Great points too Vicki.....Ariande54 you have no need to apologize to me, I can dish it out and I can take it as well. Glad you're back feeling better and posting again.....Now ladies, we all do what we feel is right at the time and we all make mistakes, but we must grow and mature from these mistakes and not wallow in them. I find it a sad situation when we as a nation have to turn to computers or phone sex or dating services to meet someone to love, someone to love us. They say things get better as time goes by but this to me is the biggest of backward steps. What happens next? Throw a thousand names into a large hat, pick one and live with it? God help us all!!!!

LOL, Chatty..."throw a thousand names in a hat and pick one and live with it,"....that really is pretty much what you get with the Internet singles sites. I want to share one experience I recently had thru Yahoo Personals. I corresponded with this man sporadically for several months, touching base in a friendly manner. We finally, about a month ago, met for dinner. "Vince" didn't appeal to me at all, but he stated he wanted to continue seeing me. I went online to do a search to see exactly how many singles sites he had his profile posted on. On one of the singles sites, I think it was Mingle, there was a link to "adult" singles sites. I had never looked on something like that before, but there was Vince, showing his face stupidly with the same picture he had posted on Yahoo Personals. This adult sites, called Adultfriendfinder.com is a pornographic site in which men (and women!!!) display their genetalia! I had no idea such a thing even existed on the Internet, but the data said in my state alone there are over 80,000 members.
Vince continued calling, leaving messages on my answering machine, since I didn't answer, and emailing. Finally, I wrote him a brief note telling him I had discovered his posting on the porn site, and not to contact me again. It is really hard to tell how many men who post on the "legitimate" singles sites also have their profiles on pornographic sites, but I am thinking there are many, many.
ARI

Oh Lordy and thats a perfect example of what I mean. I am one of 40 women that work for the service that employes me, there are probably over a hundred phone sex services out there with the owners all getting rich from men who call, women don't call. That is a drop in the bucket of whats out there on line. I recently called about an ad where you go into the office once so they can see you and you show them you can typed fast. If you want to work from the office thats fine or you can work from home. You pick a models picture and you become her, typing messages to these men. A trial day of their service is $4.95 but if he wants to join its much more a month and you make a $20.00 fee when he joins..Don't know much more as it didn't interest me at all. Now these men think they are typing messages to the woman they are seeing online....I truly believe that the good Lord is going to put an end to all this Sodom and Gamorra crap and sooner rather than later.. Never checked Ari but I imagine there are thousands, all garbage...Good think you checked this guy out...I'm staying single and alone, its safer. Take care ladies.

Yes!!!! "single and safer" is a good mantra!
ARI

Here's some more food for thought...

Think of our children and grandchildren who have grown up on computers. As boomers we are cautious because we are older and wiser. These kids delve in with impulsivity and without thought.

Do any of you have AOL? Have you seen what happens when you click on someone's away message? This whole list of screen names appears for you to consider chatting with...and their screen names ain't all that purty. Some are disgusting. This is at the fingertips of children the second they know how to read. God help us.

It depends what type relationship U R talking about? I've recently met some extremely nice people at www.survivors-n-thrivers.com and consider them new friends. They're helping me heal from past hurts and, I hope, I'm helping them by listening and passing along some understanding. Yes, I think U can cultivate beautiful and meaningful friendships via the net. And I don't see why lifelong soul mates couldn't be brought together via this median, as well. Happy, www chatting.

As often happens, I am the total antithesis of all good advice.
I had been divorced for several years and was really having a lot of fun. I had just ended an engagement and was dating two other men who wanted to marry me so I wasn't really lonely, but I needed to make some decisions when I happened onto a local chatline to ask for advice from a man who was seeking advice about ending a relationshnip of his own.
There was a place to post a photo and we both did so. I thought he was a doll and he said he thought the same.
We chatted once and exchanged advice. He never left my mind, but we went our way for a few weeks. We both ended relationships and returned to find each other again.
The second time we chatted online, we discovered that he lived only a few miles from me and we both had tickets to the same outdoor concert. We decided to meet at a restaurant outside the amphitheater for dinner and sit by each other at the concert. He still did not have my full name, my home phone number, or any other contact information about me. And I did not ask for it about him.
When I drove into the parking lot of the restaurant, he was waiting by a light pole. I knew him immediately and I smiled. I parked the car and walked toward him. He smiled and held out his hand, but on instinct, I walked into his arms.
It rained at the concert and I had an umbrella that we snuggled under. We exchanged a wonderful, but brief kiss and talked until they threw us out of the park.
It turned out that he had grown up a few miles from where I was raised and we had a lot in common including a strong faith.
After a week of being together every possible moment, but only in public places, I went away for a vacation and he called me on my cell phone every day. When I returned, I gave him my home number and we dated every evening. He took me to meet his family and he met mine. The next week, he took me to a wonderful restaurant where a musician played our favorite songs.
Over a candlelight dinner, he took my hands and told me he loved me. I told him I loved him too. We were both surprised at what we were saying, but we just knew and we had from the first.
When the restaurant closed, we stood on the curb and he asked me to marry him. Withoug a single thought, I accepted. We were married a few days later without ever having been sexually intimate.
We have been married now for almost two years and they have been the happiest years of my life. I know marriages end and things go wrong, and I am half afraid to trust, but either way we are making beautiful memories and it seems as if we have always been, and will always be - together.

So eventhough I was half afraid to communicate with anyone online, I believe internet relationships, like any other, can work or not depending on what you put into them.
My kids were terrified when they heard what I was doing and insisted on knowing where I was every moment. I told them it was definitely better than meeting someone in a bar where they were already across the table from you and you have to make decisions under the influence of alcohol. And the men I had met at church were such weirdos. Most of the men I had dated previously, I met through work, but I didn't really know them either.
I told the kids, it's not like they're going to put "Axe murderer" on the appointment book or in their personnnel files or something. But the girls called on my cell phone several times when I was out to see if I was okay and threatened to call the police if they couldn't reach me or I wasn't home when I said I would be.
Of course when they met Dan, they felt as comfortable with him as I had so they slowed down on the surveilance somewhat.
I think caution is very important in any new relationship and I believe men respect that. If I were a man I would think a woman too desperate if she threw caution to the wind too quickly.
I was lucky and blessed and I don't advise anyone else to do what I did. But I would hope that everyone else can find someone as special as Dan in any way they can.
smile

[ May 02, 2005, 03:43 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

That is a wonderful story, Smile. If I had followed your example with this last dating relationship, maybe I too would be happy. I don't feel inclined to date at all now, but if the occasion should arise in the future, I plan to use you as a model!
ARI

Smile, let me second Ari. What a wonderful story! Just goes to show that there are no pat answers to difficult questions like these. And even though your relationship progressed at warp speed, it sounds like you exercised many of the conventional precautions. I applaud you for being brave enough to follow your heart.

smile, I never knew you two met on the internet. How about that.

Your post makes me smile.