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Red Flags on the First Date

March 24th, 2011

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Photo by AI404 /> You have decided to go on your first date off-line after some emails or online interaction. You are nervous and distracted. But sometimes through all of the excitement people forget basic precautions and do not see the “Red Flags” that they should have seen on their first date.

While most everyone’s idea of what a first date should involve is different, there are still solid guidelines that can be used. Oftentimes people do not listen to their intuition or see the “Red Flags” that can lead to possible suffering, hurt feelings, financial damage, or other harm. />

Before the Date

Tell a Friend /> Before you go on your first date tell a friend or family member when and where you are going and when you will return. Bring a cellular phone in case you need to call someone or have your friend call you periodically at certain times.

Use Your Own Transportation /> Have your own transportation incase the date does not go well so you can leave when you need to. Use a taxi if you do not drive.

Have a Backup Plan /> One cannot be too cautious, just remember you have never met this person before. Always have backup transportation if you rely on public transportation. As well, if you do not have a cellular phone then either borrow one or buy an inexpensive pay-for-usage type phone.

Meet in a Public Place /> Never meet in a private location, remote place, or anywhere that makes you feel uncomfortable. There are several places you can meet such as a restaurant or museum.

What to Watch for on the First Date

Stay in a Public Place /> Always stay in a public place. It is advisable to not go to your date’s home or have your date come to your home on a first date, even if you feel extremely comfortable with them. Keep the first date short (approximately 45 minutes) and be sensible. If your date continually suggests that you go somewhere private, be cautious.

Is Late or Cancels the Date Again /> It is alright if your date is reasonably late, life does happen. But if they are very late or have canceled the date more than once then it is time to throw in the towel. More than likely they are too busy for a “potential” relationship or they are just not that interested in you. />

Photo by Kodomut /> Their Profile or Information Does Not Match /> If your date is nothing like the way they describe themselves or their profile information is not even similar to what they said, then you should be concerned. Either your date is insecure, a liar, or a fraud. Pay attention to your instincts, if you are questioning what was really said earlier then you are probably right.

Alcohol and Drugs /> It is best to stay sober in order to keep your senses about you. If your date shows up drunk or is high on some type of drug, end the date quickly. If they are drunk on the first date then they may have a drinking issue.

Do Not Leave Personal Items Unattended /> Always keep your personal items with you. If your date has roving eyes on your personal belongings it is a definite red flag.

Wandering Eyes or Crooked Neck /> When your date cannot keep their eyes to themselves and get a crooked neck from staring at waiter or waitress or some other person, it is a good indicator that they do not care that much about you. When someone is interested in everyone that passes by, they usually are interested in everyone else or they can be egotistical.

Asking About Personal Information /> Never share any of your personal information such as an address, phone number, birthdate, or birth place. Especially be on guard if your date is insistent on wanting personal information; identity theft does happen. Sometimes information is gathered by using false pretenses such as asking for your address so they can send you flowers.

Ask For Money /> If your date asks for money, heed caution. Whether the money is for a charity, a sick grandmother, or a child, it is always a sign to exercise caution.

Talks about “Fate” or “Destiny” /> It is a red flag if your date talks about how you were meant to be together and destiny or fate are mentioned often. Although our heart may long for “destiny”, more than likely it is not so. Either your date thinks that this “line” will get them their catch, or they are desperately lonely. But for whatever reason, be sensible.

Says or Hints at “I Love You” /> Showing strong affection towards quickly is a red flag to watch for. There are many reasons for people to “rush in” such as loneliness, insecurity, or dishonesty. It takes time to fall in love. Always question the when excessive or unwelcome affection occurs early.

Pressure for Sex /> When someone constantly pressures you to have sex it is a big red flag, especially when the pressure comes on the first date. If you express your feelings of being uncomfortable with their advances and they continue, then they are dismissing your beliefs and values.

Rude Behavior /> If your date is rude towards you, other people such as a waitress, or cashier; then more than likely it is a sign of how they will treat you. If rude comments are made about a roommate, coworker, ex-girlfriend, or sibling; they will probably show the same towards you in the future.

The Complainer /> If your date consists of nothing but complaints about life, relationships and so on, then it is a heads up. This person could be selfish, egotistical, high maintenance, or simply not happy. If they are complaining now, then one can imagine how much they will complain as you get to know them.

Note: Listen to your instincts during the first few dates. One can never be too cautious. Although you can meet a lot of wonderful people through online dating; there is always someone that sends Red Flags. Take your time and get to know the other person. If it does not work out then that is absolutely fine, for not everyone is a potential partner. Just remember to watch out for Red Flags and be alert.

Mary is a contributing writer for Little Red Rails. She has been using online dating services off and on for approximately 5 years. In her adventures dating online, she has learned a lot. Through trial and error she has discovered what works for successful dating and what to be on the lookout for. She has not yet found the “one” yet, but has made some good friendships.

Mary’s opinions do not always match mine…but that’s a good thing! The more opinions the better. If you would be interested in contributing an article or an idea for an article, please feel free to contact me.

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Good Dating Services for Finding Long-Distance Relationships

March 5th, 2011

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Photo by WonderlaneMost of the time people don’t look to start long-distance relationships with online dating. However, for some of us there are reasons that we begin to consider long-distance as our best option. Reasons such as living in a low population area or having particular requirements in the person we would like to date that would make it unlikely to find them near-by.

A reader recently wrote in with questions on this very topic:

I have a situation I haven’t seen covered yet, and I wonder if you have insight. I have preferences that make it statistically unlikely for me to find a partner to date locally. I am flexible about where I live to a large degree, so I expect to try to strike enough sparks with someone to make face-to-face meeting work. I’ve only been trying this for a couple of months, so I am trying to keep my expectations low. I am on match.com and a couple of specialty sites.

A couple of questions come to me:

Do you have any advice on starting and maintaining a long-distance relationship?

I read your advise as suggesting that people should date to refine what I want; I wonder if I should still test the waters with not-quite-what-I-want people locally? I guess I feel like that’s not fully honest, though yes I know it could work out.

Recommended Online Dating Sites for Long-Distance Relationships

In this case, the reader is actually looking for sites that would enable or encourage the opportunity for a long-distance relationship. He’s not against dating locally but feels the odds are against him. I have zero experience with long-distance online dating but I’ll give my opinion based on my experience with different services as well as several friends I know who have had success with long-distance online dating.

Niche Dating Sites /> First, I think the reader who wrote in is already making a great decision by using niche dating sites. People who use these sites often realize and accept that they may need to travel to meet that special someone because the number of users on these sites can be limited. In these cases, the desired niche far outweighs the distance between them and their potential mate.

I have two sets of friends who met (and eventually married) using a site like Christian Cafe. This service has less members than the “big” guys but users of the service can still have more opportunity as their matches have the number one quality they are looking for. In both cases, the friends I have traveled 400+ miles to meet, date and eventually marry the person they found.

eHarmony Is Pretty Good Too /> I think eHarmony is another good choice primarily because users specify how far they are willing to travel to determine what matches they receive. This means you won’t receive matches who are unwilling to travel to meet as you will both have to “opt-in” for whatever distance range.

Additionally, since this service provides personality matching you shouldn’t just be meeting people who are far away; instead you should be meeting people who will mesh well with you and who will be worth the time and effort to meet. On that note: you need to be ultra honest when you create your eHarmony profile. It is very easy to try to soften your opinions to be more “matchable” but don’t do this! If you’re not brutally honest in what you’re looking for your matches are going to be less precise. This is the last thing you want when you’re considering traveling to meet someone.

Should I Test the Waters with Not-Quite-What-I-Want People Locally?

My personal opinion here is: absolutely. My reader has the best intentions as he doesn’t want to be dishonest by dating people with qualities he isn’t interested in. I think this speaks well of him.

HOWEVER, it’s just a date. You’re not promising anyone anything when you go on a first date. In addition, prior to the first date you should have plenty of time to set expectations with those people you meet. I think actually getting on dates is an important part of dating online as it helps refine what we are looking for and gives us a level of comfort as we continue to date.

My advice to my reader in this case was:

I would offer this suggestion: for the local dating just try to have some fun. Don’t take things too seriously since you know many of these people don’t have everything you’re hoping for but at the same time really try to enjoy your time meeting new people. To be 100% honest, the night I met my wife I was thrilled but also a little sad because I had learned to enjoy the process of dating online itself. If you can get to this point, dating locally can be a lot of fun (and you never know who you might meet).

If you’re blessed to know exactly what you’re looking for, that’s great. But never allow yourself to become so closed-minded that you won’t give people outside those parameters a chance. />

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eHarmony Review: Finding Compatibility Online

February 16th, 2011

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In this article I want to review eHarmony: what I like about the service, what I am not crazy about and some other areas that you should be aware of if you’re considering trying the service.

/> In this article I’ll be concentrating on reviewing eHarmony as a service and will not get into the nitty-gritty details of how the site works. If you’re interested in this information, I’ve already written an article covering these exact topics: How Does eHarmony Work?

A Brief Overview of eHarmony /> If you’re brand new to eHarmony, the service operates by providing you with “matches” which are other singles who they have calculated will be most compatible with you. To accomplish this, you will complete an in-depth questionnaire when you first create your profile.

In addition, another unique feature of eHarmony is their guided communication process that helps guide singles through the first few stages of getting to learn about one another.

The matching system and guided communication are the core of this online dating service and without them, eHarmony wouldn’t be much different than other online dating services. />

What I Like About eHarmony

In my opinion, there is a lot to like about eHarmony. It is a highly polished website that really does offer its members a solid chance of meeting that “special someone”. However, this is the case for most of the popular online dating services today (they tend to be popular for a reason!). However, there are several areas that I particularly like about eHarmony that puts in above some other dating services.

A Great Introduction to Online Dating /> eHarmony wasn’t the first online dating service I tried…or second. But I eventually did end up using it and looking back I wish it had been my first choice when I started dating online.

The main reason for this is that when I started dating online I had no idea what I was doing: I wasn’t sure if or when I should “wink” at someone, how many emails I should write before scheduling a date and so on.

The great thing about eHarmony is the process is guided through set steps that make it easy, even for the novice to online dating. When I started using eHarmony I remember finally feeling comfortable with how the communication process should move forward. Yeah, I still made a lot of mistakes dating online but getting through the initial communicating phase was much easier.

/> People More Likely to Meet /> This is only based on my personal experience but I found that the women I communicated with through the eHarmony guided communication process were much more likely to meet for a first date. I believe that the guided process led the conversations to naturally flow into actually meeting. With other online dating services, it was more common to have the other person simple “disappear”, either after a few emails or once I had asked her on a date.

The Matching System Is…Fun /> Overall, I felt that eHarmony did a good job matching me with other people. I don’t really remember any time where I thought to myself, “What in the world were they thinking matching me with this woman?”

However, aside from providing good matches, the matching system was actually fun and interesting to use. I enjoyed reading how the service saw my personality and the personality of others. It was an enjoyable process receiving new matching and reviewing them…more so than with other services where you browse through hundreds of profiles as you please. There seemed to be more purpose and that made parts of the process enjoyable where they were just plain-old processes with some other services.

Members Take Their Dating Seriously /> Unlike some other dating services, it seemed that there was a much higher number of people using eHarmony to find a real relationship. I’m sure this is in part to how eHarmony has marketed itself, making marriage a big part of how they promote their service. I appreciated the “culture” of the people using the dating service and know that the people I met were on the same page as I was.

Matching With an Emphasis on What Is Important to You /> When you fill out your personality profile, you rank what is important to you and what you want a potential mate to have. This is great for finding matches in areas such as religion. All dating services offer the option to enter religious affiliation but many times people enter this information arbitrarily or their level of commitment can’t be determined at all. With eHarmony, requiring that someone hold similar views will automatically remove these issues for you as they will have to define these areas when creating their personality profile.

The Free Events /> Another nice feature of eHarmony is their free events. I’m not sure if eHarmony created the “free dating event” but it’s the first major dating service I remember doing so. The rules to these events have changed over time but eHarmony continues to provide singles with a change to try their service out in one for or another. For more on this, see my article on the free eHarmony events.

What I Didn’t Like About eHarmony

I don’t believe I’ve ever tried an online dating service that I would consider perfect…and I don’t suppose there ever will be a “perfect” one. While I found my experiences with eHarmony very positive overall, there were a few areas that I didn’t like.

Low Numbers of Matches (Sometimes) /> I know this isn’t a problem for everyone but there were times were I was receiving only a few new matches every week. I’ve heard others talk about how they’ve received 100+ matches in a month and while I did have some great weeks as far as getting matches goes, I also had some light weeks as well.

This highlights something good about eHarmony: they’re not going to give you bad matches. The service will provide you with no matches instead of providing you with poor ones. I respect and appreciate that they take this approach but at the same time you can’t help but being a bit bothered when you have no one new to pursue.

I should mention that I lived in the country and was limiting my matches to 30 miles of myself. People who live closer to cities or who are willing to travel further shouldn’t have this problem…but for those who are like I was, this is something to keep in mind.

Getting Conversations Going /> I mentioned above in what I liked about eHarmony the fact that once I made it through the guided communication that the odds of meeting the women were very high. However, the other side of that coin is that I sometimes found it more difficult to get conversations started.

Looking back, I think this was more about the structure of the service as opposed to the people using it. When I was using a service like Match.com where I could contact anyone I wanted, the women who didn’t respond were quickly forgotten. In eHarmony, I had those matches sitting there reminding me that I had made the initial contact but that things never moved beyond that.

The Price Tag /> eHarmony is one of the more expensive online dating services. I’m sure the high cost is associated with the personalized matching that the service provides and I can understand that. Still, the price is a bit of a sticker shock the first time you see it. I do believe that the service is worth the money in the end…but that doesn’t mean I have to like the price! You can see details on the pricing here.

Final Thoughts

As far as my opinion goes, eHarmony is a great service. I think most people considering online dating would benefit from trying and understanding eHarmony, if only for one of their free events. However, I also feel that eHarmony would be the best option for people who fall into one of the following categories:

If you are new to or confused about online
If you’re shy about dating
Living in a big city where you feel overwhelmed by the options in other dating services
Dating with marriage as the ultimate goal
Dating with religion as your top priority
If you are currently frustrated by the type of people you are meeting with other dating services

While I believe eHarmony could work for most of us, I think the list above highlights situations where the service provides even more value.

Try eHarmony Today. />

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