Dating Safety and How To Get The Most Out Of Online Christian Dating
by Danny the webservant / webmaster at AdamMeetEve.com

First let me ask you to please read some Bible verses concerning love and the fruit of the Spirit, key verses like: 1Corinthians 13:4-7 and Galatians 5:13-26

Having read these familiar verses, keep in mind that we are all mere humans and sometimes make mistakes in whatever we write in our personal ads and email massages. It is hard to know a person’s heart without first investing a great deal of time and energy in the process. So always try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Typographical mistakes happen. Ask for clarification before you accuse someone of obscenity or harassing you. Look for a pattern of abuse not just one incident or mistake. For example: a woman once asked to have a man banned from the dating service for obscenity and all he did is mistakenly type a “w” instead of a “c”, resulting in the word “whores” instead of “chores”. He meant to send her a reply message stating, “I enjoy doing chores”. He quickly apologized for his lack of typing skills, and for offending the woman he was communicating with. Don’t be in a big hurry. Double-check everything before you submit it or send it. Another example: with a very strict rule against obscenity, I once banned a woman for including a porno-URL in her personals ad. She was irate and claimed that I had no right to delete her profile and that she is part of the worship team at her church, etc. It turns out, after nearly six emails back and forth, that she accidentally typed the wrong URL and meant to type “place” not “palace” as part of her personal website address, an honest mistake.

There are literally thousands of other sites that offer dating safety advice, none of which can replace good old common sense and, of course the protection of the Holy Spirit. God expects you to use the brain He gave you! Just as an experiment, before you finish reading the rest of this article, wonder through these secular dating sites and see for yourself:

Dr. Dating .com - If you are single and looking for love this is the site for you. We have a huge range of resources for people looking for advice on finding someone to love.

ONLINE SAFETY
For the most part, about 99.99% of the members of an online Christian dating service are “normal” folks that simply want to honestly communicate with others and enjoy the process of meeting a potential soul-mate. A few wise precautions and common sense can help protect you from the .01% of bad apples. You can then relax, knowing that you did your best to protect yourself, your privacy, and trust God to do the rest.

Before we begin, here are some definitions of terms used in this article:
WHAT IS AN ONLINE-STRANGER? In this article we define an “online-stranger” as anyone that you have never physically met in real life. You may have communicated online or via the telephone, but you have not yet met this person face-to-face.

WHAT IS ANONYMOUS EMAIL FORWARDING? Always use a dating service that features anonymous email forwarding; replies to your personals ad are automatically forwarded to your real email account by the dating service email server and your real email address is never accessible to the online-stranger who replied to your personals ad. This keeps your real email address private until you choose to share it.

Before you join a Christian dating service, it is wise to always make sure you get what I call a free, “disposable e-mail address” that you only use for your personal ads. Something like: yournickname@hotmail.com or yourfakename@yahoo.com or get a private aol.com account (not free, though). Then, no matter what, only use your “disposable” email address for the online dating service. The best online dating services feature anonymous email forwarding, but using a “disposable” email address is way better than using your work or personal email address, and it provides an extra level of anonymity that is well worth the time it takes to fill out the Hotmail or Yahoo account form. Dumping your “disposable”, free email account sure beats the hassle of changing your work or permanent/personal email address and notifying everybody.

Ok, with your “disposable” email address, now you are ready to join a Christian dating service, perhaps starting with a Free Trial Membership, in one of the sites reviewed on page one.

Never list your real first and last name in your personals ad. Keep your contact and location details informative yet none specific. For example: “I am the only high school French teacher in Georgetown, Colorado, population 3,000.” is not as good as “I teach high school French in the Denver area.” Vague is not dishonest. Vague is cautious. It keeps an unwanted online-stranger from being able to track you down.

Always use a nickname in your personals ad, and if you post a photo, make it a current head’n’shoulders shot with no identifiable location information visible. Women, keep it conservative not sexy. Men, don’t take the risk of showing your bare, muscular chest...some women may think that you are vain, arrogant or just plain in-love-with-yourself. Emphasize your personality. Don’t write or show any information that would allow an online-stranger to track you down. When the time is right, you will share your private information, but not until you choose to do so. If an online-stranger cannot wait until you feel comfortable with the relationship and tries to pressure you into sharing private information before you are comfortable doing so, drop’em like a hot potato! For more info. on threats to your online privacy spend some time here:

EMOTIONAL SAFETY
Do not make an emotional investment in an online-stranger until you know exactly whom you are investing in. Infatuation is not love. Love takes time. Slow and steady wins the race. The first face-to-face meeting should be brief, no more than one hour, even if you or they traveled a great distance to meet each other. You can always meet again soon after you both have had time to digest the information and impressions gathered from your first meeting. If at all possible, meet at a cafe and have a friend or relative sit at a table near yours to help you listen to and evaluate what the person you are meeting says. With an investment this important you need a second opinion. In very rare cases, Christian gals have even used their “spy” at the next table as an excuse to escape from a meeting with an online-stranger that is going badly. Perhaps the escape went something like this: “Wow, Jane [spy], is that you, sitting right there at the next table? How good to see you again. Goodbye, Joe [online-stranger], it was nice meeting you, but Jane and I are going shopping now.” Or whatever. We all hope our first meeting goes well, but it is nice to have a safe, pre-arranged "escape plan" to fall back on.

Don’t feel guilty for leaving early. Trust your instincts, your common sense, etc. That is why God gave them to you. Dishonest communication leading up to the first face-to-face meeting is often the reason this first meeting with an online-stranger does not “go well”. A brief, face-to-face meeting, can quell the pangs of infatuation, and show first hand how honest you both have been with each other. There is nothing like reality to keep things on the right track. A brief face-to-face meeting within a month or two after your mutual interest in each other becomes apparent will verify their credentials before you invest your trust and emotions in an online-stranger. Not everyone who joins an online Christian dating service is on the up and up. In fact Christians can be overly trusting and naïve at times. Sure, we want to think the best of someone, but remember that until you verify what a person says by meeting their family or friends or pastor, all you really have to go on is what this online-stranger has written or said to you. As I stated earlier, for the most part, about 99.99% of the members of an online Christian dating service are “normal” folks that simply want to honestly communicate with others and enjoy the process of meeting a potential soul-mate. Exercising wise precautions and common sense can help protect you from the bad .01%. You can then relax, knowing that you did your best to protect yourself, your privacy, and trust God to do the rest.

Stand up for your “Online Dating Rights”! Now, repeat after me: “I have the right to feel safe, and enjoy the online dating experience without being pressured, harassed or hassled by an online-stranger, or my own sin-nature, or my own feelings of desperation, or family/peer pressure”. Now there, doesn’t that feel good!

Always ask yourself: Does this online-stranger sound too good to be true? Does what they have communicated so far make sense to you. This goes for emotions not just words. Can anyone truly know that they “love you” after only a short time? Especially is you’ve never yet met face-to-face. After such a short time, does “I love you” really translate into “I am a scammer and I want something out of you”? Time is a great test of love. Use time to test love and you won’t be disappointed. Can we ever truly love a person we hardly even know? Or are we just in love with the idea of being in love? Question this online-stranger in detail. Are they evasive? Or, are they an “open book” with nothing to hide.

Have you been honest with them and yourself? Have you honestly evaluated everything written or said by this online-stranger? Or are you blinded by wanting to hear something or read something into their words that really is not there? Be open to the objectivity of a trusted friend or family member to help you evaluate an online-stranger. The help of others around us can sometime mean the difference between reality and infatuation. Have you been totally honest yourself? God blesses honesty. For God is Truth and Light and in Him there is no darkness.

Is this a current photo? As a Webmaster, I am sometimes shocked by some people’s crude photo re-touching efforts to hide gray hair or wrinkles, etc in their online photos. Christian singles should make sure that they are “advertising the real you”.

PHYSICAL SAFETY TIPS:
1. Always write down exactly where and when you will be meeting and include the online-stranger’s name and contact information. Then give it to a trusted friend or family member.
2. In addition to giving a trusted friend or family member the online-stranger’s name and contact information, try to give them a resent photo of the online-stranger. Have the photo mailed to your P.O. Box, or right-click on their personals-ad-photo to download it to a folder on your PC.
3. Always insist on meeting in a public place. Never let an online-stranger pick you up or even know where you live. If your phone number is not unlisted, get a new phone number, or better yet get a cell phone.
4. Never leave your purse, wallet or keys unattended. If you go to the restroom take your property with you even if the online-stranger offers to watch your property. Remember, guarding your keys, personal information, etc. is not rude, it is wise. It is your right to make an online-stranger earn your trust.
5. SPIRITUAL SAFETY. Who you are spiritually is a very intimate part of you. Pray. Pray. Pray. But use your common sense as well. It may sound real “spiritual” to make your first meeting a worship service at your home church, but think again. We all hope and pray that the relationship with this online-stranger will blossom into a life-long-love. But what if it does not? Meeting at church reveals to this online-stranger exactly where to find you every Sunday. Not to mention the fact that most churches have church directories. Are you in it? Keep your first face-to-face meeting as anonymous and public as possible. Choose a quiet cafe or restaurant for your first meeting. Face it; some of us Christian tend to be far too trusting and naive. Sometimes we live in our “safe” little world, and for the most part, we try to insulate ourselves from the evils of the real world. God does not expect you to drive your car without auto insurance, and God does not expect you to meet an online-stranger without taking every precaution. Using common sense precautions will actually help you relax and enjoy your first “date” or meeting with an online-stranger. May God bless you with much joy and happiness as you seek His perfect will. Finding your special, personal Adam or Eve for a lifetime of happiness can be a very fun process when you exercise a few precautions and common sense.

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