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March 6, 2008: trust your instinct

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Obey your hunches when you're out at your lunches advises our internet dating blogger, Linda Franklin

'Always trust your gut instinct.' The first editor I had told me to make this a golden rule - and it has proved one of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given.

People often assume that internet dating is somehow dangerous per se, they tell you to 'be careful' and imply that it is somehow more tricky to navigate than meeting a stranger in a bar, say, who chats you up (like they'd never seen Looking for Mr. Goodbar'...). But it isn't a high risk business: there are creeps everywhere, just as there are nice people. The best way of staying safe is to hone and use that gut instinct.

Of course you don't go to someone's home unless you know and trust them. You don't meet strangers in out-of-the-way spots. You let friends and family know when you are due to be back. But most of all you get a 'feel' for people.

A friend of mine was always ending up with very strange men: not necessarily dangerous, just odd and with psychological problems and they would attach themselves to her somehow, pouring out their problems to her, or being moody and difficult, or doing spooky things such as phoning at all hours and doing a bit of low key stalking.

But then, anyone enquiring further how these strange chaps had became so involved in her life in the first place when apparently they weren't really wanted, would have found out she'd ignored all the warning signs they'd given clearly enough right from the start.

One man had told her he'd already clocked up three nervous breakdowns on the first date - yet still she took up his offer of a second one and then wondered a few weeks down the line what to do with this dreary depressive.

Another cooked her dinner on the second date - with the stipulation that they both had to eat it naked - and she agreed, and then moaned later that all he wanted her for sex. And another man she'd apparently been getting along great guns with got my email address from a mailout to her friends - and started writing to me.

When I told her about it and suggested he was one to give the swerve to, because he wasn't quite what he seemed, she thought I was wrong. She carried on with him for a while - though not happily, more just trying to make it work - until she realised he wasn't the businessman he'd said he was at all, but an out-of-work actor fallen on hard times and whose hobby had become spying on her.

It works both ways of course. I met Bill, my good looking mate, in 'our coffee shop' for a cappuccino.

'Have you ever met a weird woman you wish you'd stayed away from?' I asked. 'Don't include me, of course.'

'Well,' he said, 'Weird women I've known - where shall I start counting...' He soon used up all fingers - miming horror and amusement and shock with each one - and then using mine to continue the count. Strange thing, I felt a frisson of something I didn't expect to feel as he took my hand. I took it away.

'Ok, point taken,' I said. 'Lots of la-la ladies out there...'

'Yes - and that's not even the ones who are only just past the weirdometer behaviour -'

'What's that then?'

'Oh like the woman who's a near neighbour who was always somehow there whenever I went out of an evening and she kept hopping into my taxi to go home and asking if I'd like to come back for a coffee...'

'Did you?'

'No - but she never got the hint. Women should - now they've decided they can make the first move as well - men have had to over the years. No-one likes a pest.'

He grinned, showing perfect white teeth: 'The golden rule with dating is don't keep jumping in - give someone time to miss you...'

After he'd gone I realised I hadn't asked him about the woman he was missing.

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