common sense tells you that a site whose profiler takes less than five minutes to complete, will not do as good a job as one that takes closer to an hour. In simple terms, the faster it takes to complete your profile the more likely you are to meet people who are incompatible or worse.
When it comes to filling in your personal profile, you should put some real thought into it. Do not include any personal information in terms of real name, contact details, workplace or memberships. Think of this information as being a shop window, and anything you disclose as being effectively put into the public domain. On the other hand, you want to give people insight into you as a person, and the sort of person you are looking for.
Some websites have the capacity to allow you to fill out a minimal amount of detail, and to add more information about yourself at a later date. Typically it will take close to 30 minutes to complete the process of trial membership, including the profile assessment. You will then get a confirming email sent to you that you must respond to in order to verify your membership. Now you're ready to go.
As a starting point you should search on some suitable criteria, and then take a look at the people that pop up. Typically the quality of the profile and the presence of a photograph are good indicators of the quality of people you are contacting. If you are interested in communicating with one of the 'matches', some sites provide an 'ice breaker' mechanism, such as sending someone a smile or inviting them to a question and answer session. You might want to try a couple of these over the first few days.
If a person responds to your ice breaker, then you have the opportunity to start a conversation by sending them an email through the site. You might want to ask them a question about their interests or something you have in common. Through a combination of ice breakers and on-site emails, it's likely that you will interact with several people over the first few weeks.
You may also want to participate in group events run by the site. These are normally organised to allow single members to meet new people, and also those they have met on the site, in a non-threatening environment.
Going face to face
Ok, so you've met someone online and want to take the next step. Before you go about arranging a face-to-face meeting, you might like to remember that your 'date' may have mis-represented themselves in your conversations so far, so what you think you know from online conversations might actually differ from the offline reality. Considering that going face-to-face can be risky, it is suggested you take the following precautions:
1. Be careful about giving out your personal details before you meet them. This includes your address, phone number or full name. If you don't want to give out your phone number before a meeting, you could instead arrange for a visual recognition device like a newspaper in your hand, or a particular table or reference point. If you do decide to give out your phone number before meeting someone in person, you might like to give a mobile number or a home number with caller id, so that you can screen calls in the future.
2. Stage your first meeting in a public place during the day (if possible). Perhaps meet for coffee at a cafe. Tell a friend what you are doing before you meet the person, and check-in with them afterwards.
3. During the meeting, be cautious about providing too much personal information. If you feel uncomfortable during the meeting, feel free to excuse yourself (you might like to say something like 'I am not feeling well and really need to go home now'), get up and leave. At the end of the meeting, you should suggest to have any follow-up communication via the dating site - this gives you time to consider how you want to proceed.
4. After the meeting, review how it went and what your intuition tells you about the person and the way they handled themselves. If you have any reservations, don't see them again. If you would like to see them again, progress the relationship at a pace which is comfortable for you.
In the majority of cases offline meetings are enjoyable and safe, but you should always use common sense, as you would when you meet any stranger for the first time.
Using dating websites for sex
Be aware that a number of dating websites are used by people to get together just for sexual encounters rather than for romantic relationships. If you are using a dating site for sex, you might like to think about some ways to minimize risk. For example, some people might want to meet up at a private residence for sex. In these situations it can pay to remember that it is not a public place, and that you don't know who or what may be there.
Remember, in most cases you will be meeting a stranger, and that everyone online can give inaccurate information about themselves or why they are wanting to meet up. It can also pay to remember that some sexual offenders use dating websites as a way to make contact with potential victims.
Safety on dating sites - some guidelines
- Privacy. A member's profile is created to be read by other users of the website, so identifying information should not be provided until the member is ready to move onto the next stage and begin direct communication. Some personal information is required by dating websites in order to carry out the service and to verify identity, but the websites are responsible for the protection of personal details provided to them and should not disclose any to third parties, including personal email addresses (which must never be made directly available to another member).
- Interaction. Getting to know someone online means that a member may find out as much information as they can about someone before deciding to meet them in person. A potential problem would be if the information or intention revealed by a member was false.
- Obligations. Members are required to provide accurate personal information and to use the website, or communicate with other members, as explained in the website's conditions of use (e.g. a 'code of ethics' or 'terms of use').
Photographs
There can be some pressure to share sexually explicit photographs or webcam shots of yourself when getting to know someone on a dating website. In such situations it can be helpful to remember that you lose control over an image when you send or post pictures online.
Even when posting pictures of yourself in your profile, it can pay to check that people browsing the site are not able to copy your photograph and save it to their computer (you can do this by right-clicking on the picture to see if the menu item 'save picture' is available). In New Zealand, explicit photographs shared willingly at the beginning of a relationship, have been used in harassment and cyberbullying.
Warning signs
As with any relationship, you should use your discretion and trust your intuition. To assist with this process, you should stay vigilant for any of the following. If you encounter any of these behaviors, it's suggested you contact the site administrator and/or withdraw from the site:
- people using inappropriate language or photographs
- people pushing you for personal information or for a face to face meeting before you feel ready (especially if they insist on meeting you in a very private place)
- intimidating or threatening behavior
- any indication that the person is being duplicitous.
For more information
You can do a search of local and global online dating sites to get a feeling for what is available. You can also read books such as 'Online Dating For Dummies' by J Silverstien and M Lasky, or do a search on online dating on www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com. Talk to your friends; chances are they, or someone they know, will have tried online dating.
Our thanks to www.findsomeone.co.nz and www.nzdating.com for their help writing this article.
|
|
|
|
