Today we're back to online dating alerts: Today's Be Careful! is of anyone who tries to sweep you off your feet in an online dating profile. “Do you like to spend Christmas Eve overlooking the Seine? Do you long for a ski trip to The Little Nell? Is Nobu the kind of restaurant you’d most like to dine at? Does a massage for two at the Golden Door sound like your kind of thing?" Well, sure it is. But what does it have to do with meeting one another? One young New York woman tells me she was so entranced by a man’s insider's romantic references that she barely noticed that, in the middle of their climactic dinner (at the wonderful aforementioned Nobu), her poetic date didn’t have a credit card with him, and she had to pay. "Only till I get home," he said. But it turned out he didn't have an apartment, either. Oops! The internet turned out to be a great place for him to create a set; to feign a social life; to pretend knowledge of the world and its luxuries. He was a social climber. Looking for a rich woman to send HIM to the Golden Door.
He was also a homeless person.
Okay, so there's the one who wants to win a woman with a home he can live in. I hardly have to say that anyone who whispers (so to speak) endearments into your cyber ear before you’ve met him is also out of the question. No cozy innuendos and sexy asides. No promises of ecstasy—and, listen carefully for this one, or of pain. If you see the word “pain” in a message, even if it's accompanied somewhere by the word “pleasure”? press DELETE. Other red flags—like unmentionable desires that manage to get mentioned? DELETE.
And while we’re on it, keep those permeable boundaries clear in your own replies--words are codes. If certain words feel as out of place in your life as The Golden Door is out of your budget, pay attention to the subtext. Keep your responses brief. Ask questions: Often, a so-called suitor will back away if he's not happy being asked to clarify his message--and if so, you've saved yourself buckets of time. And above all, don’t confide. Responding emotionally to someone you haven't met, no matter how provocative he or she is, is a major time-waster, and seduces you into believing you have a friend. You get to project onto him all sorts of qualities that you want but that he may not have. If your response to something he writes is anger, please, don't construct a reply, no matter how tempting: You didn't go online to perfect your skills as a novelist. And, as you don't know each other yet, you're totally entitled to say, "Goodbye." Or just press DELETE and get on with the business not of being swept away, or getting angry, but of finding someone you'd truly like to meet.
TLG
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