Host: What are some pros and cons to online dating?

Gloria MacDonald: You need to understand that for all the pros of online dating and that there are lots and lots of people out there, there are also some pre-series cons, some pre-series downsides. In that, it is incredibly time consuming.

You will probably have to face an awful lot of rejection but if you can somehow or other get yourself to understand its not personable, its not personal, excuse me. For the most part the person who is rejecting you hasnt even met you. So they really can't form a truly appropriate assessment of you. So dont take it personally. Say, Okay, fine. Next, I am going to meet somebody else. One of the challenges with online dating is its a highly, highly visual medium. So you have got to post a picture up there. People who dont post pictures on the site have more than five times fewer hits than people that post pictures. In fact I think the numbers are more like ten times fewer hits than people who post pictures. So, have a good picture of yourself up there, perhaps have a variety of your pictures of yourself up there. Another challenge with online dating is that people misrepresent themselves all the time. Unfortunately, we are in this age of youth and beauty, so people are like always fudging on their age, they might be 41, so they say they are 37 or 38. Those 10 year numbers the 30, 40, 50, 60; people dont want to hit those numbers. So they tend to fudge and take shave several years of their age. Women unfortunately, shave several pounds of their weight and men tend to exaggerate on how tall they might be and maybe what their income range is.

So just be aware of that. Its an unfortunate fact of the medium, so you have to be aware of that and understand that lots and lots of people are doing it. I personally dont recommend misrepresenting yourself. In the long run the truth is going to come out; its not going to do you any good. We have all heard horror stories about someone who has met someone, who had a picture of somebody who wasnt even them up on the site. So, be aware of that. With online dating, always, always, always, always meet in a public place. Dont ever give someone your home address or your home phone number. Ideally, give them a cell phone number that can't be tracked to an address and this is, just for your own personal safety to be smart, to be wise about it.

I highly recommend that you dont spend hours and hours e-mailing people back and forth and finding out lots about them through e-mail but really send the couple of emails back and forth and set up a time to get together. Get together for a coffee, a drink, something casual; dont make that first meeting a full dinner where you might be stuck with a total stranger sitting in a formal restaurant for an hour and a half to two hours. Make it something casual so that it is easy to get out of it. You can spend 45 minutes having a coffee and then say, Gee, it was really pleasant meeting you. I have to get going.

But it gives yourself; it gives you an easy out.