Meeting up

Coffee or dinner?

There’s a raging debate on where first dates should take place, not to mention what time of day or week and who pays. No matter what your opinions, you probably all agree that you should be thinking about safety when you meet someone from the internet for the first time. For that matter, you’re all probably familiar with the standard advice.

I’d still feel remiss in talking about dating safety if I didn’t at least run through a few of them, though. If nothing else, it serves as a reminder and checklist to not let it slide because that one person seems so interesting and amazing online. So here goes for some of the top points:

Consider meeting in public. Even if the plan is just to go hook up, a nearby coffee shop or a hotel bar lets you make sure you’re meeting who you think you are and that there are no immediate dealbreakers to either your attraction or your safety. (And if you are in it for the sex, consider that hotel if you can, rather than making your home location known or going to someone else’s home ground.)

Let a friend know where you’ll be and who you’re meeting up with. At best, you’ll be sharing the excitement of a potential new romance with your friend. At worst, there will be a starting point to look for you if you disappear. Odds are pretty good it will be the former, but why risk not having the latter?

If you normally carry a gun or other tools for self-defense, think about how you can bring them with you instead of leaving them home. It’s part of who you are, right? Don’t let that go entirely just because you want to be attractive to a potential partner. And if it ends up that they’re dangerous, you don’t want to regret not having those tools at hand.

Have a reason to leave or to have a friend worry. The classic strategy is to have your friend call or text you at a predetermined time so that you can let them know you’re okay or pretend an emergency so you can bail on a bad date. An alternate strategy I really like is the “dead (wo)man’s switch,” where if your friend hasn’t heard from you by a certain time, they know something’s up. You can work out between yourselves whether that means they start texting/calling you, show up where you’re supposed to be, call the cops, or something else. But this way, you have a little more freedom on when you get in touch and let your friend know everything’s going great (or not).

Be able to leave by yourself. It’s romantic, and sometimes convenient, to be picked up for a date and have them drive to where you’ll be spending your time together. It can also make it nearly impossible for you to escape, whether you just aren’t clicking with your date or if you need to run for your life. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to drive yourself: urban environments where you can walk away and lose yourself in a crowd work, as do places where rideshare or taxi services are easily hailed or public transportation runs on a frequent schedule.

Remember: the odds are with you that the worst that will happen is that your date ends up being not at all what you expected in a bad way, or that you have zero interest or chemistry. All of these strategies are either neutral or can help save you from those meetings too, just with the bonus that if things go sour in a way that threatens your physical safety, you have stacked a few things in your favor.

And you’ll note that some of these are just good ideas in general if you’re going anywhere at all. Hikers and other outdoors types know that leaving your plan, letting someone know when to worry if they’re not back yet, and being able to take care of themselves as much as possible are just smart things to do to stay safe or be savable if they get in over their heads. To me, that puts all of this in the category of “wise life decisions” and not “paranoid prep because every other person on a dating app is a rapist.” You might not be comfortable being paranoid, but being wise? I think we can all agree that’s a good thing.