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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”.
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