ONLINE DATING SAFETY: Online dating has real hazards for females. Women should read up on best advice, safety tips and guidelines, as well as watching out for red flags, before they venture out on any Internet dates.

DESPITE THE CLAIMS MADE by dating app companies that they are doing all they can to promote safety for women who engaged in online dating, nevertheless abuses do occur regularly, including serious assault and occasionally murder. In November 2019 new concerns about the safety of women using online dating services were raised after Grace Millane, a 21-year-old British backpacker, was murdered on a first date by a man she met on ‘Tinder’ while travelling in New Zealand.

GOOGLE SEARCHES - IS ONLINE DATING SAFE? 

One measure of the ongoing concerns of young women about whether or not online dating is safe, are the number of Google search queries about online dating safety tips, advice and guidelines. Across the USA, Canada, Britain and Australia Google records thousands of annual queries about issues around safe online dating. For example, the question, “Is online dating safe?” is Googled a total of 1,300 times per month, while “online dating safety tips”, and “online dating red flags safety” are searched 320 times and 70 times respectively. These numbers may seem small initially, but when all the variants are added together they amount to approximately 40,000 searches per year across the four named countries. This provides a strong indication of the concerns of young women about the safety of dating online, and raises further questions about other uses that also share these concerns but have yet to turn to Google for safety tips about how to protect themselves or to spot potential red flags when assessing potential matches.

BEST NEW ONLINE DATING SAFETY TIPS, ADVICE, RED FLAGS

My new book about online dating contains the best new safety guidelines and tips for women who are Internet dating or who are thinking about subscribing for the first time. Here is a summary of my recommendations:

Make an initial phone call

If you are unsure about meeting a prospective date after messaging, ask to speak to them first on the phone. (Initially, when you make the call, use the feature on your mobile that allows you to withhold your number). This is a good way to get a feel for who the person is. Keep your general tone light-hearted and humorous, so it doesn’t come across like an interview. As well as asking him questions, invite him to ask questions about you too. Any man who has issues with your desire to ask questions is showing you a red flag, and should be avoided.

Meet in public, in daylight

If you do decide to meet, for safety always do so in a public place — never at their home or yours. A first date should be cheap and brief. If you are meeting after work or studies during the week, this usually means evening drinks, which can quickly become expensive, depending on the number of weekly dates you go on. Depending on where you live and the time of year, it may also mean travelling home afterwards in the dark. Instead, the best tip is to focus first dates on the weekends, enabling you to meet for tea or coffee in the daytime. 

Time limit

Limit first dates to one hour. This is the optimal time you should give another human being. It is also short enough to cut things off if you feel the person isn’t for you. Set your timeframe before you meet. Say something like, “It would be great to meet you for coffee for an hour on Saturday at 12.” 

No food

First dates should not usually include a meal, unless you are getting on so well during the drinks phase that both of you feel comfortable extending it. A good safety tip is to void anybody who insists on going straight to food first, without having met you. Keep in mind that there are still many men out there who think that if they pay for dinner and drinks, that the woman owes them something other than conversation.

Tell someone

The most important piece of online dating safety advice is to tell someone where you are going, who you are meeting, and what time you will return. If you have your date’s phone number, give it to your contact also, and let your date know. Abusers are less likely to act if they know someone else has their phone number, and will call if anything goes wrong. 

If you seek hook-ups or one-night stands, and so decide to meet at their home or yours, you should still tell someone, as outlined. Whatever you are looking for from a date, always remember, if your instinct about a person is that they are somehow not right, trust that feeling, and avoid them.

My new book about online dating is out now. Take a look! (£9.99/$12.99)