8B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
THURSDAY, MARCH 17. 2005
Cyber smarts
General safety tips to keep in mind while online:
"Use common sense when dating someone online. You wouldn't give your information out to a stranger, so why do it online."
"If you are using a campus or public computer, be sure to always log off of your account to prevent others after you to access the personal information in your online dating account."
"Make it a practice to talk to a person several times online before handing out personal contact information. Don't give out more information than you have to."
Jenny Mehmedovic, coordinator of Information Technology policy & planning at the University of Kansas
"If you are meeting someone in person for the first time, makes sure someone knows where you are before you go."
—Derek Relston,
Datekansas.com president
"Take a cell phone with you and your own vehicle if you are meeting someone for the first time."
"If you're meeting someone for the first time, do coffee or lunch instead of an intimate dinner."
"Don't give out your home address even after a great date. Limit the personal information you give out, but be sure to say, 'let's do this again' if its something you want to pursue."
—Kristen Kelly,
spokeswoman for Match.com
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enough to turn her off online dating. Overwhelmed by emails and not feeling a connection with any of the other match eHarmony.com found her, Liz decided to cancel her $ 60 membership.
Although there are downsides to dating online, Don Jones, a licensed clinical psychotherapist in Topela, sees several benefits with online dating. First of all, it's a positive way for those who are shy to meet people. You also get to know people through e-mails before meeting them. An added bonus for college students is that virtual dating in inexpensive up until you decide to meet them.
Online dating works well for Jones, 42 because going to the bars is not practical anymore, and he does not want to date someone at work. The Internet is a convenient way to meet others. He has been dating online for four years and has been in two long-term relationships since. Jones has been in his current relationship for 16 months and was in his previous one for nine.
At the same time, Jones advises people who are trying online dating to be patient and use caution. You have to rely on the honesty of others when dating online, and often time's people's misrepresent themselves. People can be married but will say they are single. Jones has been in a few situations where people would be much heavier than they portrayed themselves to be.
You also have to be patient for online dating to work. Jones talked to several people and went on five or six dead-end dates before truly meeting someone. Don't rush into things too fast. Sometimes people may get excited about having a connection with someone else and start furiously send e-mails back and forth, which can scare the other person off or just lead straight to a dead-end if you run out of things to say to the each other.
run out of things to say to the user. Online dating is similar to dating in general. You will run into instances where someone you are not interested in will message you or vice versa, Jones says. People will often times be rude or leave
you hanging and not reply, which is Jones stresses never to do. Be honest, upfront and kind if you are not interested. Occasionally, you will run into some freaky people or stalkers. Jones says he once had a woman send him naked picture through e-mail.
"You need to have tough skin," Jones says. "People with shoot you down, but just hang in there. Don't let it get under your skin," say Jones.
your skin," say Jones.
I tried out some of the online dating sites to give you a better perspective of what to expect.
to expect.
EHarmony.com's personality profile takes a good 45 minutes to complete, so give yourself plenty of time when registering. The questionnaire ranges from general questions about personal characteristics to in-depth questions about relationship styles. The self-description portions ask if you find yourself to be clever, submissive, aggressive, intellectual, communicative and so forth. The personal characteristics section asks about beliefs, work ethics and church involvement. The test is thorough but long using blurbs, true and false questions and "never to always" scaling questions. Personal interests — art, animals, cooking and dancing — are conveniently alphabetized, and eHarmony has encouraging phrases such as "try not to over analyze it" and "you're doing great" to give you that extra drive to complete your profile. Some questions seem difficult for college students to accurately answer or relate to such as dating someone with older children.
Even after completing the detailed analysis, eHarmony.com was unable to find me a match. The sites reasoning is that 20 percent of the users do not benefit from that site, and I happened to be that one person out of five. Part of the reason may be that I preferred to be paired with another Muslim, and perhaps not many Muslims are using e-Harmony.
DateKansas.com is a simple for page questionnaire that takes no long than 15 minutes to complete. DateKansas.com
questions focus more on physical appearance but also question your interests topics such as religion, music, partying, traveling and sports and which languages you speak. The last page asks for a written description on your personality, your appearance and what you are looking for in a date. However, inappropriate sexual language is not allowed, so nothing calousal. Ralston, president of the site, personally checks each entry to make sure the entries do not offend others, so take an extra minute or two to polish your words.
take minute of two to polish play.
If you're only looking for random play,
Lavalife.com provides you with the option to create a dating, relationship and/or an intimate encounter profile. I played it safe and chose to fill out a relationship profile with questions about romance, values and personal details. There is also a written portion, which asks for you to describe yourself in at least 100 characters. As soon as you complete the short 10 minute questionnaire, Lavalife.com allows you to browse through profiles and pictures of singles.
So, if you happen to run into the username "Sandy Mandy" with and opening line of "hey he" on Lavalife.com, then drop me a line.
snazir@kansan.com
Geared toward college students, these sights provide you with a more narrow age range to work from, although a small majority of the membership may be non-college students.
CollegeLuv.com Datekansas.com
Ethnic sites help you meet others with similar backgrounds, but these sites are open to anyone regardless of ethnicity.
Amigos.com
A Latino oriented dating
service
EbonyConnect.com An African-American oriented dating service
Email4loveasia.com
An Asian oriented dating service
IndianDating.com
An Indian (South-Asian)
dating service. Also try
IndianMatomrones.com
FriendFinder.com
Asianfriendfinder,
IndianFriendfinder,
Latinofriendfinder,
Filipinofriendfinder
BigChurch.com Christian singles dating service
ice
Catholicmatch.com A Catholic dating service JDate.com
Jewish singles network
Naseeb.com
An online community for
Muslims to meet
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Jayplay 03.17.05
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