Physical & Emotional Abuse Support Group
Abuse is a general term for the treatment of someone that causes some kind of harm (to the abused person, to the abusers themselves, or to someone else) that is unlawful or wrongful. No one deserves abuse, period. Abuse can be emotional, physical, or sexual.
I am tentatively on a couple dating sites, more to just chat and test my boundaries than actually date, but still I have to wonder if some of these people are really who they say they are. Perhaps it is because my last ex totally misrepresented himself. Either way, I seem to run into exes and I don't look for them on there but sometimes the search engine will bring one up. I have had one message me to which I ignored his messages and then blocked him. The one on the other site, came up in a search engine and as I did not click on his profile, I assumed he would not notice me so I had not blocked him. Well I noticed a lot of views from profiles with no pics, then today some of those and 2 views from his profile. I thought to myself, I am probably being paranoid about the profiles with no pics being his possibly as why would he do that if he was going to view me from his anyway?
He has not tried to message me, or any other contact. I think he was probably just curious as to what my ad said is all.
I was not bitter or did not sling mud on it, I chose the high road.
Anyway, I suppose my question is, how can you be sure of who your talking to, if you do talk to anyone?
On the site he is on, the ex I talk about on here, I am not a paid member, as I am not sure about doing it yet, but I was just wondering if anyone had any safeguards or ideas?
As I said, I am not real concerned about him at this point as he has not tried to contact me since the whole facebook exchange and I blocked him.
He has not tried to message me, or any other contact. I think he was probably just curious as to what my ad said is all.
I was not bitter or did not sling mud on it, I chose the high road.
Anyway, I suppose my question is, how can you be sure of who your talking to, if you do talk to anyone?
On the site he is on, the ex I talk about on here, I am not a paid member, as I am not sure about doing it yet, but I was just wondering if anyone had any safeguards or ideas?
As I said, I am not real concerned about him at this point as he has not tried to contact me since the whole facebook exchange and I blocked him.
I usually no longer read messages from faceless users. Not unless I am feeling feisty and want to curse at the idiot behind the message. Be aware, they can use photos pirated off FB and other social media so an imposter can have a photograh. Some of my imposters have had a photograph, and in at least one case, I was interested in the fraud until it became clear he was not a real person. I don't think any of your exes will engage you to this extent unless he is a psychopath.
Put all your contacts through a strainer, watching for red flags. Photo or no photo. Ex or not an ex. It's dangerous out there. Do not give identifying information about yourself until you have acheived a level of trust. I failed myself on this one recently. I was feeling too much trust too soon because the guy was very articulae and smooth.
I have fielded so much BS online with the ex, I have a fairly thick skin. If you want to do online dating, you have to be careful and also develop a skin because you are going to meet exes and other opportunists. If it is too triggering for you, you can always just hide your profile until you are feeling stronger.
I think he was just curious today for some reason.
I do however feel a lot of these profiles are fake as these men look like glamour shots or movie stars, and there is only 1 photo.
You can also spot red flags when they speak badly about their ex wife, or women in general, or you catch them in a lie, say they say they rarely drink, yet have multiple photos of them partying or they don't smoke and yet they have a cigar in hand.
I really enjoy the ask me later ones, instead of saying they are divorced, widowed, single.
Or if they have a car, and they put N/A , excuse me, either you do or you don't?
Oh yeah beware of men who have one photo unless it is not very flattering. In that case, he may just be clumsy with technology.
I thought I had my profiles set to not receive messages from men without photos. I will have to check that as I have been receiving them. Most of those are frauds. If I am really lonely, I will sometimes talk to one of those, but I always make it clear I will never meet him. If he says he will send me a photo, I don't care. I told one man, "There is a reason your photo is not publily posted. I don't know what it is, but I am never going to meet you."
If your ex is not technologically oriented, you have little to fear about him contaciing you through fake profiles. He was not even savvy enough to hide his viewing of your profile. You have more to fear from all the catfish. sociopaths and frauds out there.
Make sure you have one e-mail address that does not identify you by last name. When you hit it off with someone, you will want to go to e-mail because it is hard to write in those little boxes on dating sites. Don't give an e-mail address with your full name at first. Keep yourself anonymous. If you meet, then you can decide if you trust enough to let him know your name or anything else. You have to be really guarded.
If you get to where you know each other's full names, find out if he has an FB account. Suspect men generally don't, or they have several, but don't want to give you the link to either one. They say they hardly ever use, it's de-activated, or it's screwed up and they don't know what is wrong. They know what is wrong. They are keep their women separated.
Unless they hardly use a comuter--such men allegedly do exist.
Otherwise, the transparancy caused by the technological age is something they have to "manage."