Online Dating Safety: Dragging You into Their Madhouse

"They had plans to meet on Friday night which fell through, however subsequent to that we believe the man has gone to the woman's home where she became the victim of a sexual assault."

Those were the words of Detective Inspector Greg Nicholls of Waikato, New Zealand. According to the news release, the accused and victim had met online five months before. It's only natural to believe that five months would be plenty of time to investigate the other person and make a reasonable sound judgement on whether to meet offline.

In theory it is. In the real world however; the answer is not necessarily. One of the great benefits of online dating is the ability to meet someone from the comfort and convenience of your own home. Join a dating service, post an interesting profile and start chatting. If one person is not to your liking move on and find another from the overwhelming supply of prospects.

Online dating is an incredible innovation that when used correctly can not only put you into direct contact with that special someone you have been searching for but also build you a solid community of people with like minded interests.

But just because you are being truthful with the person on the other end doesn't mean they are returning the favour. The ability to create a maze of falsehoods while essentially remaining anonymous is powerful. No doubt the online dating industry never meant for it to be that way but it exist nonetheless.

And although incidents like the one in Waikato, New Zealand do happen, they are at the rare end of the online dating scale. The problem is that is no comfort to the victims. They do not think to themselves how this will influence cyberdating statistics. The only thing that matters is what is happening at that moment.

Yet it does have an overall impact. People read these stories and tell themselves that they want no parts of online dating. Family members as well as friends hear about this incident and quickly relay it to you or anyone else that was thinking about giving online dating a chance. You hear this stuff and it is only natural that uncertainty along with fear work they're way into your thought process.

Good. Not that you should let online dating pass you by if you have been considering it. But more the fact you can use fear and uncertainty to your favour by letting them keep you on your guard at all times.

You may have known someone for five months or five minutes and decide that you like this person and want to meet them. That fear and uncertainty will most assuredly tell you to slow down. Yes it could be the work of an overactive imagination but it could also be your intuition picking up some signals that you may have missed. When it comes to possible romance emotions have a way of getting ahead of the rest of you.

While occurrences like the one in Waikito are few and far between, online dating scams that separate you from your money are not. Con artists have learned to effectively play on people's feelings while robbing them blind. Some have gotten so good at it that they are able to make their victims think handing over the money was their idea not the scammers.

We live in a world with light, dark and many shades of grey. The same thing exists when it comes to online dating. It doesn't mean that you should never give online dating a try but just like the real world it does mean that you should proceed with caution at all times.

Article written by Daryl Campbell at the relationship tip. Become an expert at spotting the online dating warning signs.