Internet dating is great! I have met a lot of nice guys through Internet dating, including one of my longest relationships. However, you really need to show some caution and be a good judge of character when doing this.

One of the benefits of Internet dating is the “getting to know you” aspect. Sure, it’s a great idea to exchange pictures, but you are really basing your attraction to him or her based on their words and their personality. It is a refreshing way to meet people and not be so hung up on their looks, like when you meet someone at a club or a bar.

When I meet a guy that I am interested in, I make sure to converse with him online and on the phone for a month or so before I decide if I am going to meet him or not. That gives me a pretty good window of opportunity to figure out if he genuinely likes me or just wants to kill me.

The real psychos will get bored after a while, and will move on to someone who is willing to meet them on the same day which they first speak. If you get a guy or a girl who really pushes meeting you too soon for your comfort level, forget them and move on. There are WAY too many fish in this sea to deal with that drama.

Life is all about balance. Unfortunately, there are downfalls to online dating as well. For example, I cannot tell you how many times I have met guys just looking for sex. It is really hard to meet someone who is interested in something serious, especially if they are looking for a connection online. Pornography is easily accessible online and I think many guys make that connection even when they are talking to a real person and not a movie.

Just be safe, be cautious, and be able to know when to say, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

She Said By Lauren Robeson

Every so often I reach this point of desperation in my romantic life in which I truly do think that there are no appropriate prospects at CSUN, in all of Los Angeles, or possibly the state. I won’t deny that I have somewhat high standards – which could surprise some of the people I work with – but they’re not so insanely unattainable as to completely eliminate every man in Los Angeles County. Just a good 70 percent of them.

Once my complaints about men (and inevitably my own high standards) manage to annoy both myself and others, my friends bring up the idea of internet dating. Again.

I’m not sure why I’m so reluctant to try meeting a man on the Internet. It could be that I associate Internet dating with the multiple offers I’ve gotten on my blog for mid-day cybersex from the most random men (needless to say, I did not respond); or the vision that I have in which I’ll think I’m meeting some 25-year-old decent-looking guy at the Starbucks on Reseda and I find myself, inexplicably, at a table with a balding, depressed 40-year-old whose picture was undoubtedly Photoshopped. I know these are nightmare scenarios, but they’re enough to scare me off the idea altogether.

But more than anything else, there’s the fact that I don’t want to settle, or completely give up on the idea of meeting men on my own; I’d like to think that I’m capable of this, and don’t need to resort to placing a personal ad online.

Or possibly I could just be too lazy and embarrassed to put an ad and pictures on Match.com. It could be anything, really.