By Denise Turney

Online dating is exhilarating, not unlike meeting someone face-to-face. Desire, intrigue, imagination and untarnished expectations are at play. It’s a wonderful experience, but there are drawbacks.

Let love serve as your anchor, steering clear of delusions and unsafety. Enter virtual romance with your eyes wide-open. After all, romantic attraction can be addictive. In the world of romantic illusion, you get to rule. You get to make relationships (even if only in your head) turn out the way you want them to. Is this what makes online dating so appealing?

Curbing Risks

After all, online dating allows for ample creativity. For example, if you’re 4’11”, you could post on your profile that you are 5’7″ tall. Who would know?

You could misrepresent your age, career, educational background and past relationships. Of course, the people who you connect with using dating apps could lie to you too. But that happens with in-person dating as well.

Drawbacks aside, what if you really do want true love? To get there, forget making the relationship up in your imagination and then expecting anyone to live up to your inner script. Don’t do it. It’s just a great way to set yourself up to feel frustrated.

Easy Road Rules

Even more, to save yourself the emotional pain of getting played, follow road rules. Check out these online dating road rules that could save you heartache, not to mention hundreds or thousands of dollars.

• Avoid sharing too much information online, including within your online dating profile.
• Don’t use gifts to convince yourself that someone loves you. The person may appreciate the gifts. But that doesn’t mean that they love you.
• Meet the person you’re dating online in person in a safe, public place. Meet in person early to avoid creating fantasies and illusions that could, over time, seriously cloud your judgment.
• Really get to know the person before considering introducing her or him to your extended family, including your children.
• Check statements and facts that people share via online dating apps. Search engines make it easy to check facts and backgrounds.

More Smart Online Dating Practices

Give yourself time to get to know someone you’re thinking about dating online. Don’t rush the relationship. That, by itself, could keep you from creating dangerous blind spots. While you’re letting the relationship develop:

• Listen to feedback that relatives and friends share about the person you started dating.
• Practice safe financial skills. Do not share your financial information, including bank accounts.
• Don’t send dates money or ship products for them.
• Get to know family members, friends and colleagues of the person who you’re dating online. This way, you can start to get other perceptions of the person. In turn, this may help prevent you from creating fantasies or illusions of the person you met online.

Keep In-Person Relationships Strong

While you celebrate a deepening relationship that started in the virtual world, continue to invest in face-to-face relationships. In fact:

• Nurture and grow offline relationships with friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors.
• Live a rich life. Avoid isolating yourself.
• Be honest with yourself and the person you’re dating online. Acknowledge what you see and hear. Having strong in-person relationships could keep you from denying facts and behaviors, including behaviors you don’t want to accept.
• Don’t make excuses for your online date. Know when to let go, leaving the relationship.

Remember that your online date is not here to save you. Regardless of how online dating goes, you’re still responsible for navigating this world’s highs and lows, twists and turns.

Accept What You See

 A final thought – Who doesn’t want love, to join with and actually feel a part of love? Who doesn’t want to give and receive love in its purest forms? Love is beyond amazing. There really are no words to define or accurately describe it.

Love is too big to be defined or described. It encompasses everything real. And it flows, seemingly changing at whim. But that doesn’t mean that you should toss common sense to the wind and run off with every person who tells you that she loves you.

Right now, every person may not be ready to love, even if she shouts that she is ready. This applies with online dating and offline dating. Therefore, consider practicing a few online dating road rules while searching for a deeper relationship. After all, practicing online dating road rules could save you more than hurt feelings.