IN modern world many find each other via the Internet by registering on dating sites. What do such Internet novels promise? Is there a danger in online dating? Whether there is a happy couples who are married thanks to online dating?
Most often, people over 30 who already have family experience behind them—a marriage that broke up—resort to virtual dating. It is at this age that the circle of acquaintances narrows - friends, preoccupied with the burden of family worries, as a rule, have already moved away. Getting acquainted naturally - at a party, wedding, visiting or at work is becoming more and more problematic. Dating sites help break the resulting vacuum.
Pros and cons of dating sites
Virtual communication on dating sites, unlike real communication, has its pros and cons.
Advantages of online dating
One goal. For the most part, single people like you are registered on dating sites, looking for communication, meetings and love. Everyone is united by a common goal - to meet the opposite sex and get rid of loneliness.
Time to think. 
Virtual communication makes it possible to take your time in answering a man who is behind the screen of another monitor or gadget. You can re-read the correspondence again, analyze the conversation, reflect before writing a response message.
Planning the first meeting. Preliminary online communication allows you to plan the very moment of acquaintance, in real life. Think in advance about what to wear and what to talk about on the first date.
An option for the shy. If in real life If a woman has difficulty meeting new people, then flirting via the Internet is a kind of workshop real communication.
How to avoid the dangers of virtual dating
You cannot treat online dating with unclouded trust; danger can await you completely unexpectedly when communicating with a person you don’t know well.
Disadvantages of online dating
Bitter reality. You need to be prepared for the fact that the gentleman with whom you have been corresponding for so long may turn out to be completely different in real life than you imagined him to be. He can place his data under other people's photographs or photographs from ten years ago in order to attract attention. And a person with a completely different appearance will come to the meeting... How to avoid this?
Be sure to ask your interlocutor to take a selfie and send it to you on your phone or email, or ask him to talk to you on Skype. The more information you know, the less disappointment you will have later.
Internet scammers. It’s worse if your correspondence counterpart turns out to be a scammer. Behind beautiful compliments For gullible women, self-interest and calculation may be hidden. You need to be aware that a person can say anything about himself. You cannot blindly trust a complete stranger.
Eight tips for those who decide to meet people via the Internet
Tip #1. Don’t rush to fall in love in absentia based only on correspondence if you have never seen the person before.
Tip #2. You should always remember your safety and should not reveal all your cards: provide your coordinates, residential address, etc.
Tip #3. For the same reasons, it is better to organize the first meeting on neutral territory in a public place, for example, in a cafe.
Tip #4. In the meantime, your first meeting has not yet taken place, try to check the information you heard about your new acquaintance, surf the Internet, maybe the potential gentleman has left a “trace” somewhere - family photo, where he is with his wife and children, etc. Then you will no longer have the desire to meet.
Tip #5. In order not to encounter such problems, do not hesitate to ask questions that interest you in correspondence to find out more about your potential gentleman. Ask if he has accounts on social networks: VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. According to the personal page of a person registered in any of social networks, you can draw many conclusions: who he is friends with, how he lives, what thoughts come to him, understand his interests and desires. The more information you gather before your first meeting, the better!
Tip #6. Therefore, do not rush to agree to a meeting literally immediately after exchanging the first two greeting phrases. First, try to find out details about the person in the correspondence. Pay attention to everything: the culture of communication, whether the person writes competently, whether he answers your questions adequately.
For example, you should be wary if he tells you that he has a page in Contact, but he does not want to show it to you for some reason. This may indicate that the man is not free and is on a dating site only for the purpose of having fun for one night. He doesn’t need relationships, long courtships and sighs under the moon. Such men immediately make an appointment, under the pretext that they are not fans of long correspondence, etc. Remember that a man who is truly interested in you will conduct a dialogue with you, and not impose his terms of acquaintance.
Tip #7. Find out about his tastes and views to check the common interests and kinship of souls. It is very important at the stage of preliminary virtual communication to understand whether there are points of contact or coincidence. Mutual attraction and mutual interest in the future depend on this.
Tip #8. 
When communicating with a potential gentleman, behave naturally, realistically presenting your desires and capabilities. Don’t try to embellish yourself by making up all sorts of tall tales on the fly, for example, about a prestigious job if you don’t have one. You should not adapt to his hobbies and desires in order to please your partner. There's nothing wrong if your hobbies don't match. Surely you will then decide how interesting it is for both of you to spend leisure time together if you like each other in real life.
Despite the fact that most people (according to statistics, more than 80%) meet and find each other through friends or through friends of friends, there are families that were formed thanks to acquaintances via the Internet. This fact does not prevent them from living happily, having good family, have children.
You can meet your loved one anywhere: in a cafe, club, gym, at work, but you can wait a very long time for such a fateful meeting. It's a matter of chance, luck, the coincidence of stars in the sky... The Internet gives you more chances to meet your other half, especially if you choose reliable dating sites, such as LinkYou. This is a serious dating service for people who are committed to long-term and lasting relationships with the goal of starting a family.
I suggest watching the video - “Dating on the Internet! Expectation and reality."
Social networks give you great opportunities to meet men. Online relationships are very popular today, but is it possible that they will lead to something more serious than the exchange of virtual messages and confessions? Let's try to figure it out.
Online relationships: where to meet?
First, let's talk about how to meet people online. There are several possibilities:
- Dating websites
Using dating sites is the easiest way. At the right approach New acquaintances are guaranteed to you. And you can definitely be sure that men registered on such sites are aimed specifically at dating, otherwise their profiles would not be there.
- Social media
Thanks to the popularity of most social networks, getting acquainted here is also quite easy. But you may find yourself in a situation where the man you like will not reciprocate, perhaps he is against online dating or he already has a girlfriend.
- Forums
It’s rare, but it’s possible to meet a man on various forums of like-minded people. The advantage of such acquaintances is that you will always have something to talk about, at least on the topic that was discussed on the forum.
Online relationships: rules of communication
Well, how can you present yourself correctly in order to interest similar online dating seekers?
- Decide what you want from dating: Serious relationships, light flirting or simple sex.
- Listen carefully to your interlocutor. Talk less about yourself and ask more. Men are flattered by such female attention, even if it is virtual.
- It is clear that it is almost impossible to verify your words. But still, don’t try to seem better than you really are when communicating online. By creating the image of a fairy-tale princess, you will greatly disappoint a man when you finally decide to meet in real life.
- Don't be afraid of failure. The Internet is huge, and if you can't connect with one man, just look for another candidate.
- Be patient. It is unlikely that you will find the man of your dreams with the first click. Perhaps before your first successful acquaintance you will have to go through hundreds of unsuccessful ones.
- You should not display your explicit photos online for everyone to see. This can serve as a signal to men that you are an easy sexual prey.
- Watch your literacy. An excessive number of mistakes can alienate any interlocutor from you.
Online dating - good opportunity find a soul mate for those girls who in real life are not confident enough in themselves and do not know how to communicate with the opposite sex. Everything is much simpler online - the interlocutor will not expect instant answers, so you will always have time to think about your next virtual response. In addition, the “invisibility” of your interlocutor encourages frankness - this will help you get to know the man really well before agreeing to a meeting.
The Internet is also good for inaccessible beauties, whom men are simply afraid to approach in real life. So girls suffer from loneliness. In the virtual world, men become more courageous and make acquaintances more willingly.
January 27, 2012, 20:34 
Many people are skeptical about online dating; they do not believe that using the Internet you can find love and build a stable relationship. But the facts have long argued the opposite, since there are many examples of happy marriages that claim that acquaintance began in the virtual world. You also need to take into account that long-term acquaintance and regular correspondence may not give such a complete picture of a person as even half an hour of live communication. But this matter can also be corrected, since modern technologies allow you to communicate via video, even if people are on different sides of the world. 
If you look at the situation objectively, then people looking for dating on the Internet do not particularly count on anything serious. First of all, these are people who don’t know where to spend their time. When meeting someone for the sole purpose of having fun, a person quite easily gets drawn into a relationship. It often happens that then he begins to devote less time professional activity, studying, trying to spend as much time as possible with a virtual “other half”. It’s good if such communication leads to a real meeting and everything falls into place. But, unfortunately, most often the opposite happens - meeting a man on whom you had high hopes remains virtual and over time the communication stops. Unjustified hopes and disappointments resulting from virtual failures can lead to depression, as you begin to realize that emotions and time were wasted. Besides, virtual dating may be accompanied by a number of dangers. There are rapes, beatings, robberies, and falling into sexual slavery due to naivety and gullibility. You need to be vigilant, attentive, and immediately weed out suspicious types and people who only waste your time. But still, I want to continue my original thought that happy endings happen, you just need to believe in a miracle!! The proof is in abundance real stories, the beginning of which was precisely virtual acquaintance. Here, for example, is one such story, Irina and Dmitry. Happiness in ICQ. No one can give an exact answer to the question “Where can you find happiness?” So I didn’t know the answer, and I didn’t even realize that happiness could come knocking on its own in my life. Yes, yes, just knock... It was a dark and cold January evening. The only reason for joy was the half-closed session. Suddenly, a message flashed at the bottom of the screen, next to the green flower. This is how I received the first message from Prikolist - Dima still hasn’t changed this nickname. I didn’t attach much importance to the message from Dima. We sent each other a couple of “duty” phrases and went to bed. A couple of days later, I started deleting “extra” ones from my contact list in the ICQ program and came across Prikolist. Apparently female intuition forced me to write to Dima, now myself. So, day after day, our communication on the Internet began. The correspondence with him was so addictive that I could forget about time and sit half the night in front of the computer monitor. Then we sent each other our photos. This moment was probably what I feared most. The thought was constantly spinning in my head: “What should I do if he doesn’t like me?” I was probably the happiest girl when one evening Dima asked for my phone number. And he called immediately. This is how our telephone conversation began. Endless calls and text messages led to our first meeting. On January 23, 2006, Dima called and offered to meet. In memory of that day, I still have a magnetic student travel card with a photo I took before our meeting. The meeting itself was quite crumpled; Dima clearly felt out of place. After the breakup, I couldn’t stand it and wrote him an SMS, I wanted to find out why he behaved so strangely. It turned out that it was all because of a failed exam. Then we started meeting more and more often. Dima went to Vyborg for the weekend and we always met on Sundays at Udelnaya and walked, walked, walked. A month later, on the eve of February 23, having arrived for a festive dinner, Dima met all my relatives at once. After 2 days, near a winter fire in the countryside, under starry sky he confessed his love to me, which has lasted for more than 4 years. Dima made a marriage proposal as unexpectedly as a declaration of love. On New Year's Day 2010, after the chimes, in the presence of the people closest to me, Dima asked my parents for my hand in marriage. Dad looked at me questioningly and I said “Yes!” I would also like to read your stories, dear gossips =)
Meeting a new person is always exciting, interesting and even mysterious, especially if we're talking about about such a meeting place as the World Wide Web. Today, the Internet is one of the leading “territories” where people are trying to find their soul mate and build strong real relationships.
At the same time, there are people who are skeptical about online dating, considering it to be the preserve of “nerds,” an ineffective and even dangerous activity. Is it really? An important role in this issue is played by the fact that with the development of technology, the Internet has become a public resource, and most users have at least one computer device to access the Internet.
It's no secret that modern users use the Internet not only for work and searching for information, but also to improve their personal lives. Some communicate on forums, others through social networks or Skype calls. Millions of people find friends in different parts of the world and do not consider this something inferior, because exactly the same people “live” on the Internet as in real life.
Online dating has the same right to life as anyone else!
That’s why you shouldn’t discount online dating as a way to find your true love. You can and should meet people online, communicating with the goal of building personal relationships, because it is simple, fast and accessible to everyone. Undoubtedly, virtual dating has both positive sides, and negative, and this should be taken into account before you start dating online.
Pros and cons of virtual dating
First meeting
First eye contact- these are the moments when people evaluate each other. At this moment, the first impression is formed, on which the future of the relationship depends.
- Pros: Unlike a real first meeting, you don't have to think about yourself - whether you're blushing or not, how good your hairstyle is and your figure. At this crucial moment, you can completely concentrate on the person, look at his photo as carefully and for as long as you need.
- Minuses: lack of opportunity to look into the eyes and feel the energy of another person. Virtual contact makes the first “meeting” incomplete with emotional point vision. In addition, there is no way to evaluate the first reaction of a new acquaintance when he sees you. And finally, every person is photogenic to varying degrees, and the limitless possibilities of modern photo editors can spoil or, conversely, exaggerate a person’s external data.
First communication
Any communication begins with general greetings and exchanges of politeness. But in the virtual and real worlds, communication begins differently.
- Pros: within the framework of virtual communication, it is possible to think over each phrase, correct the text, think about some question and give a good, complete answer. It is also possible to evaluate the literacy and writing style of the interlocutor, to note signs of his education and respect for correspondence.
- Minuses: inability to immediately hear the voice, evaluate the culture of speech, the pace of the conversation, the confidence of the conversation. Inability to see improvisation, spontaneity and real emotions.
General pastime
As a rule, a first date involves a romantic meeting in a cafe, a trip to the theater or cinema, rides or other joint activities that are interesting to both.
- Pros: By studying the profile of a new acquaintance, you can learn much more about a person than in several meetings in the real world. This will help you understand whether it is worth moving on. Just like during a real meeting, you can watch a movie, football, etc. together, and then discuss the spectacle. Or you can get creative and then exchange its results.
- Minuses: When communicating via correspondence, it is impossible to see a person’s behavior at the table, assess his knowledge of etiquette and level of culture. It is much more difficult to get the same emotional fulfillment from joint activities, as in real conditions. In addition, the inability to see the image of a person (clothing, shoes, style) in which he came to you on a date does not allow you to understand how neat he is, whether he respects himself, you and your meeting.
Time spent online can never replace a real meeting
Parting
After time spent together and close communication, the time comes to separate. At this point, you can simply politely say goodbye, or you can exchange contacts or agree on the details of the next meeting.
- Pros: You can end a conversation online at any time. Enough to end the conversation in general phrases, succinctly exchange emoticons or media messages. No matter how you say goodbye, you both still have each other's contacts. There is no such delicate moment as a kiss - after all, not everyone considers it appropriate at the first meeting, even “on the cheek”.
- Minuses: inability to evaluate the gallantry of the gentleman: will he pay the bill in a cafe, will he offer to walk you home, will he be intrusive, insisting on continuing the meeting?
Besides the pros and cons, there are several more important points. When choosing the Internet as a place to meet people, you should remember the dangers from which no one is immune.
Popular dangers of online dating
We should not forget that on the Internet all users are one way or another in conditions of anonymity, which means you can never be absolutely sure that your interlocutor is a decent person.
- Fraud. Unfortunately, there are often cases when men and women first seduce, and then “play for pity” in order to extort money. Floods, illnesses of relatives, crisis, etc. - all these are popular “traps” into which gullible people who want to find a partner on the Internet fall.
- Lie. Often people pretend to be someone other than who they really are. Incredible photo from beautiful face and figure, ideal personal data, reluctance to correspond, and immediately an offer to meet in an expensive restaurant - all these facts should be alarming. The purpose of liars can be very different - from fun to robbery.
- Creation of an idol. This danger often awaits women due to their emotionality. After looking at the man’s photo, reading his personal data, and communicating several times via correspondence, the woman comes up with an image for herself and falls in love with him. What a disappointment it turns out to be when the “idol” turns out to be an average, uninteresting man!
Don't be fooled by a man's perfection until you meet him!
How to make online dating safe?
First of all, it is worth remembering that you can get to know a person completely only after real communication. Before it happens, follow these tips:
- Choose only well-known and trusted dating sites. On such resources, the accuracy of information is very strictly controlled, often through direct interaction between site administrators and users. Therefore, on a well-known dating site you can see real photographs and find out the most truthful information about a person.
- Don't reveal too much about yourself, or about your relatives. Never share financial or other confidential information with strangers. Don’t go out of your way to tell them that you are a successful businesswoman who owns an expensive car and real estate. If you have your photos, identifying you in real life will not be difficult for a fraudster.
- Insist on visual communication as soon as you realize that the person has “hooked” you. If a new acquaintance lives in another city or country, offer to communicate via Skype and similar video calling applications. If you live in the same city, or the cities are very close, do not delay the date of the real meeting. However, if the correspondence has been delayed, then the absence of an offer to meet with one of the parties should alert you.
- Stop communication if a person behaves inappropriately, demands something from you, or makes incorrect suggestions.
Thus, online dating, organized correctly and wisely, is great way find your soul mate and build a happy lifelong relationship. Just imagine that thanks to the Internet, when looking for a partner, you are not limited to the city or even the country!
Before visiting a new dentist or, God forbid, a hairdresser, we read reviews on the Internet a million times and almost conduct a survey: “So how? Liked? Beautiful? Surely it won’t ruin anything?” But for some reason, having met a wonderful stranger on the Internet, we don’t even remember the rule “Trust, but verify.” So all sorts of unpleasant things happen... Here are just three of the most typical situations.
1. Fake photos
Some steal photos from other people's social media accounts, others blatantly copy-paste photos of celebrities and impersonate another person. As a result, you waste time, mental strength, even fall in love, and when the truth is revealed, you feel, to put it mildly, not very well. Why they do this is difficult to say. I knew only one such friend - the girls didn’t like him, but he wasn’t going to do anything about it in real life, so he had a lot of fun online, uploading a photo of a little-known black model to Tinder. Trusting Tinderels told him secrets, shared erotic fantasies, and some even shared their photographs. After a couple of days he simply disappeared. Well, at least he didn’t lie that he was dying of cancer (yes, there are such people).
Life story:
Masha had a business trip to Australia, and she decided to meet someone local in advance. Not to be alone on the weekend, but to drink lemonade on safari in a cultured manner. A week later, Masha was telling me with a breathy voice and full of goosebumps about a certain Ryan. “Widower, teaches at the University of Perth, understands me perfectly.” Photos of the villa, two children, and of himself - just not in full height. Masha was worried about her height, but she was embarrassed to ask directly. And we decided to Google it - he must have other photos! Ryan wasn't on social media (he's so busy, so busy!), so we looked at the website of the university where he supposedly taught. There was no such professor there. But Google has another cool feature - photo search. It was then that the truth was revealed - the wonderful Ryan borrowed the photo from an Australian TV presenter. He responded to Masha’s angry letter that everything was true, except for the photo, and blocked her in all messengers.
How to avoid this:
- Google the photo.
– Offer to talk on Skype with video.
– As a last resort, ask to take a selfie with a piece of paper on which the word “love” is written (if your new friend doesn’t send you after that, then there really is a chance for love).
2. Threat of information leakage
Before you send your boyfriend, or even more so a recent virtual acquaintance, a photo of yourself in just panties or talk about another BDSM fantasy at three in the morning after 3 glasses of martinis, ask yourself the question: “What if my mother sees this?” (sister, grandmother, boss, husband - underline as appropriate). After all, taking a screenshot of the correspondence and then sending it to someone who doesn’t need it as revenge or just out of spite is a simple matter. It’s even easier to save the photo and post it on the Internet. Of course, this can happen after real acquaintance. Just realize that there is no reason to think that a person who comes across as decent actually is.
Life story:
Christina met Miguel on Tinder and initially was just going to have a good time with the hot Spanish fireman (the guy actually puts out fires in his homeland!). But he spoke so sincerely about carrot love and a wedding in Tenerife that the young lady seriously fell in love. Literally before his departure, bombarded with promises to “invite her and introduce her to my mother,” she got up at night to drink water and saw... his glowing phone. Then you probably guessed it. The girl's soul could not stand it, and decided to take a look at who was writing to him in the middle of the night. It turned out to be his wife. Why a married man voluntarily complicated his life with romance and promises of eternal happiness is still a mystery to us. And Christina, without leaving the cash register, forwarded all the correspondence to this same wife and silently walked away into the night. She herself is now an ardent opponent of sexting and, if she really wants, she offers an erotic conversation over the phone. In this story, intimate correspondence helped punish the scoundrel, but you must admit that in any other situation it could work against you.
How to avoid this:
3. Deception and self-deception
Are you aware that we perceive only 20% of information verbally, that is, using words? And the remaining 80% is due to gestures, facial expressions and body position in space, that is, non-verbally. When texting or talking on the phone, you are deprived of this opportunity, so the chance of making a mistake and believing a lie increases many times over. Even if a person does not intentionally deceive you, you unwittingly put the desired image on him and invent the missing qualities. Ladies with a “big and clean” mindset are especially susceptible to this.
Life story:
– Check all the information, ask specific questions: “Oh, do you have your own business? What project are you working on now? Who are your clients? Show me your website” or “So you teach at a university? Which department? How many students do you have? What was today’s lecture about?”
– Listen carefully to the person and immediately find out if something seems suspicious, take time, do not make quick decisions.
Safety rules for dating in any conditions
I once attended a conference dedicated to the problem of human trafficking, and believe me, the scale of this problem is enormous. And besides those who are ready to exchange you for a camel, there are many scammers and swindlers. So get this on your nose:
1. Never, under any pretext, give money to new acquaintances.
2. Do not disclose where you live or other personal information (how much you earn, whether you live alone or not, credit card number).
3. When going to a meeting, be sure to tell someone where you went, who you went with, and when you plan to get in touch.
4. When going abroad to visit a potential groom, be sure (!) to ask him to send a scan of his passport, exact residential address and telephone number. Come up with a neutral password word that will let your loved ones know that you are in trouble. Agree to get in touch at least once a day.
5. Keep in mind that the chance of meeting a worthy man is just as great as the risk of running into a maniac and pervert.
6. Don't take dating too seriously and don't fall in love too quickly.
And most importantly, do not confuse trust and gullibility. Trust is a wonderful feeling, but it takes time to earn it. Don’t be fooled by the classics: “You trust me,” “I immediately felt that you were the one!”, “It’s like I’ve known you all my life.” This is just an optical illusion, an illusion inspired by hormones and the desire to be loved. A truly honest man will wait and be able to prove his reliability with his actions. And gullibility is a very dangerous quality. Be healthy!
P.S. Lest you think that everything is completely bad: I know at least 4 couples who met on the Internet, got married and are happy.
