Today, you'll learn about 2 yellow-flag indications the
person on the other end of your online chat is possibly a
troll (married, partnered or undesirable)..
1. Statute Of Contact Limitations
Beware, beware of anyone putting conditions on when and
where you can contact them.
For example -
”Sorry, but I don’t have a land-line, only a cell-phone.”
Or
”Don’t call me on weekends or after 8:30pm”
Or
”Always let me know by email first that you are going to
phone me.”
Or
"Never leave a message on my answering machine."
You need to ask yourself:
”Who has a cell phone but no land-line?”
”What makes a person unavailable to speak on the phone on
weekends and evenings?”
”Why would someone require forewarning before being
contacted by phone?”
"What's the problem with leaving messages on the answering
machine of someone you're dating online?"
Suspicious wouldn’t you agree?
In the real-world some excuses may be plausible but
unfortunately lying is much more prevelent online, so you
must be more skeptical in your judgment of what you read
from other people.
The exception where the above may be acceptable is if the
dater is still in a dead relationship that hasn’t
officially ended because of ownership of joint assets or
even marriage.
Personally, even in these cases I would still steer clear.
Sometimes relationships can take a long time to end and
then you may just be catching them on the rebound with a
whole lot of emotional baggage to boot, anyway.
If any of these contact limitations are imposed on you I
suggest you try the following:
- confront them about it, be gentle but persistent. If they
consistently say they can’t tell you why or won't revoke
the contact limitations then I would say “Bye, bye.”
- call them when they aren’t expecting it. Who answered,
are they angry, are they whispering, are they being
secretive, whose voice was it on the answering machine?
- try to find their number in a phone book.
- ask some of the other people you have chatted with at
your dating site if they know anything. Keep it polite and
‘oh, by the way’ so the message doesn’t get back you have
been checking up on their facts.
2. No Sepia-Toned Photos Please
The biggest reason for telling lies in online dating is,
easily, to deceive someone about your physical appearance.
Its common for people to use old photos from a more
atractive time in their life.
Old photos are pretty easy to spot. Look for:
- color and image qualities of the photo,
- hair styles,
- facial hair styles,
- clothing styles,
- background images like old advertising or logos
- apparent age in photo compared to written age in profile.
Of course if there is no photo you can’t tell. I would say
never bother contacting anyone who doesn’t have a photo.
Surveys have shown that 80% of people agree with me.
And, unless the dater has only been online dating for a
week or so, don’t tolerate any excuses like:
- no camera,
- no scanner,
- haven’t got around to it yet.
Please! If this person is serious about finding a
relationship, they can easily get off their pants and spend
10 bucks on getting a photo scanned or having one taken.
I could go on but once again we’ve run out of room. In the
next article in this series you will learn about what I
call the 'Perpetually Unavailable Syndrome' and what to do
when it occurs.
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