Should You Find Out More About Your Online Date?

April 24, 2020

You’ve made the decision to try online dating. You’ve set up a great online dating profile and someone has contacted you. (Or maybe you contacted them?) If you’ve exchanged some chat and things seem ok, is it acceptable to look into them before you meet in real life? Should we find out more about our online date?

Why would you want to?

It’s normal that people want to discover more before a date. You want to check they’re not an axe-wielding murderer or if they have a happy marriage with children that they have omitted to tell you. You may just want to know, well, more……

• Many people have different reasons for wanting to know more about someone before meeting in real life. You may have been in touch with someone who just seems too good to be true, and want to check they are ‘real’ and not catfishing.
• If you have made contact and seem to gel together, you may be wondering why their profile pictures are blurry or facial features seem disguised to a degree. Are they hiding what they look like? Is this due to a lack of confidence or an intention to misled you?
• Are they vague or dismissive when you ask any questions?
• Photos and comments on social media can tell a story, good or bad!
• Videos and shared links can give great insight into someone’s passions.
• Some people just want to know more and fancy themselves as a detective!

Are you sure you want to?

Bear in mind, once you find something out, you can’t just ‘unfind’ it! By snooping into someone’s past life, you run a very real risk of discovering something that will have you making assumptions about that person. Or worse, it may be something that doesn’t need to be assumed. A lady in the US allegedly Googled her date to find out he was wanted by the FBI!

What if you find a post you don’t like the context of? It could be ten years old and not be of relevance anymore. You could find out something that you inevitably steer a conversation towards something that you couldn’t have known without a bit of detective work. That could be awkward when they ask how you know, or guess that you know.

Where Do I Start?

Searching for someone online will also work in a positive manner. You can get a sense of that person’s personality, morals, career drive and daily life by looking at social media. You may discover their values and what family life is like for them, such as how much their children feature in their life, or friends and family.

The most obvious ports of call are:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• Plain old Google

You could discover if you date locally that you have a friend or two in common. Ask them for an honest opinion, if you can trust them not to go telling! You will likely see pictures of your date in much more natural situations- this may help clear up any issues if what you’ve seen on the dating profile is blurry.

Your love interest may be posting a lot about an ex or seems to have a very casual attitude whereas you want something more serious.

At least by having a quick look, you will know what your date looks like in most settings and you’ll have a good idea of their personality. You may well have spotted any lies before you get started too, which saves investing any more time into someone that can’t tell the truth.

A lot of people these days will have profiles set to private, which although frustrating, is a good thing and shows common sense regarding security! And, (believe it or not), some people just won’t have social media. They may want to keep their lives to themselves, which is certainly not a negative trait!

Check Your Own Profile

And don’t forget- you will probably be checked out too! Visit notty.co.uk to have a look at your social score, personality score, posts and likes and see if you need to tidy up what others can see about you.