Getting off the dating website: Requesting Instant Messaging Programs to get out of having to check the dating inbox

Disclaimers are out there for a reason, folks.  The dating websites note that they are not liable for your actions or the other person's actions once you leave the website, give out your contact information, etc.  Beware of this when you give your personal contact stuff to perfect strangers.  Safety should be a primary concern. 

Instant messaging is the most common request I get aside from dates, obviously.  There's a few questions I have to ask myself before I proceed:  1)  How much information have I been given about the other person prior to them asking for my personal contact information that removes the liability of the dating website we met on?  2) Does the instant messaging program that I choose have a blocking format?  3) Am I really interested in this person to bother with accommodating them?  4)  Do I feel safe enough giving this person the right to contact me outside of that website?

I start talking to someone and usually within the first 24 hours, I have a request to get off the website and start either instant messaging or text talking.  I find this really premature on their part, having yet to establish any type of basic rapport with me.  And I really hate giving out my contact information as sort of an ultimatum to talk.  Some people get a bit pushy and say "I really don't want to talk on this format, do you have an instant messaging program we can talk on?"  In other words, they aren't interested in using the program they themselves signed up for and want to get lazy about having to look for a girl or something of that sort.

There's a couple of other things to watch out for:

1) Scams: this is the biggest nuisance of these websites.  I got on one dating website in the spring, and I got contacted by two individuals purporting to be military personnel, complete with photos.  One got fishy because how he described his assignment and that he had a child with him, who was staying with a nanny while he was working the Ebola assignment in West Africa. 

Pay attention to their grammar, how they answer questions, and see what they want to talk about.  If they don't stay on topic, post language that doesn't sound like correct English (even in some sort of area accent), or their topic seems to be out of character for the situation they are describing.  I know in general that military assignments, deployments, are generally there is no family allowed when it's combat zones etc.  This particular one, I couldn't imagine bringing a child into a situation where Ebola was rampant, with a local nanny.  The other part, was that he got worried that his child had gotten injured and began to say that he was worried about how he was going to pay to have her treated.  Military families have access to medical care, so medical bills aren't generally an issue, from what I understand of that issue.  The minute he asked me to help pay for her treatment, I knew it was a scam.

The second military personnel- I just simply blew off and told him that I wasn't dealing with military personnel again. 

2) Watch the tone of the conversation:  I received an invitation to talk off the website from another military personnel individual.  This was before the scamming stuff started.  I got talking to him on my texting program on my phone.  Within an hour he was telling me that I needed to get off the website, that I just paid membership to, to prepare for him to enter my life.  I told him that he had no right to ask that, considering we had never met, I don't know him from Adam, and that I had no ring.  Not to mention, he had been divorced before, which I was kind of questioning.  The way this guy was talking at me, I think I found the reason he was single.  His tone was more ordering me to do things than to suggest or find other avenues, or even discuss a first meeting.  Not to mention, I couldn't believe how quick he was to throw out his rank and base information.  I told him that I wasn't going to be ordered around and that was the end of that.

I'm not bashing military personnel, I'm just saying that there is a lot people purporting to be military personnel that is causing me to burn out on approaching military personnel as potential love interests.  I have a high respect for our men and women in the uniforms of our country, but the scamming is something I really have to flesh out before I will consider personal giving out my personal information to any serviceman, purported or otherwise. 

This last one, the one I sent the big response to the other night (see previous post), is also military personnel.  He told me that he doesn't like using the dating website to talk.  I told him that I get that, but I need to verify who you are.  The only way I could figure is if he could tell me where he got his tattoo done.  Everyone knows where they got the tattoo work done, and why.  I got a place, but no date, and no story to go with it.  So, I am beginning to wonder.

So, to counter offer his request for me to procure an instant messaging site for us to talk because I don't have one, I counter offered with using Facebook's messaging program.  If he has to quickly build a Facebook account, I'll know it, and with Facebook I can easily block him if something goes wrong.  None of my contact information is on Facebook, as far as my home address, a picture of my residence, or license plate tags. 

We'll see what happens.  But I told him that was the only thing I was going to offer, because I didn't have time to go and get another instant messaging program to accommodate.  What I didn't add was "to accommodate just one person."

Men, if you wouldn't want a little girl doing it, don't ask a woman to do it.

Ladies, pay attention to whom you give contact information to. 

(and vice versa)