Give me an example.. It’s online. Always a gamble.

How old are you?

If you are concerned about it, try to find as much as possible about them before meeting them. On the other hand, don’t get too invested before an actual face to face. Perhaps talk to them on the phone or even Facetime if you are leery before a date and always do a meeting in a public place and take your own car. There is a certain amount of risk in online dating but I’ve never had a dangerous situation. Disappointments yes, but no danger.

I have learned in recent years not to give my heart away.

Most guys online are NOT interested in you…ONLY what you have between your legs!!! You’re not ready to meet anybody you meet online & IMO you’re NOT ready to have sex; so I STRONGLY suggest that you NEVER meet any guy who you connect with online or you could end up emotionally, and/or possibly physically damaged for the rest of your life!!!

@LadyMarissa That’s not so true today. Many people meet their life partners online initially and the OP is older than she seems. You just have to be cautious just like you are in real dating.

And the paid sites may be better than the free sites although my son met his wife on OKCupid which is free and I’ve gone out with guys I’ve met on that site.

@janbb Males are just as big of sexual predators today as they were 50 years ago which is one reason we’re going through the #MeToo movement!!! I met my husband online on a social site. You & your family seem to have had luck with the dating sites. My BFF’s sister used one of the paid dating sites after her husband had passed. The guy she met was wonderful up to the point that he decided he didn’t want to wait any longer for sex. Then all of a sudden he wasn’t so wonderful!!!

A local young girl met a guy online & she did ALL the right things to protect herself. Once he started pushing to meet her, she insisted on Skyping with him so she could verify he wasn’t a catfish. He was a good looking boy her age who said all the right things. Then he suggested on one of the Skypes that they go to lunch together promising her that he’d have her back in time for her next class. She would be in public where she would be safe; so, she agreed to let him pick her up from school so they could go to lunch. She even told all her friends where she was going to lunch & had also taken a screenshot of him off Skype so everyone knew what he looked like. She left a copy with a friend just in case the Police needed it. Lunchtime comes on the day they are to meet. She sees the truck he described pull up in front of the school. She runs out & jumps in the front seat. When she looked up to say “Hi” she realized it wasn’t the boy she had Skyped with. By then it was too late as he had grabbed her by the arm & she couldn’t get back out of the truck.

Long story short, he was the father of the boy she had Skyped with & he had forced his son to convince her to meet him. He was so abusive to his son that the child did everything he told him to do. He took her to a local motel where he raped her for over 4 hours before the cops found them.

Now I have repeatedly said on my responses to this girl that she is either VERY young or VERY immature. You are assuring me that she’s NOT that young; so, that tells me that she is VERY immature…that is UNLESS she is lying to you about her age!!! Regardless, I don’t see her as being mature enough to make the adult decisions that she would need BEFORE meeting anyone she might meet online. I don’t care if it’s a male or IF it’s me, she’s NOT emotionally stable enough to be making those decisions!!!

Now, IF YOU feel she’s responsible enough to continue on her path of meeting men only to be dumped, that is on you. Personally, I do NOT think she is mentally capable of going down the rabbit hole she seems determined to jump into; so, my conscience won’t allow me to give her advice to “just do it” which means that I have offered my last bit of advice to Miss @TheAnswerGirl & you are more than welcome to guide her. Neither of us will know what happens to her; but, IF I was to give her my blessings, I would wonder what happened & feel guilty assuming the worse when she inevitable leaves Fluther!!!

I am bowing out; so go for it @janbb!!!

Didn’t give her my blessing; I told her to be cautious. I agree that she sounds immature. I’m not taking responsibility for anyone’s actions here or elsewhere.

It’s good for her to read different responses and she can make her own decisions. I totally agree that she sounds immature and life experiences are the best – but even there, common sense and caution are crucial.

And I’m out now too.

@LadyMarissa that sounds too much like the plot of a television drama to be real – but I’m not saying that you’re lying and that it’s a television drama; it just sounds very much like that. Can you give us a link to the news story, since this must have made the news somewhere?

But in any case, the girl you describe obviously did not “do everything that she could to protect herself”, especially when she agreed to meet him on the street and have him take her somewhere, according to a promise that she believed, and then she compounded that by simply jumping into a vehicle “because it appeared to be the one she had been shown”. Those are both pretty stupid behaviors, and I would question whether that girl was even old enough (or mature enough) to be on the streets on her own.

To answer the OP’s question more directly, I recommend asking “offbeat” questions or questions that take some thought to answer – “essay questions”, that is – and give answers of your own that may take some thought and additional questioning or conversation to fully understand.

It’s been said – partly in jest – that “Men talk to women in order to have sex with them, and women have sex with men in order to talk to them.” Like I said, it’s a joke, but it’s funny because at some levels and in some ways it’s true. So find out if the guy is at least willing to talk with you, to have an intelligent, thoughtful and meaningful conversation. Sure, he probably wants sex – that’s normal! – but is he at least willing to exchange some of his time, thought, consideration for you – and for your safety! beforehand?

When I’ve met women online I haven’t even considered “picking them up”. The idea of being “picked up and taken somewhere” by an unknown person is the stuff of nightmares. Even children know this.

It does happen just not as often as you think @LadyMarissa which is why it’s so sensationalized when it does happen.
and @CWOTUS What she describes reminds me of the plot for the movie Megan is Missing.

I hear stories like that in my area on the local news at least once a year. And no, not all of those stories get heard far and wide.
I have friends scattered throughout nearby states who hear nothing of various hot local news items.
For instance, a kid firing a weapon in an Indiana school, and being stopped by a teacher was known to all.
A little school about four hundred miles away a student spotted another student with a gun, and reported it.
The student was apprehended, the gun taken, and further search revealed a list and other weapons. That story was only heard in a few select towns and didn’t even reach the whole state.

Insofar as a personal experience account resembling a TV show or movie, well duh!
I just watched an episode (I think it was SVU) based on the actual story about the girl who escaped her parents and alerted authorities, who discovered a huge family where all the children were being starved and tortured.
Oh, stuff happens, and whenever stuff happens what do neighbors and witnesses say to the news? “It was like something out of a movie. I couldn’t believe it.”
So yeah, hearing a personal account and thinking it sounds dramatic, life gets dramatic sometimes.
I’m not backing anybody’s story here, I’m just saying that if you have doubts doesn’t automatically make another person wrong.
Oh, and the neighborhood I lived in before I moved where I am now, had no idea until it hit the news that people were raided and arrested for prostituting abducted girls. The story involving several other locations in many cities across the nation involved constantly moving the girls from one location to another so they never knew where they were, or where they could go for help. It was huge, lots of young women were involved, yet it hit only the local news. Maybe there were news in other locations that ran it, but it was not on national news.
People went by that house every day, and had no idea.