Internet dating is a growing trend. Many singles are starting to rely on the internet to find potential mates rather than spending time in bars and clubs. While like anywhere else, the internet can yield some studs and some duds, the internet also has the scary factor of being anonymous. You never really truly do know who you are talking to and this can make for some pretty scary stories.

One such story begins with a young woman who has just gotten out of a poor marriage. She has two children and feels that if she lays it all out there, she will truly find someone who will love her for who she is. She signs up for some internet dating sites and waits for the messages to come. She receives a message from a man who seems pretty nice. He is older than she is, but at this point, she feels that older is more mature. He also lives on the other side of the country, but is willing to move. He tells her all the things she wants to hear and she trusts him. On a weekend where she does not have her kids, she arranges to fly him to her home so they can spend some time together. They hit it off and things go fairly well. He returns home with the promise that he will return for good in about a months time. She books him a one way plane ticket and books him a hotel room until he can get a job and rent his own apartment. He arrives and she takes a cash advance on her credit card to buy a car so that she can transport meals to him and visit him daily. 5 months later, he still does not have a job, is still living in the hotel, and has been in the hospital twice. Her credit cards are now maxed out and she is out of money. She also discovers that he has been chatting with other women online, much as he had chatted with her. She makes him go home. His son back home pays for his bus ticket home and she never hears from him again. This woman had thought she had found someone to love her, but instead, she had found someone who was just looking for a woman to support him financially. This was a very expensive lesson.

Another such story is one where another divorced young woman with children meets an older man online who is also divorced with children. He also seems legit and they meet up the very next day. They also hit it off and see each other occasionally. They do a couple of things with all the kids together and every one gets along. They talk of marriage and more kids, so the woman assumes that they are mutually exclusive. She knows his schedule, but he often has his cell phone off when she tries to call him. He often says that he will come over at a certain time and will show up hours late if at all. The times he does come are great. One night, he checks his e-mail from her computer and when he leaves, forgets to log off. She, out of mere curiosity, checks his e-mail and finds e-mails from a woman he has been seeing for a month and they seem pretty serious. She confronts him the next time he comes over and he says that he has to spend time with her because she is blackmailing him over something, but he will not tell her what. So the young woman sends this other woman instant messages wanting to know what is going on and the man is lying. The other woman knows about the young woman, but they are not exclusive so she does not care. The young woman is heart broken and confronts the man and tells him she does not wish to see him.

Other horror stories from the internet dating sites are so much worse than these, although these are some of the more common scenarios. Often, you can find stories on the news channels about women who were signed up on internet dating sites and went to meet a man that they had met online. Some of them never return. Murderers and rapists can so easily hide out behind false identities online. They are often master manipulators who can lull a woman into a false sense of security and get them to agree to meet. Some of them will even agree to meet in a very public place, but once you meet them there, they will lure you to someplace more private. Beware of the red flags that are often there, but ignored. Dont allow anyone to take you somewhere private on a first date. Stay in public. One thing that I chose to do was not allowing someone to know my address until after Id met them and was comfortable. Dont even give out your home number if you dont have to. If you have a cell phone, give them that number instead, at least at first. Your safety should be number one.

The internet is full of all kinds of con artists. Not only the murderers and rapists as mentioned above, but also people who are trying to scam for money as in the first story or who are just not trustworthy enough to get a date in real life. There are also child predators on the internet as well in the dating sites. This can make internet dating sites a very scary thing for a single mother. On the one hand, you want to be up front with a potential mate and let them know that you have a child or children, so they can leave if they arent comfortable with that, but at the same time, you need to protect your children. There is a very fine line here. The last thing any mother wants is to bring someone into the home that is going to harm their child in some way especially physically or even sexually.