Protect Yourself in Senior Dating

If you are a senior finding yourself back in the dating scene once more, there are many things you should know. If it’s been awhile since you last dated, you may not be aware of how intimidating the marketplace can be today. While online dating now makes it possible to broaden your horizons of who you meet and date, it also means there are more precautions you need to take when dating.

There are many options out there for seniors today whereas before, you may have had a hard time trying to meet someone new. You may have been limited to senior centers or whoever lives in your building or on your street and happens to be single, too. But now, the Internet and senior dating sites make it possible to expand the reach of who you meet more than ever before.

While this is all really great and gives you more opportunity than ever before to meet someone new or to make new friends, you also have to be careful and protect yourself when online senior dating. Even if you’re not meeting the person in real life, you need to be cautious of what and how much information you give out over the Internet. The days of leaving your doors unlocked are over and predators will find many ways to get to you- using the computer or a dating site as one tool.

This doesn’t mean, however, that you cannot enjoy online dating. You just need to familiarize yourself with some of the ways that you might be victimized and then protect yourself before this can happen.

Here are some ways in which you need to protect yourself in senior dating.

Stay Physically Safe

First and foremost, you should stay physically safe. You should follow all of the safe dating precautions for meeting people online. Take time to get to know the person thoroughly before agreeing to meet them in person. Do a background check based on the information the person gave you online and see if it matches up with what they have told you before.

You should also make sure you meet in a lit, crowded public place and that friends or family know where you are and who you are meeting. You should also work out a system where you call before you leave and make a point to check in at a particular time. If you have to, excuse yourself from your date and to the restroom to make this check in call. Your contact should know to call the police if you miss your check ins and then don’t respond to messages.

Unless you already know some form of self defense, you might consider taking a self defense class, martial arts or similar method of personal defense. Even if it’s not your date that you run into trouble with, it helps to know how to defend yourself if some hooligans get the bright idea that an elderly couple is a good idea to pick on.

Protect Your Heart

While it might sound silly at first, it’s also important to protect your heart. You don’t want to get too attached to someone until you’re sure their intentions are true and matching with your intentions. Sometimes when a person is used to being in a relationship or has been alone for a long time, it’s easy to want so badly to be in a relationship that we fall for the first person who comes along. This isn’t always the smart, or safe choice.

There are many seniors on the Net just looking for friendship or love who have good intentions at heart. But scammers and schemers come at any age. Not to mention the fact that some predators may just pretend to be a senior looking for love in order to try to take advantage of you in some way. You don’t want to become so paranoid that it hinders you from finding the right person but there is nothing wrong with being extra cautious.

You should always go with your gut on this sort of thing, too. If something just doesn’t feel right or you get a bad feeling about a person or a situation, honor that feeling rather than ignoring it. You just never know but often instincts try to tell us something isn’t right and not listening could cause harm to come to you when it could have been prevented.

Protect Your Finances

Going right along the lines of the last topic, it’s important to protect your finances. It’s a sad but true fact that there are some people out there who look to prey on seniors or widows/widowers for their money. Some red flags that someone might be more interested in your wallet than your heart are:

• Asks about your finances
• Asks about life insurance you may be receiving
• Asks about disability checks, 401Ks and other retirement funds or assistance you may be getting
• Always complains about not having money
• Is a “victim” who somehow lost all of his/her money
• Claims to have adult children in a bind who need money
• Any similar scam, scheme or ploys to garner money from you

These are especially fishy if they happen when you don’t even know each other that well or if you have not met in person yet. If the person avoids meeting you in person but asks you for money, this is a big red flag.

Learn more about common schemes and sweetheart scams, especially those that are affecting seniors at the time. This will help you spot a scammer early on, rather than when they have stolen your money and broken your heart.

Watch Your Food and Drink

We all want to think that the person we are with is a good person. No one wants to believe that the person they are attracted to has ulterior motives in mind but the sad truth is that they might. It’s important to always watch your food and drink when on a date and don’t leave your date alone with an opportunity to slip something into your food.

There is a lot more at risk than the cost of a broken heart or even your savings when it comes to dating today, especially online dating. Some people have been drugged and raped or worse. It’s a sad fact that date rape drugs are being used more and more often today and seniors are not immune to such tactics. These things happen more often with someone you already know so don’t assume you’re safe just because you’ve befriended your date.

Conclusions

It’s always better to be safe than sorry and while there are many great benefits to senior dating sites, you still need to exercise caution when you use them. Never assume that someone is telling you the truth about who they are and never assume that someone wouldn’t try to take advantage of you.

You don’t want to become so paranoid that you cannot enjoy yourself or your time on a date but you also want to be sure you take the proper steps to prepare yourself. It just makes sense to protect yourself, your family and your investments and wellbeing. If a person is truly into you and wants to be a part of your life, they will also respect the fact that you have to be careful as you are getting to know them.