Dater Beware

A few months back, I was walking with my friend Cindy. We hadn't seen each other in a while, and since I knew she was signed up for plentyoffish.com I asked her how on-line dating was going.

"Good!" she said. "I've been exchanging e-mails with this guy Joe! He's really cute and when we've talked on the phone, he makes me laugh."

"Sound's great," I said. "Have you met him yet?"

"No, not yet." She paused a second. "His profile says he's looking for a committed relationship, and he says that he's trustworthy and honest but I'm just not sure about meeting him yet."

"Wait, his profile says that he's trustworthy and honest?"

"Yeah, well actually it says, I'm the most trustworthy and honest person you'll ever meet."

I stopped walking and looked at her. "Let me tell you something. If you have to tell people that you're trustworthy and honest, then you probably aren't. Can you give me his e-mail address and profile name so I can check up on him?"

"Would you?"

By the time I got home from the walk, Cindy had already forward Joe's profile name, address and his most recent e-mail asking to meet for a drink.

The first thing I did was google profile name. Profile names are unique strings of letters and numbers. If a person uses a profile name in one on-line forum, they might use it somewhere else, somewhere that the might not want to use their real name.

I got a number of returns from my search. One was from Plentyoffish, but two others were from swinger sites, one a straight swinger site and the other a gay swinger site. To confirm it was the same Joe, I matched his Plentyoffish photo with a photo from the swinger site. His swinger profiles contained numerous photos of himself naked and close ups of his genitals.

Next I searched his e-mail address and found his full name attached to it in a softball league roster. Then, using his full name, I searched public records to make sure he wasn't a criminal.  Luckily he wasn't.

Cindy was dating to find a boyfriend or husband. She didn't want a one-night stand or to swing. Swinging was Joe's choice but he was lying to Cindy about his true intentions. On the surface, Joe was a normal thirtysomething, single, never married, was in sales and had a few tickets but the surface didn't tell the whole story.

I reported by findings to Cindy. She was shocked and sad but ultimately glad she'd found out before she'd met Joe face to face and developed stronger feelings for him.

She e-mailed Joe and told him that she wasn't a swinger and didn't want to date one. In response, he e-mailed her a photo of his junk. She blocked his e-mail and has never heard from him again.

Cindy has since met a nice guy on line and is dating him.

Dater Beware! In matters of the heart as in matters of business, due diligence helps avoid costly relationships.