Establishing Online Dating Relationships: Safety First

Online dating can be fun. But don’t neglect safety and common sense when you try to hook up with a mate. At minimum, take caution in the following areas.

Protect Your Computer

Take care of your equipment and systems before you head out into the Internet realm. You need to have a firewall and anti-virus protection for your email and for when you search websites and interact online. At the bare minimum, you may want these two solutions that are offered at no charge to home computer users (i.e. not for commercial use):

Free Firewall Download: ZoneAlarm www.zonelabs.com
Free Anti-Virus Download: AVG Anti-Virus www.grisoft.com

Protect Yourself

Take care of yourself, too, by choosing appropriate dating sites. Seek and choose a reputable online dating service. How? Begin by asking around with friends, neighbors, co-workers and others you may know who have tried online dating, and see which places they recommend. In addition, search “online dating services” and keep a notebook of their URLs or website links, the fees, rules and regulations, complete contact information of each and any other useful information that spikes your interest. Then compare each place. Try only those places where you feel safe. Avoid the others.

So take care. Arm your computer – and yourself- with the correct tools and knowledge!

Know What to Look for in a Woman

Sometimes, knowing what you’re looking for in a woman can be quite difficult. And if you’re one of them, don’t get discouraged. It truly isn’t as difficult as you may think to find the right woman for you.

The very first thing you must do is resign to be very open-minded. You need to cast aside all the standards that you may have been using and start from scratch. Forget what all your buddies say is attractive. Never mind what you see in the lingerie commercials on television. You’ll want to start with the very basics of what makes two people compatible, not two lovers, but two people in general, in order to find what kind of person works for you.

In order to find out what you are really looking for in a woman, you need to take the time to consider the complete person, not just the body. You need to take into consideration things like personality, interests, ambition and then looks. You’re probably wondering why I listed those traits in the order I did.

If you consider looks first it will tend to cloud your judgment on all the other traits. Men tend to be very easily visually stimulated. For this reason, what excites them at first sight tends to be what they think they want.

However, if you consider what you want in the other areas, the looks may not be so important. You may find that a woman with a great personality that likes football and racing as much as you do and who takes her career as a human resources director seriously, but who happens to be a brunette with only an average build, would suit you just fine. Personality, intelligence, ambition, sense of humor and interests play a much bigger role in attraction than just physical appearance.