As Lorelei Gilmore put it: “Dating is how you get to know your potential partner.”
That being said, isn’t it important to know about as much as you can about your potential partners? Creepertown, meaning the entire dating universe, can be a scary and dangerous place.
Whether you meet this “potential partner” online or randomly bump into them at Subway, it’s a good idea to investigate who they are at some point.
I don’t mean stalking them via Facebook and various other social networking.
Wait – yes, I do.
In the age of technology, when you can find almost anything you’re looking for with the click of a few buttons, it’s really not difficult to bring up the fabulousness of Google and search for your match’s information.
You might learn a thing – or seven – about the person you are meeting for dinner.
For instance, Facebook is great for finding out if they actually exist.
However, oftentimes you might run into some disappointing information. Like he could have a girlfriend. Or wife. Or wife and baby. And his wife probably has a million pictures of his super adorable baby plastered across his page.
At that point, your beautiful vision of a first date probably starts to resemble a really bad – or really good – episode of Jerry Springer. It’s best to just delete his number.
For this next tidbit of searchy goodness, you’re going to need to know his or her last name.
If he or she is anything like me, you probably won’t get the last name before date three, but you can always search after the third date. I’m an advocate of not sharing too much personal information right away because, you know, people can stalk you that way.
After that, you are free to have a go at searching them via the many databases available to you.
This is especially important depending on the area you live in.
According to familywatchdog.us, there are 358 registered sex offenders in the 48197 zip code – Ypsilanti. This number alone is devastating, but the fact a good majority of these offenses are offenses against children is truly sickening. There are creepers, and there are creepers, the latter of whom you definitely want to stay away from.
Dating or not, I suggest everyone use this site at least once. You can search anywhere in the United States and get a rough idea of what sex offenders live there.
If you’re planning to move somewhere, you can find an area with less of these types of crimes, and less is always a good thing in this case.
Do this and do it often.
Now, one might question why I don’t seem to be taking my own advice given my adventures in Creepertown. This isn’t so. Most of the time I do as much
background checking as possible on my potential dates just to be safe.
However, some slip through the cracks. And some are good at covering their tracks. It’s these people, somehow, who end up as my adventures in Creepertown most frequently.
Take Subway guy.
I’d been craving my Veggie Sub all week when I finally stopped into Subway to get my beloved dinner. This particular Subway was one of my favorites because the vegetables are especially crisp.
I was standing in line, not bothering anyone, when I heard a voice behind me say, “Oh, so you’re going to be buying my dinner tonight?”
I half- turned at the statement, not expecting he was talking to me, but curious of the remark. He smiled in return.
“I don’t even know your name,” I replied.
He pulled out a business card bearing his name and profession: a personal trainer.
“Call me sometime, I’d love to take you out.”
I was shocked. I was flabbergasted. I was flattered.
A couple days later, I decided I would give this guy a call and ask him out to coffee. Given I had his business card, I took a picture of it with my phone and sent it to my sisters, saying I planned on going out to coffee with this gentleman. And I did.
Our four-hour coffee date was incredibly fun. We laughed, we talked and we had an entire conversation via a notebook. The end of the notebook conversation is actually what brought the date to a screeching halt.
Mind you, I’d just met the guy, and things were going really well … until he told me he really wanted to take me back to my apartment to, ahem, do things that probably shouldn’t be published. I was bewildered.
The date ended rather awkwardly … complete with an awkward hug and an awkward promise to text me again sometime soon.
I heard from him a week later. We made a lunch date. He stood me up for said lunch date. I honestly didn’t think I’d ever hear from him again after that.
He proved me wrong a few months down the road when he called. I answered, quite confused. I mean, he’d stood me up. It only took a few sentences for him to realize he’d called the wrong Danielle.
After that, I never heard from him again.
He was one of those cases I didn’t think was necessary to look up on the internet—he had a business card, he seemed legit.
Perhaps he was, but I’ll never know because I wasn’t willing to go home with him on the first date. Among other reasons, it just isn’t safe to do so in any sense of the word.
With that in mind, you can never be too careful in Creepertown. Tell family and friends when you are meeting someone for the first time. Give them a location breakdown.
And always, always, ALWAYS be safe.
