The Importance Of Online Dating

Speaking of online dating safety, I once met a man through an online dating site who lived several states away. As we progressed to phone conversations, in terms of personal information, all I told him was my first and last name. That's it. He, of course, already knew the city I lived in since it was in my online dating profile.

The next time I spoke to him on the phone, he told me my ex-husband's name and about his previous air force service (over 25 years ago) and then went on to describe the exterior of my home in detail. He was associated with the military and had gotten the information about my ex from some sort of source there and was looking at my home on Google Earth as we spoke. Although he seemed a nice enough guy and was too far

Tales of internet stalkers and out and out frauds using online dating sites to lure their prey can rattle many would be daters. But by taking a few common sense precautions, internet dating sites can be a wonderful and safe option for finding the love of your life. To start you off on the right foot, consider these five tips for online dating safety:

Online Dating Safety Tip 1. Start by setting up a separate email account for all your online dating correspondence.

The first rule of online dating safety is protecting your privacy. Internet dating sites such as Match.com, Matchmaker.com, EHarmony, Chemistry.com, etc. all provide email systems that shield your personal email address from the view of those you are corresponding with from their site. However, once you have gotten to know a potential date a little better, you may choose to leave the security of your online dating site's system. Even then, you may not truly know this person well for many months, so it's best to set up an email account specifically for these relationships, to keep them separate from your regular personal and business email accounts. Fortunately, it's quick, easy and free to set up email accounts on sites like yahoo, hotmail or

Remove your full name and, if possible, your employer's name from your cell phone greeting.

This is where the drive by stalker friend I mentioned earlier got my name. We had been speaking on the phone some and he had had to leave me messages on occasion. In so doing, he heard my first and last name on my voicemail greeting and was able to look me up in the white pages on line. Such a simple thing, but I had forgotten all about it. And if he had not been a nice man, it could have become a serious, even dangerous, problem. I changed my greeting to include only my first name, solving this problem for the future.

The same also goes for putting your employer's name in your voicemail. There are some lines of work where you must have this information on your cell - For instance, if you are in real estate or some other type of sales or you have your own business and you use your cell as a primary contact number. In these instances, you may want to see if you can get away with being as generic as possible while still giving your company name to identify you for clients - Say, announce that you're with ReMax rather than ReMax Hobokin Office. But if you must keep your business name on your phone, don't fret. Just take care to follow the other tips to protect your privacy as much as