Before You Go Online:

 

Identify your needs and how to meet them.

According to Dr. Willard F. Harley, Jr., author of , His Needs, Her Needs: Building An Affair-proof Marriage, when people have their emotional needs met, they feel happy and contented, and when they fail to have them met, they feel unhappy and frustrated. Dr. Hartley explains that there are only a few emotional needs that, when met, make us so happy that we fall in love with the person that meets them.

By discussing privately with hundreds of men and women which emotional needs were most desired in marriage, Dr. Hartley discovered that almost everyone expressed the same ten emotional needs (admiration, affection, conversation, domestic support, family commitment, financial support, honesty and openness, physical attractiveness, recreational companionship and sexual fulfillment).

He also discovered the reason why men and women have so much difficulty in meeting each other's needs: men and women prioritize their needs in opposite ways. Thus, the five most important emotional needs of men were usually the least important for women, and vice-versa. Furthermore, couples were unable to see that their efforts to please their spouses were misdirected. In other words, what they appreciated the most, their spouses appreciated the least.

If you are already in a relationship, then you need to identify not only your person needs but also your relationship needs. Take the Relationship Satisfaction Test and discover which needs are not being met by your current relationship and what you need to do to meet them.

Closely related to how we identify and meet emotional needs is emotional intelligence. According to leading researchers in this field, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) involves

Self-awareness:

Observing yourself and recognizing a feeling as it happens.

Managing emotions:

Handling feelings so that they are appropriate; realizing what is behind a feeling; finding ways to handle fears and anxieties, anger, and sadness.

Motivating oneself:

Channeling emotions in the service of a goal; emotional self control; delaying gratification and stifling impulses.

Empathy:

Sensitivity to others' feelings and concerns and taking their perspective; appreciating the differences in how people feel about things.

Handling relationships:

Managing emotions of others; social competence and social skills.

In the real world, people normally vary in their ability to correctly recognize their feelings, manage and control their emotions, and handle their relationships. However, the virtual world of cyberspace dramatically alters these abilities. People become more aware of their feelings online, yet they are apt to incorrectly label them. When they are online, people seem less able to manage their emotions and to exhibit emotional self-control. Empathy towards others seems to be heightened but their ability to discriminate between accurate and inaccurate, or honest vs. dishonest expressions of feeling in others is lessened. (test your Emotional Intelligence Quotient).

For this reason, it is vitally important that people be aware of their emotional needs and their overall emotional intelligence BEFORE they get online.

 

Exercise caution with people you don't know.

Nadia Zonis, author of an article called Online Dating Safety lists six steps you should follow when dating online:

1. Be a Skeptic: "Don't believe everything you read most definitely applies. Areas to be particularly cautious about: Marital status and physical appearance. "Look at your own past experiences in meeting people," suggests Sharyn Wolf, author of Guerrilla Dating Tactics: Strategies, Tips and Secrets for Finding Romance (Plume/Penguin). "Have you generally had good judgment about people? If so, then you can rely on it here too. If not, proceed with caution, and perhaps turn to a friend to help you evaluate someone you've met on-line." 

2. Use Tools Wisely: Some on-line personals sites allow you to send and receive e-mail without using your real address. Take advantage of this option if you can. Then use e-mail to get a sense of a person before you further the relationship. Learn something about where the person grew up, what they do for a living, and how they are connected to the community in which they live. Learning about a person's connections with others is an important way to sort out who they really are. 

3. Ring Ma Bell: The phone reveals a lot about a person's social skills and their ability to communicate spontaneously. Never give a stranger your phone number. Give yourself the opportunity to get a good feeling for what someone is like before you decide you'd like to meet. 

4. Resist the Hard Sell: If you are getting pressured to get together, that is probably a good sign to steer clear of this person.  If, as you are getting to know each other, if anything seems out of the ordinary, bow out gracefully. 

5. Separate Fantasy From Reality: E-mail allows one  to build up a false sense of intimacy with someone. "A person who writes great e-mail is not necessarily a great person," points out Laura Banks, author of Love On-line (Career Press). No matter how wonderful your e-mail correspondent may seem, try to keep some distance — the minute you hear his or her voice, or meet in person, the whole thing may seem wrong. Don't allow your hopes about this person to obscure what you really feel. 

6. Use Common Sense: When it is time to meet in the real world, use these hard and fast rules: Don't give out your home or office address; meet in a busy public place during daylight hours; use your own transportation to and from the date; tell a friend where and when you are going; and check in when you get back

Safer Dating recommends that when you give out your geographical location, limit it to a region only, rather than the exact name of the town, province or neighborhood. If you live in a large city, giving that information out is okay, if you're in a rural area, it's better to stick with regional information. 

As the previous site recommends, do not give out your phone number. If you want to talk on the phone, get the telephone number to a pay telephone near you and arrange a time when you can be at that phone. Make sure the pay phone you select is able to receive incoming calls. 

If you do call someone from home, activate your Caller ID and Last Call Trace blocking feature to prevent the person you are calling from knowing your number.

Be careful not to give out vital personal information such as what you own, the place where you work, and who you know. Limit how much information you give out! 

Both sites recommend that you  avoid using suggestive handles or nicknames like "Sexy Momma" or "Pretty Woman." Choose a fairly neutral name or one that has meaning only to you.

Love-4-Life suggests that when meeting someone for the first time, you should always meet in a public place and bring your friends. Your online buddy will understand and accommodate your wishes if they are honest about their intentions towards you. If during the date, you decide to go somewhere else, use your own car. 

Don't agree to hiking dates or meetings in remote areas until you know someone very well. Plan a short initial meeting. If, on meeting, you know you won't be seeing this person again, sharing coffee and a little polite chat won't be as painful as spending a long day together. Keep the date light-hearted and fun and leave as originally scheduled. Answer honestly if asked whether you'd like to get together again. 

Tell your friends and family where you are going, with whom, and arrange to check in with them at a specified time during the date and again when you arrive home. If you travel to meet your on-line Love, make your own hotel and car reservations and don't give out the name of your hotel. 

Drive yourself to the hotel or take a taxi. Follow all of the recommendations above about meeting someone for the first time. Provide your family or friends with necessary contact information. 

If you start feeling unsure or uncomfortable about your date, politely extricate yourself from the situation. Excuse yourself and leave by the back door if necessary. Do not hesitate to ask for help from persons nearby, call your family, friends or the police if you feel the situation warrants. 

Trust your judgment and don't be afraid of potential embarrassment. It is better to be embarrassed than physically hurt.

 

Limit the time you spend online.

People new to the Internet are amazed by how much information is available to them. They are also amazed at how much time they spend on it without realizing it. For a growing number of people, the Internet is become more than a part-time pastime: Internet addiction is a genuine problem. 

In his book on the Psychology of Cyberspace,  Dr. John Suler notes that some users find themselves so captivated by their cyberspace lifestyle that they want to spend more and more time there, sometimes to the neglect of their in-person life. They may not be entirely sure why they find themselves so engrossed. They can't accurately verbalize an explanation for their "addiction." It is not the chat room or the newsgroup or the e-mail that is eating one's life, but the internal, unconscious dynamic it has ignited.

Dr. Suler says that one's passion for the Internet can range anywhere from a  healthy use of it to a pathological addiction. He identifies eight factors that can determine how healthy or unhealthy one's Internet activities can be as well the effect of those activities on the person's underlying needs:

1. The number and types of needs being addressed by the activity. The more needs being addressed by internet endeavors, the more powerful the hold cyberspace has on the person. 
   
2. The underlying degree of deprivation. The more an underlying need has been frustrated, denied, or neglected, the more intense the person's predisposition to seek fulfillment anywhere he or she can. 
   
3. The type of internet activity. Different types of internet activities can vary greatly in how they influence different needs. For example, online activities that involve both games and socializing, chat and e-mail, visual and text communication, can be very captivating on many levels.
   
4. The effect of internet activity on in-person level of functioning. Internet usage can affect one's health and hygiene, success at work, and fulfilling relationships with peers, friends and family. How many become disrupted by internet use and the extent to which they are disrupted reveals the depth of the problem. 
   
5. Subjective feelings of distress. Increased feelings of depression, frustration, disillusionment, alienation, guilt, and anger may be warning signs of unhealthy internet use. Often they come from internet activity that is superficially addressing or aggravating one's needs. 
   
6. Conscious awareness of needs. The more a person understands his motivations, the more they lose their power as the unconscious "thing" leading to compulsive internet use. 
   
7. Experience and the phase of involvement. New users may become enamored with the fascinating opportunities cyberspace offers. The "addictive phase" may eventually taper off as the novelty of the Internet dissipates and the duties of the in-person world call. In some cases, high expectations for online life are dashed. Needs are not fulfilled and the resulting disappointment leads one back to the "real" world. 
   
8. The balance and integration of in-person and cyberspace living. The degree of commitment to online activities and companions should be balanced by the commitment to offline activities, friends, and family. The two worlds should also be integrated by  bringing online activities into the "real" world. 

In extreme cases, unhealthy internet use often leads to an online life that is completely isolated from one's in-person life. To avoid falling into an increasing pattern of Internet usage, you should set a maximum time limit of no more than one hour online per day: the equivalent of watching a network television show.

Unfortunately, the Internet and online access is nowhere near as  predictable as television. Sometimes, you can get to where you want in a matter of minutes. Sometimes, you could take your whole hour trying to get there. Nevertheless, as frustrating as that may be, you still need to stick to your schedule. Treat it like rush hour: find a time to get on when the online traffic is light.

 

Avoid making mistakes.

This site highlighted four mistakes that people make in looking for love online.

Mistake #1 is when people believe that the Internet is just like the real world and can meet all of their interpersonal and emotional needs. Gerry McGovern says in his article, The Internet Cannot Meet All Our Needs, that much of the Digital Revolution is about supporting, extending, and in some ways replacing, the human mind. However, McGovern notes that some things cannot be represented in Cyberspace:

There are things in the world that cannot be recorded by written words or frozen images. They are very often the things we search for when we search for meaning, for spiritual sustenance, for deeper understanding and knowledge. 

In other words,  the virtual world is not a substitute for the real world. In comparison to the real world, the virtual world of the Internet creates more needs in people than it meets. It is important to understand the limitations of the Internet and Internet relationships.

Mistake #2 is when people use online partners to solve their relationship problems and fulfill unmet needs while failing to see how they can damage their current relationships and themselves in the process.

Frank Pittman, author of Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy, suggests that people in relationships should accept the possibility of being sexually attracted to another and of having sexual fantasies. However,  he also says that they should not act on them. Secondly, he recommends that couples spend time with monogamous people. Third, couples should work on their relationship and strive to keep it intimate. 

Couples also need to be realistic about their relationship and not to expect it to meet all of their interpersonal needs. In other words, view your partner as a source of comfort rather than a cause of unhappiness. 

The last point is to keep the relationships equal. Pittman says, "the more equal it is, the more both partners will respect and value it."

Dr. Esther Gwinell has written a book about online dating called, Online Seductions: falling in love with strangers on the Internet. Dr. Gwinell's book highlights the seduction aspects of the internet. "People can really kid themselves about how innocent their (online) relationship is; right up to the point that they realize it really isn't that innocent," Dr. Gwinell says.

She suggests having your best friend read your e-mails and his or her e-mails and look for signs of oddness in what they write about or what they respond to in your letters.

Mistake #3 is when people think that their perfect match is somewhere in the world waiting to be found and that the Internet is the best place to find them. To avoid making this mistake, you need to re-evaluate whether you really want a Mr. or Ms. Right.  According to an article in Divorce Source, the view that there is only one partner that is perfect for each of us is a major myth. 

If this were the case, then it would not be possible for people to have happiness in a marriage after the death of a spouse. Clearly, since people do indeed find happiness in second and even third marriages, there is more than one potential mate available for each of us. Our job is to increase the probabilities of finding those potential partners.

The author suggests developing a strategy to find potential mates. Begin by increasing the pool of available partners and then choose to devote your attention to one of them. The key is to write up two lists of characteristics: one list contains all of the non-negotiable criteria, or  things that you must have in a partner such as honesty, emotional maturity, financial security, etc., and the other list contains the negotiable ones such as height and weight, hobbies, or occupation. When you have your lists then take appropriate actions to meet others and then allow for nature to take its course.

Mistake #4 is when people fail to see how their unmet needs can affect both their feelings and their perception of the other person as well as to confuse which needs are being met by that person. Learning how to boost your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the way to avoid this mistake. EQ expert Steve Hein advises people to be sure they do not confuse loving someone with needing them. Need is based on insecurity and dependency. When you need someone, you believe that you cannot live without them. When you love someone, you can be happy alone and you can continue to love them even after you are no longer romantic partners. 

 

Explore other options for meeting people.

If you are not into the bar scene,  Life-n-Leisure.com recommends meeting people at the laundromat, shopping mall, and the supermarket. Even if you own a washer and dryer, the laundromat can be a good place to meet singles because every user spends at least a hour there with little to do but wait for the wash or dry cycle to finish. This makes the people more receptive to conversational initiatives by others, as well as for allowing ample time for conversations to develop.

The supermarket or the shopping mall may be less attractive options, though, People who are somewhat shy may fear that most people go to these places mostly to make purchases and not to meet people. The fact that few, if any, strangers may have struck up conversations with them there indicates that most people are not receptive to the idea of these places as informal "singles bars."

Life-n-Leisure.com suggests going to the specialty stores in shopping malls. If you notice someone browsing in your favorite section of the book or record store or some other specialty shop, this is a good indication that the two of you share similar interests, which can be grounds for conversation and getting to know each other better.

Joining a volunteer group, church, a civic or a social organization is another great way to meet people of similar interests. As a member of these groups, you will meet people with similar interests and form a sense of camaraderie with the others. When you join a volunteer group, you automatically create a sense of partnership with others because of the genuine concern and interest that people demonstrate.

Another good way to meet potential dates, if you're past school age, is by enrolling in a local adult or continuing education course. Such courses are available for a moderate fee (or may even be free) and offer instruction in everything from relaxation techniques to creative writing to ice skating. A class is a setting at which you know the same people will be present every week, so you have an extended period to get to know them better. This allows you to avoid the awkwardness or abruptness of trying to arrange dates or other outside activities with a virtual stranger after only one meeting