people who have met their SO online, before you met them, how did you know they were legit.. and not just making everything up? Before you met them in person, how did you know it was safe? (and not just a guy trying to lure you in for other reasons)

I was watching some dateline show about online dating & so many people were getting scammed.... people weren't totally honest about who they were, etc. This one chic said she talked to a guy who claimed he was a AF pilot, he was stationed here & there, etc. and it turned out that he lied about almost everything!!

so how did you know everything was alright???

I met DB online. I knew he was legit when he called me when he was driving back from Missouri to NC.

:giggle......We talked for a good 6 months before meeting in person.

I met T online. He emailed me every single day for 11 months. Never once giving up on me no matter what drama in my life I threw at him. If a man can be that persistence and have the patience of a saint then I knew he was at least dating material.

I know Curt's ligit because he calls me all the time, one time he had to go back to his room to shave, it only took him like two seconds to shave and he called me for a little bit. Also he'll be doing something and I'll randomly ask him to take pictures and he will and he'll send them too me. He's really sweet and kind. Also Im really careful and he understands that he doesn't take it personally when I say like 'lets not rush stuff' he's totally willing to take as much time as I need to make sure I'm right and comfortable with where we are in our relationship before moving on. We've been dating for 2 months and we have no plans to rush anything.

DH was in England and we were talkinh online for 6 mths before we started talking onn the phone, and the it was anothe year before we met in person.I don't think he would have just spoken to me that long or flown all the way from England to Australia if he wasn't ligit

he waited up every night to talk to me when I got off work, and then he drove four hours to take me on a date. i figured that meant he was for real!

but no, for safety reasons, everytime I dated someone before DF, whether I'd met them online or in a bar or whatever, I'd tell a friend where I was going and with who, and check in with them with a phone call to let them know everything was fine. That made me feel a lot safer if it was someone I didn't know well yet.

I didn't put E through a super serious screening process before being ready to meet him because I was just loking for a rock climbing partner. At first, neither of us thought of the other as date material. Here we are, over a year later, dating through a deployment. Who knew? But yea, I checked out his MySpace page, which is filled with comments from his cousins, e-mailed a couple of times a week, and just generally got a feel for him. My first impressions were dead on.

db & i were just chatting buddies at first. i saw a lot of pics of him - before the navy w/ his car, during the navy in his uniform/barracks, in civvies at the chicago autoshow. after about 5 months, we started talking on the phone daily. we exchanged christmas presents. then he deployed & we emailed daily. the clincher...he introduced me to his mom via email & she & i exchanged emails & pics. baby pics. ha ha. all the conversing we did tho, i really really got to know him & his heart. i knew he wasn't lying to me. it was a 6th sense thing.

I met DH online, but he lived close to me, and was a volunteer fireman in the town where I lived. I lived in a really small town where I pretty much grew up with half the firemen there. So after talking to him online for about a month, he asked me out. I emailed up one of the guys at the firestation who I had known almost all my life and asked him if this guy was for real, and if so, what did he think about him. He told me, "You are like a little sister to me, so I will be honest. I would trust this man with my life, and I wouldn't think twice about you doing the same." He really liked him and only had good things to say, so I agreed to go out with him.

i love joey!

i love joey!

:puzz

people who have met their SO online, before you met them, how did you know they were legit.. and not just making everything up? Before you met them in person, how did you know it was safe? (and not just a guy trying to lure you in for other reasons)

I was watching some dateline show about online dating & so many people were getting scammed.... people weren't totally honest about who they were, etc. This one chic said she talked to a guy who claimed he was a AF pilot, he was stationed here & there, etc. and it turned out that he lied about almost everything!!

so how did you know everything was alright???

we talked for months and when finally met up in a public place...it was geniuwine and not a hoax. I was really nervous though.

Can I jump in and ask what your feelings were when meeting for the first time?
Did you bring a friend or family member along for safety? Meet in a public place? Some of your stories made me have goosebumps for how sweet they are!

An old friend was stationed at the same base and had worked with DF a bit. So I just asked him what his thoughts were and he confirmed a lot and said he felt DF was a safe guy for me.

i met dh online also.. we talked for over a yr.. on phone. on line.. web cams were on 24/7 lol. and the first time we met in person it was like we have been hanging out for yrs.. not weird or anything

We talked online for a few days then met up one night after I did some volunteer work. I was nervous an I think he was too. He had almost given up hope of ever being in love, getting married and starting a family. There was just something about how we talked that made me trust him. We've been together a little over 7 months and were planning our future already.

I met my husband online and turned out that I knew a guy he worked with so I asked him about DH before I went and met him.

Can I jump in and ask what your feelings were when meeting for the first time?
Did you bring a friend or family member along for safety? Meet in a public place? Some of your stories made me have goosebumps for how sweet they are!

hubby & I met online.. we talked for a few weeks and then lost contact for 3-4 mo. when we found each other again, we talked for 2 days then met in person. The reason I knew he was safe was I talked to his mom.... she wanted to make me bread for christmas LOL

anyway.. We met at a mall, which was public enough for me. When I first saw him, I knew I wanted to be his forever :wub

Can I jump in and ask what your feelings were when meeting for the first time?
Did you bring a friend or family member along for safety? Meet in a public place? Some of your stories made me have goosebumps for how sweet they are!

I was extremely nervous, but I always get that way when I meet someone new... no matter who they are. Even if it's just a friend. I did bring a friend along with me because his friend was with him. We met at a pizza joint. They were going anyway and asked us to tag along.

I would have to just say be careful girls as I well found out some people are not what they say they are and then there are others that ware exactly what they say they are. This was a cute thread though. I wonder the same thing at times with all you that have met your DB,DF,DH online.

I knew he was legit when he called/texted/emailed/im once a day to just say hey. If he was out with classmates, and when he still talked to me after I was crying and upset after having a problem with my stepdad.

I met my ex online, and I pretty much just trusted what he said. It just felt right, plus, there was not too many flaws in his stories.

But, he turned out to be a jerk-off anyway. I must say, I *think* most everything he told me was true, though. I'm still curious about a few things.

To me, dating online is just like dating in real life.. IMO You don't really know the person, until you've met their friends/family etc. Or, you just have to spend alot of time with someone.

Oh and one more thing.. I have watched shows like that.. And, I personally, wouldn't accept packages, money, or give someone credit card info if I didn't really KNOW that person. (Hell, I won't do that stuff for close friends:lol) So, I think it's all about being cautious, and aware of whats going on. :yes In other words.. Don't set yourself up for something like that by giving someone you haven't ever met your credit card info or something stupid like that!

I met Andrew off of Myspace. Is it wrong to just say I trusted my gut, heart and head? He was here in SD and I was in FL. We connected on myspace, talked through IM and on the phone(for like 4-5 hrs) everynight. I guess I assumed that he was 2,000 miles from me, and he'd rather spend all that time on the phone with me than go out and party and meet some chicks. After 2 months of that we decided to meet. He got leave for one weekend, flew all the way to FL to meet me(it was nearly a 400 or more dollar plane ticket). I met him by myself at the airport. It was cute. He called me as soon as he stepped off the plane. we talked the whole time...all the way up until we were face to face. Finally one of us asked "should we hang up now?" I was nervous yes, but I wouldn't change it for the world. After that one amazing weekend. we chatted for 2 more months on the phone and did the long distance thing...in October 4 months after we initally started talking, and 2 months after we spent only 1 weekend together I flew out here and we got married. One deployment and a year and 7months of knowing each other we are STILL happily married and have not once doubted our marriage.

I really didnt know if he was legit or not. We talked on the phone and online for a month before meeting in person. We would talk every night. I had him meet me at the visitors center at the front gate of post and he got me a pass to get on post so then I got to see his ID/wallet and before that when we were always on the phone his roommate would come back to thier room all load and his friends would want to talk to me.Sometimes I think back and say I was crazy for meeting him and past guys online but I hit the jackpot this time.We have been together for a year and a half so far.

I never planned to meet him in person. We met on Myspace and just talked and talked. Talking on the phone helped make him real for me.

I met Josh online through a yahoo military chat room. We talked for 5 months through IM and on the phone before I even met him. He let me talk to a lot of his friends and I asked his friends stuff about him and they all said how wonderful of a guy he was. When I met him in November of 04 he had his buddy drive him to the airport to pick me up because he didn't have a car yet. I flew out there with another friend because at the time she was dating a Marine. I remember specifically saying to her "Josh better not stand me up". Well unbeknowst to me Candice had already spotted him and he told her to be quiet. He walked up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder and when I turned around he kissed me. From then on out we were inseperable that whole weekend. 4 months later we were married and 7 months after that Maddie Kaye was born. That will always be one memory I always hold in my heart of my late husband.

It took DH a few months of convincing to get me to meet him and a group of now mutual friends in person. I thought for sure I was going to end up in pieces in a dumpster meeting people from the internet.

That was back in 02.

DH and I got a nice break from the "worried if he's a 67 year old stalker" thing, because he and I met in an advanced placement class online in high school. He was taking German, and I was taking economics, and we talked about things with a bunch of other students on the message boards in the class. His name, school, and age came up with every one of his messages, and I knew he was at least MY AGE, because you HAVE to be registered BY YOUR SCHOOL, you can't sign up on your own.

I think I knew he was legit when he really encouraged my safety. It was his idea to meet at my school (we were juniors in HS), after a pep rally, so EVERYONE was there. Then, I actually had a friend who went to vo-tech with him, so she'd bring handwritten letters back and forth between us, along with flowers and gifts from him. :wub (L) I found out on the day that I met him, when he came to my school, that his cousin actually went to school with ME, and lived with his (and DH's) great-grandparents, where DH would stay for the weekend. DH came to the school, rode the bus home with his cousin, I went home with a friend, and then we met BACK at the school for the homecoming game and my choir concert, so again we were surrounded by people, and then we double dated with my friend that night. We were very safe about it, but I trusted him from the first time we im'ed outside of the classroom (his request) and I loved him the minute I saw him. :swoon

Can I jump in and ask what your feelings were when meeting for the first time?
Did you bring a friend or family member along for safety? Meet in a public place? Some of your stories made me have goosebumps for how sweet they are!

he he. my story is pretty extreme.

db was deployed & told me i should look for jobs in wa, so i did. we had a plan for me to flight out for a couple weeks to come to homecoming & do some interviewing (late aug 07) & then move to seattle by thanksgiving 07. well, in mid june 07 i interviewed over the phone & via web cam for a job i'd applied for online in an attempt to just get resumes circulating out here & had a job offer, so i emailed db & said, "ummm, i've got a great offer, and i really gotta take it cuz it's way better than anything in mi right now." he agreed, so i loaded up my car & drove out here. i met his entire family before i met him.

he & i met for the first time on the pier. it was very exciting. he had me drive his car, which is his baby, up there. his mom couldn't believe that. he had to email her & tell her it was ok to swap cars with me. i don't remember too much about driving up there. i had tunnel vision. my goal was to get there. i do remember crying before getting off my block & again when i was almost to base.

i kinda laugh at myself, because he is the shy one, yet i dodged the kiss as we walked up to one another. hug first, then kiss. many many many kisses. he he.

Im begining to think I was the stupid one here lmao. My dh was dating (online) my so called friend well she was screwing him over i knew it and so I drove from Erie PA to Lexington KY (in April of 05) in one day spent the night spent 10+ hrs in a bathroom at a super 8 motel because my friend was sleeping in the room all we did was talk I couldnt give him that news over the phone or IM so yeah Im stupid and then we stayed in touch and in May of 05 we moved into together in june I found out I was pregnant and we have been together ever since..I am 10 yrs older then him yep I guess I robbed the cradle lmao. He was 19 and I was 28 :OMG!!! But it works for us we are amazing together and soooo happy!! So in the long run it really wasnt a mistake at all and I wouldnt change anything! Just go with your gut! But be safe