The Dangers of Online Dating Sites

When seeking love through online dating sites, it is best to understand that not all is what it first appears. Members of online dating sites will often lie about several areas of their profile. Men will say they are taller, women will say they are younger, and in many cases present pictures of themselves from many years earlier. There have even been cases of violent criminals using online dating sites to find unwitting victims.

While most members of online dating sites do not encounter major problems, there has bee some incidents where a man will pretend to be an attractive women to lure young impassioned men, too horny for rational thought, to a dark and out of the way location, where he will find a group of burly men waiting to rob him. In this economic slowdown (why don't we just call it a recession?) more and more desperation will drive men to do things they normally would not... just to pay the bills.

Fortunately these horror stories normally occur from members using the multitude of free online dating sites that seem to pop up every second. The underlying problem here is, of course, anonymity. Being able to hide who you really are from the administrators of online dating sites may at first seem attractive, but can and does conceal the criminally minded.

If a woman, for example, were to be sexually assaulted by a man using a free dating service, and he did not use his real personal information, it may be impossible to track him down. Many online criminals are now using proxy sites to actually hide their ip addresses, so they could even operate from their own computers, at their own homes, and still be untraceable. This is why it can be very dangerous using a free service that does not require accredit card and other security measures to keep its members safe.

Social networking sites such as MySpace, are fast becoming the new online dating service among young and old alike. This is very dangerous territory as mentioned before when seeking to meet new people online for romance. Furthermore, men are becoming the prime target for crime since it is almost too easy to lure young men away from the safety of his home with the promise of sexual favors. Women, on the other hand, will typically have some experience with “creeps”, and can usually detect one miles away.

Guys meeting a seemingly hot woman online need to first talk to her on the phone. Yes, voice changing technology does exist, but it is very difficulty for a man to successfully pass as a woman in real life, unless he is a trained actor. Thugs intent on a mugging, while often times clever, are not that adept. In short, when using online dating sites be very careful who you actually plan to meet face to face, the face you actually meet may not be what you were expecting!