Advice to Single Women: How to Protect Yourself on Dating Apps from Liars, Creeps, and Predators
Although easy and convenient to use—especially from your iPhone or Android device—dating apps contain inherent risks. These range from fake profiles and altered photos, to messages from horny men. Even if women take precautions to safeguard themselves, toxic men are often masters of manipulation, influencing women to let their guard down. The results can be disastrous or deadly.
Women, who have experienced negative experiences with men on a dating app, have run the gamut of mild to moderate to menacing. Perhaps you’ve been a victim yourself so keep reading.
Knowing the dangers and being proactive many women have come forward with suggestions for how dating apps can implement some safety features to alert and / or protect women from annoying harassment to more vexing situations. Here’s some of what they had to say.
One woman, who received a message from a mom trying to set up her son (what?), recommends either a secure login, or using a two-step verification screening process. This could thwart people who have no business being on the app in the first place.
Another female dating-app user thinks flagging offensive messages with sexual content or hostile undertones could help. One dating app uses heavy filtering to alert women of repellent messages arriving in their inboxes. Empowered women can choose whether to open such messages or not.
Also Read >>> The Modern Girl’s Guide to Online Dating
One other suggestion is if dating apps could namelessly flag men with a history of lying about themselves, or behaving insensitively towards women, that would go a long way to making matching experiences more positive and less unpleasant.
Other practical suggestions include contact only men who live close by; not entertain lengthy online interactions; meet in a public place and bring friends. Meeting in the flesh quickly is the way to know if she’s dealing with a decent man.
There are some dating apps which use some form of safety features, whether policies, verification methods, or a well-known reputation for being ethical. One dating app in particular does not allow men to join unless they’ve been invited by women. This vetting process is a good sign to other women on the app the man is approved.
How do you feel about the suggestions made on here about protecting yourself on dating apps? Are there any other thoughts or experiences you’d like to share with other women?
Author Bio: Patricia attended San Francisco State University and earned a degree in Technical and Professional Writing in 2008. She took a professional development course, B2B High-Performance Copy-writing from American Writers and Artists Inc., in which she learned among other things lead generation, white papers, and landing pages. She has experience in blogging and expert in writing different topics.
