What you see isn't always what you get with internet dating
What you see isn't always what you get with internet dating

Like Brad Paisley's hit country song "Online,” where a nerd on the Internet morphs into a much cooler, taller dude with six-pack abs, many people misrepresent themselves in online dating services. Kelli Pickens and Shelley Cadamy can attest to it.

Pickens of Edmond once agreed to a date with a guy — who turned out to be a lot different than his online persona.

Uninterested, she begged off an after-dinner movie, and her date called her no fewer than 12 times in the next two hours, asking "Why didn't you like me?”

Cadamy of Oklahoma City once met a man who told her he looked like a football player. Not really.

Of the roughly 30 men she's met online or through personal ads, two showed up wearing wedding bands and a third, whom she drove to Dallas to meet, couldn't hold eye contact for more than two seconds.

"This guy made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” she said. "It was very difficult to hold a conversation with him, much less trust him.”

To reduce such disappointments and for their own safety, singles who meet online should take certain precautions, say health care and law enforcement professionals.

For starters, they should always should meet in public places and always let someone know where they're going and when they'll be back, said Terri Woodland, clinical director of Sunbeam Family Services in Oklahoma City.

"Don't wait until you're involved to question who and what kind of person they are,” Woodland said. "Verify everything that person told you about themselves, including their education and workplace. And start early, so you don't set yourself up for disappointment and heartbreak.”

People should ask to meet their date's colleagues, friends and families, Woodland said. Many predators, she said, are isolated and don't have support systems.

Just last week, Donna Louise Riles of Norman was shot and killed. Police arrested Tony Benae Smith Jr., a man Riles' aunt said the 36-year-old single mother met two days before through a telephone dating service. Smith had several misdemeanor and felony convictions in Midland and Fort Worth, Texas.

Police are encouraging people to be careful when meeting strangers. Singles can use free online search engines and paid services to do background checks.

By paying $15 to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, anyone can request a criminal background report on anyone else, said Jessica Brown, public information officer. The reports show all criminal activity within Oklahoma but don't include federal offenses. However, they give more detail, including charges and jail time, than the free information available on www.oscn.net, the Web site of the Oklahoma State Courts Network.

The registry of sex offenders in Oklahoma is free. "But,” Brown said, "keep in mind, people drop off the list after 10 years.”

Brown strongly discourages online dating. "The only thing you know about that person is they like to be on the Internet,” Brown said. "You have no reference from a friend or a neighbor.”

Cadamy considers online dating no scarier than any other method of meeting people. "At least you can read about how they perceive themselves — versus meeting in a bar or standing in a grocery store, wondering if the guy checking out the lettuce next to you is single.”

Cadamy recommends meeting for coffee on the first date, and going Dutch. Until she knows someone better, she only uses her first name and never shares her address.

If not for online dating, Pickens would have no social life. "I was a single mom with two toddlers,” she said. "I could schedule ahead and plan a date, but ‘Where was I going to meet someone?'”

Pickens met her husband, Alan Pickens, online. They "spoke” briefly in a chat room, and six months later, he e-mailed her and asked how she was. Long before they met, they became pen pals and friends via e-mail. They've been married nearly three years.

Alan Pickens entered the chat room on a whim, he said.

"It was exciting at first,” Pickens said. "Everyone was hitting me with questions because I was the new guy. But after a week, I got tired of it. It was really fast, and I couldn't keep up.”

Pickens was drawn to his wife because he found her intelligent, based on the verbiage she used, and attractive, based on her photograph that accompanied her profile. "We got lucky,” Pickens said. "I wasn't a freak, and she wasn't a freak.”

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