INTERNET DECEIT Happy Hunting Ground or Home of the Predators?? Rick Archer August 2002 Last update: January 2006

Special Section Below:   Rules to capture heart of Mr. Right in cyberspace

1. This is a FACT:  Two SSQQ instructors, both women, met their future husbands on the Internet.  Both women are very happily married.
    The obvious conclusion is that Internet Dating can be effective.

2. The second FACT is that after reading some of our stories, you will realize a great deal of caution is necessary.

• Let us begin our tale with this personal ad.  The following ad appeared in a recent Houston singles magazine:

"SBF" (single, black, female) seeks Male companionship.

Age and ethnicity unimportant.  I'm a young, svelte, good looking girl who LOVES to play.  I love long walks in the woods, riding in your pickup truck, hunting/camping/fishing trips.  I love cozy winter nights spent lying by the fire.  Candlelight dinners will have me eating out of your hand.  Rub me the right way and watch me respond.  I'll be at the front door when you get home from work, wearing only what nature gave me.  Kiss me and I'm yours.  Call xxx-xxxx and ask for Daisy!"

• From The Miami Sun-Sentinel,  May 7, 2002

Former Broward County (Fla.) librarian William Coday's online personal ad touts his multilingualism, world travels, compassion, and love of Keats and baroque music.

What his ad does not mention is that he was convicted of murdering his 1978 and 1997 girlfriends, both with hammers, and that he is in jail awaiting a jury's decision whether he gets death for the latter crime.

Mr. Coday claims to respond to as many as 100 inquiries a week about his personal ad.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The Internet is said to be the greatest playground for sexual predators in the History of Western Civilization.  You have no idea who you are really talking to and whether they are telling the truth. People make mistakes when they are lonely. Their judgment is impaired and their defenses aren't as strong. Sometimes they take risks because they get tired of waiting. There are men (and women too) who literally email 25 "prospects" a night. The Internet is full of men who are pursuing a dozen women simultaneously. Worst of all, people can lie through their teeth and it can be very difficult for an honest person to weed out the good from the bad.  Here is an simple example below:  "SWM looks for soul mate. I am a college professor, widowed, with grown children.  I live in a small, peyton-place like environment where it is impossible to date without a hundred eyes following my every movement.  As my wife was very popular before her death, I feel extremely awkward "dating" under the scrutiny of so many people. My field of study is ancient civilizations such as the culture of India, China, and the Bible lands.  I love to read, I love animals, and I love to take long walks in the forest near my home and be near nature. I am a pretty big guy. People ask me if I played football when I was younger. I am attractive in a "scholarly" way.  I am told I appear very distinguished in a classroom setting. But right now I have never been lonelier in my entire life.  I could use a friend.  I am seeking a relationship with an intelligent, sensitive woman - hopefully pleasant in appearance - to share my life with."   (By the way, I wrote the personal ad myself. Took 5 minutes.  I guess you get my point. Plus that's my picture. Now you know what I look like naked. RA)

The Deceit Story: How One Man Used the Internet to Lie.   (A True Story told to Rick Archer by a former SSQQ Student) Written in July 2002 INTRODUCTION One night in 2002 I was having a conversation with a woman friend here at the studio. I had known her for several years - she was a volunteer in one of our classes - and apparently she trusted me enough to share a very private story. The conversation began when she told me how much the studio had helped her come out of a shell brought on by a bitter experience. I asked her if she wanted to share the story with me. She smiled ruefully and told me roughly what had happened. You know me - I asked a couple questions.  The more she got into the story, the more interested I became. So I suggested we sit down on a couch in Room 2. I spent the entire Practice Night listening to her amazing story. I have published this story with her permission. As an 2006 update, on a cheerful note let me add she is married now. People do heal.

Chapter One - The Case of the Mysterious Disappearance This woman told me a story about a man she met through Internet Dating. After several exchanges of emails, they had a phone conversation. That is when she realized he was very intelligent and quite polished. He turned out to be an airline pilot, very handsome, very sophisticated.  Besides being physically fit and well-dressed in a preppie chambray and khaki shirts way, she estimated his income at $100,000 a year. His stand-alone home with its wide, rolling well-groomed lawn was absolutely beautiful. It had to be worth easily a half a million. The woman and the pilot began a romance that quickly flourished. It reached the point where two months into the relationship the man uttered the "L" word.  With that in mind, it came as a huge shock to the woman when the relationship fizzled just weeks later for no obvious reason. They had finished making love. Moments later he suddenly got up out of bed and muttered, "I can't do this any more."  The man acted weird and said he had started to get cold feet. He quickly dressed and left her house. She was hurt and she was puzzled. They had been seeing each other for three months and this was the FIRST hint that anything was wrong!  This made no sense. She assumed he had gotten scared by the strength of the relationship and would calm down in a couple days, but this was not the case. She did not hear from him. As the days went by, the woman racked her brains for some sort of explanation. There had been no fights, no lover's quarrels, and no obvious problems. After a week passed, the woman made several phone calls and even wrote two letters. He did respond to one of the phone calls. Over the phone he told her he had decided he didn't think they 'clicked' well enough to take things any further. And that was it. The man who said he was in love with her just one month earlier was out of her life. Sudden "disappearing acts" are of course the dangers of any romance, but this abrupt 180 degree U-turn nevertheless left the woman hurt and confused. As she picked up the pieces, nothing made any sense.  Since she had been to his luxurious house on several occasions, she knew where he lived.  It was actually fairly close to her home. For a while she would drive by occasionally. There was never anyone home. Finally she just shrugged her shoulders and decided to move on.   Chapter Two - A Chance Encounter Rarely do we get a chance to peek behind the scenes and see what is really going on in these situations, but this particular story had a second chapter. By coincidence six months later the woman ran into her former lover at a neighborhood grocery store parking lot. She noticed he had an attractive woman sitting in the passenger's side of his car. The man was very excited to see her!  Completely ignoring his lady companion who was sitting in the car watching him, the man struck up an animated conversation right there in the parking lot.  Apparently the spark was back, at least in his mind. She was bemused by the fact that the magnitude of how poorly he had treated her didn't seem to even enter his mind. Nevertheless, she was pretty curious about this man, so she smiled and played along. She could tell he was fascinated with her again. Therefore she wasn't very surprised to hear from him the same day when he phoned to ask her out for a date. After dinner, they went back to his luxurious house.  Out came the wine. On came the music.  They both sat on the same couch. Based on that gleam in his eye that had been there all evening, she had a hunch where this was supposed to be leading. Obviously for him, the "Chase" was more fun than the relationship itself.  Would his formidable charms work again?  Would she give in for old times sake? So she began a conversation.  She asked him why he had gotten so weird the first time. He explained that although his feelings for her were real, he admitted his conscience had begun to bother him. He then confessed he was married. He had a wife in Dallas. A step-daughter too. (Side note: the woman had previously discovered through some Internet research that he also owned a home in Dallas. Finally things were making a little sense.) The news about the marriage didn't take her completely off-guard; several of her girl friends had explained this was the only explanation that made any sense.  So she was able to maintain her poise and pretend his words didn't hurt or upset her. But she did feel her anger rising; she had a personal motto to NEVER come close to a married man. Then she asked him about this magnificent home. He said kept this home in Houston as an investment. His job with Continental brought him here so frequently that it was easier just to maintain a home which he said he slept in at least three nights a week. She knew he was fibbing now. Based on her casual drive-bys, he obviously wasn't there very much.  However the one thing she knew beyond the shadow of a doubt was there was no woman living there.  While he had been in the restroom, a quick double-check confirmed her earlier conclusion.  The enormous place may have been mysteriously full of furniture - very odd for a man without a family - but there was no sign of a woman. Our woman recalled wondering why his expensive patio home looked so little "lived in". At the time she had concluded he must be a "neat freak".  She also recalled that the existence of an actual home in a good neighborhood had been one of the reasons she had decided to trust him in the first place.  With his educated charm, his excellent job with Continental, and this fine home, he seemed like a person who had it all together. She began to shake her head at her own foolishness. She was starting to get angry at how easily she had been deceived. Either it was the wine or the fact that she kept smiling despite his revelations, but this was candid he had ever been.  So the woman asked a couple more questions. As she listened to him explain, she felt even more anger rising in her when suddenly she realized she had had enough. Without warning, she got up off the couch, grabbed her pocketbook and left to go her car. She still remembers him sitting on the couch next to her, two wine glasses half-empty, the romantic music in the background, with his mouth wide open with surprise at her sudden departure. Finally he regained his wits and raced to her car. That's when he begged her to stay, adding he realized tonight how much he cared about her which is why he had decided to start fresh with the truth.  The thought that crossed her mind was that he really just wanted to get laid.  Still, it was amusing to see how desperate he suddenly was.  She smiled as she realized she had completely ruined his hopes for an amorous evening.  He probably should have kept his mouth shut.   Then she drove away leaving him hanging there. She never heard from him again.  As she thought about it, she realized his profession as a pilot gave him the freedom to effortlessly carry on relationships with two, three, or even more women in different cities. How were they supposed to catch him?  She then recalled the story of the male airline flight attendant who was credited with the spread of AIDS back in the 1970s. Flying from one destination to another, this man was credited as the person who initiated the outbreak of AIDS in a dozen different cities. And who knows who her pilot had slept with in Seattle?  Or Vancouver?  Or Los Angeles?  Just one bad decision on his part and where did that put her?  She had been on the pill. They had unprotected sex many times. Her anger grew and grew. And then she thought about the attractive woman in his car back in the parking lot. This game had been going on for a long time. The woman surmised that there had been others before her and others after her who had fallen for the same well-conceived trap. In her words, he was pretty smooth and knew all the lines. Apparently his act had been polished through years of practice.  And that gorgeous house was a stroke of genius. She believed that was his home when in reality he simply used it to create an aura of respectability to help with his gamesmanship. She idly wondered if he had a trophy room... What a fool she had been. She was so disgusted by his blatant treachery it took her nearly a year and a half before she could trust a man enough to try again. And the point is:  The airline pilot used the Internet to find his victims.  You could be next.

MY REACTION TO THE DECEIT STORY The "Deceit Story" colored my perceptions of Internet dating for a long time. Previous stories in the news of women being murdered by men they met on the Internet had been around for some time to confirm my view of the Internet as a place filled with predators and danger.  But here was the real-life story of an urban "Big Game Hunter" who had developed an effective ploy to bag some high-quality women on his trips into Houston.  I had never before in my life heard of such an elaborate deception.  Stories about traveling salesmen who take their rings off before entering singles bars have been around for a long time.  But this guy wasn't interested in hustling low-life, low-IQ babes in bars. I think he preferred nice girls...pretty, intelligent, decent, respectable women with energy and warmth. And apparently he decided the only way a married man could get into their pants was through his well-disguised technique.  I would be curious to know more about his story. In fact, I think on one level this guy really did feel guilty.  And when he said he was falling in love, he probably meant it at the time.  No one forced him to say it. Furthermore they had already "done the deed", so it wasn't like he needed to use the oldest line in the book for that purpose.  Plus he was described as being very affectionate to the woman's children. I think one side of this man's personality was that of a "Nice Guy".  This woman was too smart to be deceived by someone pretending to be a nice guy. There was a good side to this man, which makes his dark side even harder to comprehend... I mean, it sounds to me like he has an exploitive deceitful nature living parallel to his nice guy personality. A modern Jekyll-Hyde?  Now that's Creepy!  Is this why guys like him are called "creeps"? THE FINAL WORD Was there a down-side to this life of deception?  Did he really feel guilty?  And why was he so eager to try to revive the relationship?  These questions will never be answered, but they do make you wonder what goes through the mind of a modern-day Casanova. But this Casanova was not the delightful man of the movies who uses his roguish nature to have his way with women. This guy actually hurts people!  Their tears are real, their dashed hopes are painful, and their trust in their fellow man diminished. The existence of people like Mr. Deceit is sad. Based on how he behaved, it underlines the cruel way many people treat their fellow man. The woman he met was so hurt and so shaken by his tactics it was a year and a half until she was able to try again. Be it personal ads in the paper, dating services, or Internet dating sites, the risk of meeting frauds, lunatics, or men looking for a little meat on the side seems to be incredibly high.  But despite these obvious dangers, it is apparent many people persist in giving these risky, time-consuming venues a try.  True Love seems so difficult to find that it seems people will try practically anything to find what they are looking for.   It is a fact that people need love and companionship.  What a shame it is all the crap they have to go through to find it.   INTERNET DATING MAY NOT BE ALL BAD Based on the Deceit Story, I carried around my negative perceptions of Internet Dating for some time. However one day in June 2002, a simple phone conversation challenged my view that Internet Dating was a very bad idea. I was at Gary Richardson's Floppy Wizard Computer Store getting my computer fixed when a woman phoned the store and introduced herself as 'Debbie from SSQQ'. I was kind of curious since I didn't have a 'Debbie' on the staff at the time. So I decided to talk to her myself. It turned out to be Debbie Awad, a former student and also a friend.  Debbie was a recent recipient of a new computer and was calling for help with her modem. Since Gary was busy with another customer, I chatted with Debbie until Gary could get free for her.  Known to me as Debbie Solomon until her marriage a couple of years earlier, I had long enjoyed Debbie's sharp mind and quick wit. Just out of curiosity, I asked Debbie how she met her husband since I knew he didn't dance. She said she met him on the Internet. I was amazed. I told her I thought only evil people were on the Internet. I began to ask her some more questions. This is when I found out that her friend Ruth Ann Manison had also met her husband through the Internet. Ruth Ann had been an "organizer extraordinaire" for the social activities for the SSQQ In-Crowd back in 1998 through 2000 along with Daryl Armstrong and Rachel Seff.  And then I remembered that Susie Merrill, SSQQ instructor and aforementioned coach of the Heartbeat dance team, had also met her husband Bill through the Internet in 1999. It surprised the heck out of me when I realized I actually knew 3 different women who had met their husbands through the Internet. This strongly challenged my perception that Internet dating was a dangerous no-win proposition.  So I became curious about founding out more what really goes on with Internet dating. I have a favorite expression - Experience is a comb that life throws you after you have lost your hair.  But do we always have to learn things the hard way? A lot of people in the SSQQ Community have had experiences with Internet Dating. It occurred to me that if some of our readers would share their stories, maybe we could all get a better picture of what really is going on out there without losing our hair. So here is what I did. In July 2002, I published the Deceit Story in the SSQQ Newsletter. Then at the end of the story, I asked Newsletter readers to share any stories of their own adding a promise of anonymity. In response to my request for some Internet dating stories, I received nine very interesting stories which I have added to this article.

THE NINE STORIES FROM SSQQ NEWSLETTER READERS

Story 1

This is in response to your Internet dating inquiry.  First, let me say that I have made some friends from the Internet, both men and women, who continue to be friends.  There are a lot of nice NORMAL folks out there.  But there are others who are not so nice, and even dangerous.

I’m a single mother with a responsibility to be CAREFUL for the sake of my children.  95% of the people I have looked up on this site are honest and are who they represent themselves to be.  But below are three examples of the other 5%.

I go to two sites:

1)      Whitepages.com (free site)  and 2.) PublicData.com ($25.00 / year)

Once, a year ago, a man represented himself as single.  Gave me his phone number.  Whitepages has a link: “other people at this address”.  Imagine my surprise to see “Mrs. Smith’s number listed as living at the same address..  I emailed Mr. Smith, him asking who “Mrs.” was?  He replied “Ok, you got me, but I’m unhappily married”  HEY.. NOT MY PROBLEM!

But the real reason I bothered to send this is because of  two recent events.  One man, who appeared very docile from his writings, actually has a string of convictions (2 for assault, four others for DWI) dating from 1992 to 1998.

The other story is a case of NOT following my own advice.  I didn’t run a check on a man from another town in Texas.  Our emails progressed and we talked on the phone twice.  The conversations were pleasant.  Then, I started getting “I love you” emails of a nature which I found VERY unsettling!  So I ran a check.  The conviction was 17 years old, but it was there non-the-less.  He had served 3 years in prison.  I found out just how very unstable he was when I wrote him to say I would no longer be  corresponding with him.  I did not mention my findings, but rather that I just didn’t feel comfortable w/ internet dating.  I received 5 emails within two days.  Each one a little more ominous than the last.  I blocked him from my email, but he does have my phone number should he decide to use it.  So far, thankfully, he has not. 

You did mention that if the story sounded too bizarre or unbelievable that you wouldn’t include it.  If you want it, the data is there to verify. I believe that if people (especially women) are going to use the internet to date, they should also know what data is available out there on themselves and others.  These “others” are sometimes very unscrupulous people.

I know that searching these databases may seem like stooping to a low level, but it is only a tool.  When you meet someone IN PERSON, you can tell more about them from their body language and the WAY they say things, than by WHAT they say.  Over the net, you are much more handicapped in picking up these “vibes” others. 
 

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Story 2

I’ve been enrolled on a dating website for approximately six months. In that time, six ladies have contacted me, and I’ve contacted one. Things have worked out well with the lady whom I contacted. I’ve been dating her exclusively for about two months, now.

Of the six who contacted me, I actually had dates with four. All four were sweet. Some had a lot in common with me, and some didn’t. That intangible “romantic chemistry” was missing with all four, and we all stopped seeing each other after 1 to 5 dates.

On the whole, I find the internet to be a painless way to find a date, but an inefficient way to find romance. It is said that finding romance is a numbers game – you have to meet lots of people to find one with romantic potential. Meeting people one-at-a-time is inefficient, time-consuming, and expensive. Group activities (e.g. taking dance classes at SSQQ) is a superior way to screen large numbers of people.

One of the ladies I dated had contacted eight guys from the website!  I was her first date. If she had one date with each guy, she’d be investing eight evenings to meet only eight people!  Imagine the cost of eight dinners-for-two, if a guy were to contact eight ladies!

The two whom I didn’t date had some sort of “fear factor” going. Remember, they contacted me first!  One established a nice e-mail rapport with me, until I asked her to dinner. Then the e-mails abruptly stopped.

A WEIRD ENCOUNTER

The other provided me with an interesting tale to tell. We also established a fine rapport via e-mail. She had recently earned her Masters degree, and her messages were warm, clear and coherent – until I asked her out to dinner.

We both have busy schedules, and the first day we were both open was about two weeks later, on a Wednesday evening. When she accepted, she wrote, “Just shoot me an email or call when we get a little closer to determine when and where.”

I felt that working out such details is best done by phone, so I then requested her phone number. I heard nothing for a week and a half.

On Monday night, two evenings before our scheduled date, my (listed) phone rang. When I answered, the caller refused to speak. Upon arrival at work the next morning, I found an e-mail message, which she sent two minutes after the silent phone call. In it , she wrote, “Okay - that was me who just called - its been a little crazy since over the last several days....” and “If Wednesday is not good for you anymore, maybe we could do lunch sometime?” (Our offices are nowhere near each other!) She also provided her phone number.

 Sensing that something was amiss, I replied, “'Glad to hear from you! I was beginning to wonder if you'd gotten ‘cold feet!’  I'm still looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. If other concerns have gotten in the way, I'd be glad to reschedule. I'll call you this evening, at home.”

She replied “Actually, just considering since we haven't even really exchanged much information about each other, it might be better to do that first prior to meeting?”   

After interpreting that cryptic message, I concluded that she wanted to talk to me on the telephone. I placed two widely-spaced telephone calls to her number that evening, and left two messages. My calls were not returned. The next morning (the day of the scheduled date), there were no e-mail messages from her, either. At midday, I sent her a message, requesting confirmation that I’d dialed the correct number. She immediately responded, “Sorry - right number - home - I was out last night until about 9:45pm – too late to call.”

By this point, I’d received several cryptic and curt messages, plus the phantom phone call. I wrote, “I've got the impression that you'd rather not meet me for dinner tonight. Is my impression accurate?”

That’s when she unloaded, “Yes. I've had a few ‘bad date’ experiences recently - I just think it's maybe a little safer if we talk first, don't you?  Or are you naturally such a risk taker?”

To anyone who knows me, the notion of me as a “risk taker” is laughable!  This lady had two weeks to communicate with me, by e-mail or telephone, and she filled that time with avoidance and bizarre behavior. Then she fabricated a wildly inaccurate idea about my character, based on what she perceived in others. A dinner-date, on neutral ground, is hardly a risky activity, and a face-to-face encounter is far more informative than scores of e-mails and telephone calls could ever be! (How can one sustain correspondence with a total stranger, in the absence of shared experiences?) In a final message, I told her that I was not interested in a virtual relationship, and that, since I’d been placed in a defensive position, I wouldn’t be comfortable on a date with her.

From this experience, I learned a lesson about internet dating. This lady did not have a profile posted on the website. In her initial overture, she explained that she was newly-enrolled, and hadn’t yet had a chance to post a profile. Now, months later, her profile is still not posted. The proprietor of the website has a word for members without profiles. She calls them “lurkers,” who usually have something to hide. In the future, I will likely avoid any “lurkers” who contact me.

AN EXPERIENCE WITH THE PERSONALS ADS

I’ve also had a remarkable dating experience through the Personals ads. One day, I was using the personals section to protect my kitchen table while using its surface to perform a small repair. One of the ads caught my attention.

I responded, and we arranged for a delightful dinner-date. This lady was stunningly beautiful, and her personality was vivacious!  She had been first-runner-up in a national fitness competition, and she had appeared in a nationally-distributed fitness magazine, and in the most prestigious lingerie catalog around (You know which one!)  At dinner, she suggested that we extend the date to go nightclubbing. Even though nightclubs and late hours are not my thing, the evening was memorable.

‘Sounds too good to be true?  It was. We had about a dozen dates in a five-month period. While we did have some nice times together, the following became apparent:

• When this lady ordered a drink in a bar, she would always order a beer and a brandy together. On every Friday and Saturday night, she would place exactly three such orders. This is a lot of alcohol in a tiny woman. When she drank, her personality became transformed. She became scowling and loud. She prided herself in never having to buy her own drinks. There were always an abundance of men in the bar who were eager to buy her drinks. When on a date, she expected her date to buy all those drinks.
   
• Shortly after we started dating, she hit me up to "sponsor" her in a fitness competition.
   
• While an industrious hard-worker, she had difficulty staying within her personal budget. She twice borrowed money from me. She did eventually pay me back (by borrowing from other men), but I learned that mixing banking with dating results in a degraded dating experience. Our "relationship" was extended longer than it should have been, simply because of an outstanding debt.
   
• She was overly cautious regarding men. For the first three months, she insisted that all dates begin and end in brightly-lit parking lots. (How romantic!) After three months, she was amenable to meeting at my home. I was never allowed to pick her up at her place for a date. I suspect that she was ashamed of her apartment, for she had been married to a tycoon in a prior life.
   
• She had requested, and obtained from a prior beau, a loan for a new car. She was then surprised that he objected to her seeing other men. After she dumped him, he repossessed the car.
   
• Her dream was to own her own fitness studio. She planned to accomplish that goal by marrying a man who would buy her a studio. She also wanted him to manage the studio for her, so she could focus on the fitness aspects of the business.
   
• She spent most of her leisure time with a cadre of gay male friends. Dates could not be arranged more than two days in advance, because she wouldn't know if plans with her friends might materialize. She would cancel dates when her friends beckoned.
   
• With one exception (a lady who was moving to another city), she would not allow me to meet her friends.
   
• She refused to go to movies. They put her to sleep.
   
• When we went to the opera, she requested that we leave during the second intermission.
   
• After five months of patient dating, I arranged for a romantic evening: dinner in a chic, trendy restaurant, followed by dancing in her favorite posh, live-jazz nightclub. At the end of the evening, I asked her for a "real kiss." She said "No!" When I asked her why, she replied, "I don't want our first kiss to be in your car!" I inquired, "Where would an appropriate place be?" She responded by rattling off a list of Caribbean islands and tropical paradise locations!

Needless to say, she’ll have to find another guy for that Caribbean vacation!

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Story 3

Here is the info on some of my Internet mishaps.

I dated one guy for almost a month before he told me he was married (on my birthday no less!).  Fortunately, I had already made plans to go swing dancing with a friend from the studio who provided a sympathetic ear, as well as a good dance partner.  However, it took me a while to convince the married man to leave me alone.  He called me, emailed me and even sent me flowers, begging me not to break up with him.

I met one guy for breakfast at Le Peep near the Galleria.  We talked for 2 hours, and had a great time.

He told me he liked to dance, and paid me many compliments.  I got up to go to the bathroom, and came back to an empty table.  He had eaten a huge breakfast, and left me with the check (about $20).  I was pretty peeved, until a friend pointed out that some women get suckered for $20,000.

Another guy that I went out with, turned out to be very arrogant.  I wasn’t sure if we’d have anything in common, but he enticed me with the statement that he was a ballroom dancer.  At dinner, he made sarcastic remarks about the medical profession (after I told him I was a nurse), Houston (he’d been living in Hawaii and didn’t like the fact that he couldn’t go canoeing in an outrigger), my style of dancing (when I innocently asked if quickstep was anything like 2step).

Needless to say, I ate quickly, but I didn’t go to the bathroom until he paid the check.  After I came back from the bathroom, I didn’t even sit back down.  I told him I needed to go home and go to bed (it was about 8:30 pm).

Most of the men that I met were very nice, but there was no spark.  I did date a few of them for 2 weeks to 2 months.  As with any kind of dating, there are creeps out there. 

One guy wanted to meet me for coffee.  He showed up in a muscle shirt with some very large muscles on display.

Unfortunately, he was only in good shape physically.  He kept telling me that he needed a massage.  Since I’d known him all of 10 minutes, and he wasn’t particularly attractive, you can guess his chances of getting that.

I finally told him he needed to hire a masseuse, drank my coffee (quickly) and left.

Another guy met me at a Starbucks next to a Barnes and Noble, but never offered to buy me a cup of coffee.  I felt bad just taking up a table, so I finally told him I was going to order a coffee.  He came with me to the counter to order tea.  He then proceeded to show me one of the new $100 bills (with the larger picture) and commented on how fake it looked.  He was relatively humorless, but thought he had a good sense of humor.

His ad when I answered it read “No Republicans and no C&W”  (this was pre-SSQQ for me).  I saw his ad in for months after that, but he later added “No vegetarians”.

On another “meeting date”, at a different Starbucks, I met a very youthful looking man in his mid-30s (he looked about 20).  He was pleasant enough, even when describing his psychotic episodes in college.  Of course, a different diet and vitamins had helped him keep them under control.  I already knew that we weren’t a match because he told me he never could understand what the big deal was about sex.  He found it “kind of irritating”.

!!!! I’m a SCORPIO!!  I might be able to overlook psychosis, but not asexuality - that’s really perverse.

I’ll keep thinking about my Internet days and see what else I can come up with.  Some were nice but boring, others were only interested in a quick screw.  Luckily for me, I have a sense of humor and adventure.  I just looked on all of it as a learning experience, and made sure they didn’t know where I lived.

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Story 4

I will never consider Internet dating, and I’ll tell you why. I discovered my husband trying to pick up women on the Internet. This was the nail in the coffin of our marriage. He was doing this, spending hours on the computer, and it was costing us per hour back then. We could scarcely afford that, and he didn’t care. Nor did he care to take care of our children, spend any time with them, or goodness knows, do anything around the house to help out. He continues to be very self-absorbed. He eventually did find someone desperate enough to get married. She moved from California to do it. At least she’s nice to my boys...when they can afford to (feed them) and have them for the weekend. They still never have money. So sad. You probably won’t want to include this story!

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Story 5

I don’t have a dramatic Internet story to tell - just some experience to share that might help someone who is considering using it as a venue for meeting someone.   If you can use it, cool - if not, my feelings won’t be hurt!  :-) 

I picked the Internet because I worked at a company with 10 people, attended a church of less than 100 people and had a circle of friends who didn’t know any single guys.  My places to meet guys were pretty limited.

I began looking a a web site that specialized in friendships and pen pals (friendfinder.com) and moved on to matchmaker.com (the best one in my experience), singlesheaven.com, love at aol (the oddest people) and other similar web sites including a Christian singles web sites (the poorest pickin’s of them all) and accidentally went to adult friendfinders (all I can say is wow - this is the place where the murderers must hang out ..... or voyeurs  ... very strange place where people post naked pictures of themselves - do they LOOK at those pictures before they put them up there - certain parts of the anatomy just don’t look that good with a zoom lens - but that’s a different article for your newsletter! )

As for safety, I think you have to exercise good sense and caution on all dates.  Who is to say the guy you met at the church social or the supermarket is any less or more an axe murderer than the guy you meet on the Internet?

Good Rules of ANY Dating for me are:

• Get as much info as possible but minimum info.  Full name, a phone number (work, home, mobile), address if you can, work place if you can.  Men seem to be a lot less cautious than women and would give me their home and work number before ever meeting me.  Then give that info to one of your friends.

• Never give out any phone number other than your mobile number.  Never give out home address or allow someone you don’t know well to pick you up at home.

• Meet in a public place in daylight for a first, brief encounter (i.e. coffee).  It stinks to be on a bad date for 3 hours in the dark.

• Take your own car.  Don’t meet in a parking lot and get into a car with someone you don’t know well.

• Arrange to call a friend when you get home to let someone know you made it back OK.

Pros of Internet Dating

• You really can get to know someone very well before you decide to go out if they give you accurate info.  Saves spending 3 hours talking to the guy and realizing he loves WWF wrestling and muscle cars and you like walks on the beach and art museums.

• Lots of variety and lots of people to pick from.

• It can be a lot of fun

• There are a lot of normal people out there just like you looking for a friend or date.

Cons of Internet Dating

I learned the things to watch out for:

• People lie.  Darn!  But they lie in person too - it’s just in person they can’t post a picture of themselves 20 years ago and get away with it. You can’t see their eyes and read the chemistry until you meet them.  I’ve had great email and phone conversations with a guy for a month only to meet them and yuck! - not enough chemistry for a friendship.  On the flip side I’ve had average email conversations with men that ended up with great chemistry in person.

• Guys who fall in love with you quickly - run quickly - they want someone and if you are reasonably nice, you will be their someone

• Guys who are still wrapped up in griping about their ex or paying child support.  Puh... leeese.  I’m a single mom raising 2 sons on my own.  I can listen to 1 or 2 stories about your ex and then drop it.  Otherwise, go to counseling and stop using me as your therapist.  It’s a date - not a couch session with your shrink.   Not a problem limited to internet dates by the way.

• Be smart, take precautions and realize that the person on the other side of the email may be just as normal as you are....or not.  But you’re smart people - use your brain, try internet dating and have fun.  If you end up dating Ted Bundy, you didn’t use your brain and shame on you!

Enjoy!

P.S.  I met my significant other of 2 years at SSQQ after giving up on dating (internet and otherwise) because I got tired all the games people play on the dating game.  We became friends first and then after a group outing one night with a bunch of SSQQ friend, I got a surprise kiss in the parking lot ... and the rest is history. 

Go SSQQ!  :-)

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Story 6

I was just reading the newsletter and the section about internet dating. I have used that method, I do not have a particular story to share good or bad but I found that meeting women via the internet is no different than meeting them any other way. To me, the internet is just another method you can use just like joining a “common interest” club, a church singles group, or taking dance classes.

My experience with meeting women via the internet has been positive. Sure, there were bumps in the road such as one woman who totally lied about her appearance (this was before photo profiles became prevalent) and another woman who stood me up without a good explanation for it. However, I simply just chalked those up for experience, laughed it off, and moved on to the next one. Life is way too short to let that get to you. You just never know when that special someone might walk into your life and, if you are too busy mourning over what went bad, that opportunity will pass you by.

I presently have a profile on Match.Com; On their site, they have a section devoted to guidelines to follow when responding to someone who has expressed an interest. I do not want to sound cruel, but I would be willing to bet that if that woman with the airline pilot had followed some of those guidelines, she could have saved herself a lot of grief. Sure, the pilot may have been a smooth operator who could cover most of his tracks but there is no way he can cover them all.

Thanks for reading.

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Story 7

On a personal level, things are sort of the same.  I'm still single.  I've had one or two dates but haven't met anyone I wanted to see again.  I know, I know, I think I must be a little too picky.  After all I do require that the men I date at least have teeth :)  

I think I just must have needed a break for a while in the relationship/dating area.  I don't worry about it.  I do miss having someone in my life at times.  As a matter of fact I have just signed up on the Internet.  This is not the first time I have given this a try.  I have tried it off and on for the last 3-4 years.  I have not ever met anyone I dated more than 3 times but have made some friends.  

I know you were asking for some stories.  I do have maybe one or two stories, one was a guy I went to lunch with that had 2 cell phones and talked on both of them almost the entire time!  The Internet dating thing has improved though.  When I first signed on people did not have pictures.  I figured I could stand anything for an hour and I guess I was right but I would hate to go through that again.  You would write back and forth getting to know one another and then arrange to meet.  Most of the time their writing skills far exceeded other attributes and it was a disappointment.  Perhaps I gave up too easily because after 1 or 2 of these meetings I would take my profile off.  Nowadays, if no pic...no email.  I won't bother.  

I have always had difficulty turning someone down in person so, most of the time I'm ashamed to admit I would say "yes" when they asked me if I would see them again.  Then I would get home and fret about what I was going to say to get myself out of this.  It usually went something like this....I'm afraid I haven't been totally honest with you or myself.  "After our _______(lunch or dinner) I realize that I am not ready to start dating after the ! breakup from my boyfriend."  Isn't that pitiful?  I have a few other excuses.  I have even tried the truth!!  

Here is my most interesting story. The other day I replied to a man who was 6'5", lives on 2 acres in Tomball, and to top it off he looked like a big ol redneck.  I wrote him a polite note thanking him for taking time to write but since we live on opposite ends of the earth and I'm a city girl, that perhaps we both just pass on this one.  Well, he got all bent out of shape and wrote me a note...hang on, I'll see if I can find it...By the way, my username is Ihaveeyebrows....you are supposed to pick an attribute or hobby and I wrote the profile in a hurry and every username I tried  was being used so...Ihaveeyebrows came to mind.  Anyway, this is his initial email to me and what I replied follows:

My name is Bobby, Live in Tomball Tx 2acres been single 1yr,married once long time ago no hang ups of past or now, Oh Im the one standing up in boat, do not have long side burns now if that scared you (smile) been in business for self all my life. Im Italian/German can cook REALLY no BS, one woman man two are too much trouble (smile again) if you don't SPIT CUSS KICK, THROW THINGS BITE to HARD (------) do I have to write smile again? Drop a line Luv BOBBY

Part of their profile is usually attached to their email and here is his:

I am 6'5" 219lbs good build blue eyes, brown hair, not ELVIS almost HA ha, really Iam easy to look at to be with. I will listen, try to understand your feelings always, will not argue but will always talk when needed to you and I like to make you happy and keep that smile and gleam in your eyes. I am down to earth honest very fun loving, passion, love joy peace of mind are very important to me. I am self secure financially not real rich not poor, been in business all my life. Married once no kids but helped raise four from my past relations and it is all behind me, no hang-ups no regrets. Like the wind, water, stars, not a couch tater a good movie is ok. Iam Italian/German family of doctors, father side, Mother Italian, yes I can cook. I let you have your own space. Not too good at typing, My picture will be posted next week, I am the one standing up, was deep sea fishing in Maui. WRITE ME I have never done this before. LOVE BOBBY

So, after receiving his email and reading his profile and looking at what looked like a 1970's pic of a man with Elvis sideburns, I wrote the following:

Hi Bobby,

Thanks for the complimentary and funny email.

I'm also glad to hear that you too have eyebrows :)

I can see though that we live millions of miles apart.  I live in Sugar Land but at this point would rather live smack dab in the middle of Houston.  I am definitely a city girl.  I don't think we are a very good match...besides I bite really hard!

Good luck to you in your search.

Take care,
Ms. X

I thought it was polite enough but apparently he took offense to this and wrote back:

Thanks for writing back with your very informed judgment, based on your knowledge and great experience you have in putting on your eyebrows and the rest of your face. Hope you also have luck with your hook in hooking your Sugarland fish, keep on selling it is safer than deep sea fishing, my dear!!  Im going to eat a piece of fish and go to sleep--GOOD NIGHT!

So, I wrote back:

You just can't be nice to some people. 

Sorry you took my not being interested in you so hard.  I was trying to be polite.  I thought you deserved the courtesy of response with an explanation but perhaps no response is better if there is not interest for whatever reason.

Then I blocked him from contacting me again.  Internet Dating seems like a little too much work, doesn't it?

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Story 8

I have some experiences that I would like to share. 

I started doing the Internet dating thing about 3-4 years ago. When I first started, I got really disappointed because I had a lot of bad experiences with a lot of perverts i.e. the unhappily married guys looking for "just a sexual relationship"; the couple looking for a third "to date" them; the guys who want to lick my toes or rub my feet or want to know what color my underwear was in the picture I had posted; the lesbian women or the pervert who writes completely filthy things. It's enough to give you a very jaded impression of the world.

I did go out on a few dates with guys who seemed fairly normal "on paper" but then well…… Here are a couple examples. 

First of all, there is the AMAZING number of people who can't form a coherent sentence. I am absolutely ASTOUNDED by the number of people who got out of high school and write the way they do. For example, a guy once wrote me saying he was interested. I told him thanks but I wasn't interesting dating someone who smoked or had small children. He wrote and said, and this is a quote, "well your lost cuz we could of fix's though thing's i guess". I'm assuming he's saying we could fix those things, and I shudder to think how we would "fix" his kids. 

Then there's the guy who started talking on the phone almost the minute I sat down at the table, and stayed on. I could tell the person on the other end asked if I was there yet, because he looked up at me, Said "Yes, but go ahead" and continued to talk and talk and talk. He did not hang up to even order his meal. Just pointed to the menu when the waitress came.

The guy who didn't have a picture posted so I asked him to send one by email. Mind you we had emailed only once and his very first picture to me is him sitting in a bathrobe open to his navel, obviously thinking himself quite the stud. Made my skin crawl. 

There was the guy I went dancing with. Within a short time, his shirt was COMPLETELY soaked with sweat! It was like he jumped in a swimming pool with is clothes on. It was disgusting! I tried to touch his shoulder with only one or two fingers. Eeeeew! 

One of the questions on one of the sites is "What is your favorite indoor activity?" One guy answered "Sex". Another question is "Where is the one place on earth that you'd like to see" He answered "The inside of your bedroom". There were several other sexually suggestive answers on his profile as well. This guy claimed to want a monogamous relationship and complained his last girlfriend cheated. I told him I wasn't interested because his sexually suggestive answers were a turnoff to me considering he was a complete stranger. I tried to explain that most women, who are looking for a monogamous relationship, don't want to know about his sexual preferences before they've even met him. It makes him look like all the other perverts we have to deal with. I mean really, would you walk up to a perfect stranger on the street and start telling them your sexual preferences? It's the same thing! Now, if he was looking for a woman who wants just a roll in the hay, then his answers were appropriate. He said his answers showed his sense of humor and I was too uptight. 

Then there was guy who got really serious about me after our first date. Wanted to see me again immediately. Called and wrote me all the time. Wanted us to be monogamous after a very short time. He even started taking dance lessons with me. He would get jealous that I was still "just talking" to other guys online even though I told him I was not making any other dates. Then, just about the time I got REALLY attached to him, he suddenly started saying HE wanted to be the one who was pursued and I didn't call HIM enough. I asked "How could I possibly have time to call when you're ALWAYS calling me?" Then, he suddenly broke up one day. I was devastated and shocked. A few weeks later, I was trying to log into my account and his Login and password popped up on my screen instead of mine. He had logged into his account at my apt one time and I guess my computer saved it. So I hit OK and it opened his account. (I know, I know. It's an invasion of privacy. But I was really curious to find out what was going on with this guy). I discovered, to my horror, that the ENTIRE time we were dating, he was still making dates with other women. Sometimes he would leave my apt at night and go up to work to use his computer to make dates for the next day. I was sickened.

A very similar thing happened with the very next guy I dated too. He turned out to be an even bigger slime than the first, if that's possible. He told me he had 1 child, a girl about 10, who I met. After we "broke up", I found out he had 3 older children from a previous relationship(s) and an 18 yr old daughter was actually living with him. He had told me he had been married once. A friend found at least one other marriage and divorce. She also found he had a bunch of convictions for bad checks. This is a guy supposedly making good money as a programmer at Compaq and in the middle of buying a horse ranch for his daughter. There was an endless list of ridiculous lies each one more bizarre than the next. He too was making dates while saying he didn't want to see anyone else. 

After that, some online female friends and I decided that if we ever got serious with a guy online again and were supposed to be monogamous, the female friend would write the guy and "test" him. Sneaky yes, but I swear it's necessary these days.

After the second scumbag, I decided to take a break from dating for a while. I actually found some female friends online and just did things with them for several months. But, as luck would have it, a guy that I had danced with at the Longhorn 2 years before, found me on a site and wrote just asking if we'd met before. We ended up emailing and talking for weeks. He would invite me to singles events he was involved with (never asking me out). We did eventually start dating and dated for almost 2 years. Even though that ended recently, it still gives me faith that there are some nice, normal guys online. 

So here I am, back on the online dating circuit again. I am having "some" better luck this time even though I have run into the usual freaks. I am taking it MUCH MUCH more slowly this time though. I've realized that sometimes it takes a quite a few dates and many conversations to figure out if some guys are honest or not.

On the brighter side, my online dating adventures have provided a lot of laughs for my friends. They beg me for the next installment. So I guess all is not lost. J 

BTW: I also use PublicData.com but found it is only useful if the guy has a fairly uncommon first and/or last name or you have his middle name. The last 2 guys I've checked had "fairly" common first and last names and the list of matches I got was too large to be useful. I did like the other woman's idea for WhitePages.com although I've found it to not always be accurate. I knew it could check for other people at the same address, but never thought to use in connection with checking out these guys. One other site I've found recently is Knowx.com. You can check marriage and divorce records for Texas and Florida. I know it may not help if they've lived in ! another state though. 

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Story 9

Place me on the horror story side of your Internet dating article.  Stay clear; evil lurks...
  
The experience I am writing of begins with an early evening drink on New Years Eve. 

His name was Sonny. His story was that he was divorced three years with custody of a 12-year-old son.  I was divorced a little over three years and had sole custody of my 11-year-old daughter. I was pleased to note we seem to have this in common. Plus we were both professionals making a good living. Plus his picture showed that he was very attractive, not the gut wrenching kind, but definitely cute enough to be interested. 

We had a pleasant phone conversation where he informed me that he had just broken off an engagement. He was emphatic that honesty and openness was essential to building a strong relationship. I told him that I thoroughly agreed. We shared a lot of small chat, and then decided it was time to go to our respective homes. He kissed me goodbye—3 small, short kisses . . .My initial feeling was that I left him thinking I wasn’t interested, but I received a phone call while I was out with my daughter that evening. He asked me out for the following evening—New Years Day.   

By end January I felt the relationship was growing readily. I was now very attracted to him. He did all the ‘right’ things. We saw each other a couple times each week and he phoned frequently. He was very affectionate and attentive. At this point we took the relationship to the physical level. Big mistake. 

Once Sonny got what he wanted, things quickly fell apart.  

He had a ski trip scheduled with his son in early February (this was planned prior to my appearance in his life) — he assured me he would call from the trip and he made a date for the Sunday evening when he returned. Well, no phone calls and no date.   

For the next couple of weeks he kept making and breaking dates, the entire time sounding like everything was fine between us when we spoke. Mid February we finally got together, including my daughter.. He gave me a story about his mother falling and breaking her sternum . . .Original you must admit!  I felt like I was getting more excuses than anything else . . .But I was so comfortable and enjoyed him tremendously so I hung in there. He asked me to take a day off from work the following week, so we could spend the whole day together alone. I rescheduled my appointments and cleared Wednesday. He called and told me that his Tuesday meeting was rescheduled to Wednesday, but he could get free by 1 p.m. and was looking forward to being with me. 
  
On Tuesday evening (March 1) he left a message saying that Carol (his ex fiancé who was living in California) would be in town Thursday and staying for a couple of weeks. He sounded very ‘funny’. He said he would call . . . I didn’t hear from him again. On March 23 I phoned him . . . His attitude was cold and aloof. He stated that he was marrying Carol and quickly ended the conversation.   

The conclusions I have gathered from this experience were that he was looking for someone to fill his needs temporarily until his fiancée was able to be with him. The whole honesty bit was just a line to get in my pants. This experience did not turn me into a man-hater, although I do believe that most men are untrustworthy. Sorry, Guys! 
  
I have had several other Internet dating experiences as well. I always asked a lot of open ended questions to see what kind of responses I would get. If we connected on line, I would suggest a phone call and continue the ‘interview’ process. If there was chemistry on the phone, I would take it to the next level---a brief meeting in a public place either mid day or early evening.   

Boy, there were a couple of surprises—I learned the hard way to always ask for a pic. After a nice phone conversation, I agreed to meet one of my Internet contacts for lunch. Not only was this man the most physically unattractive individual I ever encountered, in person he had no personality as well. It was the briefest lunch in history. . .recalling a scene from Cyrano de Bergerac, I was convinced I had talked to someone else on the phone and got this guy in his place.   

Another time, I was invited to meet a guy for drinks. I hired a babysitter and away I went. I drove for an hour all the way across town to meet at Pappasitos. The tightwad made me pay the one dollar for a beer (it was Happy Hour), but I wasn’t happy. I didn’t stay for the second beer. What an unbelievable waste of some valuable free time. I know they say you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince, but this experience was ridiculous. It was about this time during my Internet dating phase where I concluded there had to be a better way to meet better men. Thank goodness for the dance studio.   

I guess my overall recommendation would be to explore all the other alternatives first. Use the Internet as a last resort for dating and tread carefully. The world is full of predators and some men even come in the guise of ‘nice guise’. Whatever you do, get a picture first, agree to meet in a public place and make damn sure he matches his picture before sitting down. Then at least if something happens the police will have something to go on…

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