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Meeting someone for the first time is a very exciting and at the same time very stressful moment. No matter how much you think you know the person through emails and phone conversations there is still a great risk that the way you imagine that person to yourself is very different from the way that person is in reality. The same applies to your date as well. That's why there are two suggestions for the first date- be open minded and be very careful.

When I say be open minded I mean that the best attitude toward this practically blind date is to relax and try to have a good time instead of worrying about how your date will turn out. You should be wise enough to give your date a full chance to make a positive impression on you. May be they are not exactly what you imagined, and may be you realize soon enough that they are not even close to what you are looking for, try to be polite, graceful and well-mannered. Not every first date leads to a dating relationship, but it should be a pleasant experience for both parties at the very least.

When I say be careful I mean that you have to remember that you should exercise some precaution - after all you are seeing this person for the first time. For more advice on dating safety please see Safety in Online Dating.

Some think that it is a requirement that the man take the woman to dinner at a restaurant even before they have laid eyes on each other. Such arrangement is hardly appropriate for the first date in my opinion. First, you have to remember that the first date should be planned for a rather short period of time with the valid escape option. A meeting over coffee or even lunch is much better for such purpose. In addition, if lunch takes about an hour, which is totally tolerable even when the date has no potential at all, dinner takes much more time. Going to a dinner on the first date bears a risk of being stuck there unless you decide to be rude and cut it short. Second, in many circles it is customary for gentleman to pick up a check. It is not fair to expect a man to spend large amount of money on dinner when this date may not lead to a second date.

There is some opinion that first date should not be centered around the food at all. For example if you meet at a museum or at the record/book store, you will have more opportunity to talk without your mouth being full and without being interrupted by the waiter or destructed by the need to make a choice from the menu.

My personal all time favorite was to have a first date over a cup of coffee or tea. When I was seriously doing online dating it seemed to work best of all. A lot of coffee shops offer a nice atmosphere for first time meeting without imposing high cost. Don't be turned off from this idea because you do not like coffee. Coffee shops offer a lot of other beverages and even snacks in case you get hungry. And you can actually be there for as long as you want without being pressured to stay or leave.

Safety in Online Dating

I like the idea of meeting people online. I believe that Internet dating has great potential to bringing people together. But there is one issue to be seriously considered. That issue is safety. You never know what to expect from someone you met online until you meet him or her in real life. Mostly I refer to safety of women since I believe they are more vulnerable in situations of meeting a strange man. There is a couple advises I can suggest in this arena.

First, try to find out as much as possible about the person before setting up a date with them. Usually during the period of introduction people exchange general information about themselves: first and last name, city they live in, what they do and which company they work for, telephone number, etc. It is easy to determine if the phone number given to you really belongs to the person or if a person works where they say they do. Last thing you need to happen to you is to go out with someone who is not who they say they are. Even though these cases are extremely rare you need to know that occasionally they might take place.

Second, make a little effort to ensure your safety. If you are highly concerned about your security there are companies that offer background checks online. I personally did not get that far in ensuring my personal protection. However what I do suggest doing is leaving information about your date with someone close to you before you are going on the date. Tell your parents or roommate or a friend that you are going out on a date with Bill Jones who works at NNN, Inc. and his phone number is 555-1212. It is better if you give it to them in a written note form. Also, ask someone to call you on your cell phone when you are on a date to see if everything is all right. This may sound like a slight paranoia, but it is really easy to do and would be very helpful if something wrong were to happen. After all, romance is important, but safety comes first.

Pictures in profiles

As you are in a process of putting together your profile you should think about pictures you will post with it. Amazingly enough there are still many profiles in online dating services that do not have any pictures attached to them.

Personally I’ve heard two reasons why people do not post pictures with their profiles:

- do not have picture that is in digital format (quite lame excuse in this day and age, if you ask me)
- do not want to post a picture because I am so hot (cool, cute, popular, famous - fill in the blanks)

If any of you care to share other reasons for not posting a pictures with the profile please drop me a line Click to contact Natasha .

In my opinion the real two reasons why people keep their profiles pictureless are fear of someone recognizing them (a spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend) or serious issues with self esteem. And I would strongly recommend not spending much time with profiles without photos. Most probably it will not be worth your time and effort. I have personally tried to be not discriminative against non-photo profiles and none of these attempts worked out.

It is hard enough to make a judgement of a profile with pictures in them let alone a guessing game with those black boxes.

A lot of online dating sites stress the importance of pictures in profiles and strongly recommend them. Rightfully so.

In order to present yourself in most efficient way you need, you must post a picture with your profile. And possibly more then one. No matter how attractive you make a description of yourself, it is extremely important for your potential matches to be able to see an image of you. It has to be a recent photo closely representing you.

Photo Dos:

Do - put a picture of yourself that is no older then 12 months
Do - put a few pictures: one portrait, one full height, picturing you from different angles
Do - put a picture that is not offensive or embarrassing

Photo don’ts:

Don’t - put a picture of other persons, no matter how much related to you. It has not been mentioned enough about pictures of ghost models from Eastern Europe attached to profiles stating place of residence Beverly Hills
Don’t - put a picture of you that is old. I’ve heard so many lengthy complaints about people putting pictures that are 10 years old on their profiles, which are completely misrepresentative.
Don’t - put pictures that may be construed rude or offensive. It is OK if you’d like to share some nude pictures with other people, but placing them on a front page of your profile is not a great idea.