It often seems harmless to let your Tinder date pick you up from your dorm or house or to meet in an coffee shop in a part of town you’ve never visited before, but you should always take precautions when meeting up with someone you met online.
Although I sound like an overprotective, overly cautious mother: bad things can happen and meeting someone in person for the first time can be dangerous. You don’t want to be catfished without the help of Nev & Max.
Here are the top five tips to meet up with someone you met online:
1) Don’t let them pick you up and don’t offer to pick them up. Pick a location and meet there, once you scope them out a few times you can decide if you want them to forever know where you live.
2) Location, location, location. Pick a familiar location, it doesn’t have to be a restaurant you’ve been to a million times, but you should know a little bit about the neighborhood and who hangs out there.
3) Tell someone where you’re going. Tell your roommate, your friend, your mom, just someone what time you’re meeting this person, where you’re meeting them and what time you should be back. If you’re not back at said specified time make sure to let them know so they don’t come barging in on your date with police level authority.
4) Talk on the phone. If possible talk on the phone or over Skype. I would avoid using your actual phone number when possible because it’s often easy to use the internet to trace your address.
5) Be prepared and stick to your guns, if you had any red flags with this person or they refuse to meet somewhere you’re comfortable, let it go. Don’t let your online perception of someone overrule how the person actually is in real life. Make sure you feel comfortable with what’s going on.
Now go meet up with your potential love!