No offense, but maybe you should just go out and meet some women IRL instead
Why? Before the social networking sites came along the biggest way to meet people was either through work or going out to bars. Everyone has large networks of people to meet through when they're in school, but as you get older those go away.
The social networking sites have brought that same kind of networking potential that people have in highschool or college, and bring the same opportunity back to older people.
The only problem that people have with meeting people online is that they carry it on too far online. So here are the rules people should use if they want to use online activities to meet people irl.
- First - selectively search for people that are in your own local area.
- Second - Anything you see in their profiles, or what they tell you online should be considered nothing more than the equivalent of catching someones attention across the room at a bar. Untill you meet irl, you truly know nothing about them.
- Third - Don't spend a lot of time vesting into an online friendship. The idea of getting to know them a little online first is pointless. It's too easy to present your best face online. Even in a chat there is time to read what your saying and rewrite it to seem better before hitting the send button.
- Fourth - Meet as soon as possible, and do it in a public place. No matter how well you think you might know this person, this face to face meeting is truly when you are meeting them.
From that point on it is no different than having met someone at a party, picnic, bar, or church. Use the same common sense that you would normally use in those situations and start learning a little about who they really are.
A few years ago when it first started I didn't have anything to do with MySpace. I knew what it was because I'd seen my friends kids using it, but I mistakingly thought of it as something for the kids. About a year later a woman I had started dating asked me to make a MySpace profile so she could send me messages on it. I was amazed to find out what social networking was really like. I ride Harley's and there are a lot of older people with similar interests as me that originally set up profiles to stay in contact with their kids, but soon found how easy it was to keep in touch with other friends and meet new people as well.
I didn't date that woman for long, but when I started looking for other women to date I started finding many new friends on MySpace. It got to the point that if someone invited me on a ride some weekend and I wasn't seeing anyone, I could find a date to go with me on MySpace. My friends were amazed because all of the sudden I had new women around every week.
Like I said if your stupid about it, and try getting to know someone online and develop feelings for them then you'll almost certainly get burned. As long as you understand that all your getting is a social networking opportunity and treat it the same as meeting any other stranger, then meeting people online is a really great benefit to living in the modern world.