Screening Date Candidates
Ever since I started working to help singles find love using the Internet, I have been astounded at the numbers of people who get impatient at the process and try to hurry it along or quit altogether. “Three emails and then meet for coffee or I am done.” “I met three different guys and they all lied about their age, so I pulled my profile.”
Folks who rush the process are depriving themselves of one of the chief advantages of meeting online: The ability (if you use it) to prescreen potential dates.
Because you get information via a person’s online dating profile that you would seldom get before a traditional date with a relative stranger, and because you are meeting online rather than in real time and space, you can study what the other presents, ask questions, look for gaps or inconsistencies, and read the lines as well as between them. You can learn a lot by what and how a person writes, as well as what they don’t. And all without dealing with the nerves and worries of a first date.
You are bound to waste a lot of time (and drink a lot of coffee) if you move too fast from first contact to first “real time and space” meeting. You could also be inviting trouble. Move gradually, starting with emails through the website, then through a safe email address (Have you set up a Yahoo! or Hotmail email account that is not traceable to you? You can email me for instructions on how to do so). Then, phone contact: Use a cell phone, block your phone number using *67, or set up an anonymous phone number (see my blog piece on how to do so)
We all have the responsibility to prove that we are normal, real and truthful people to potential dates—and they have that responsibility to us, too. Regular, predictable contact over time will allow you both to build trust—or not.
From Your Romance Caoch, Kathryn Lord
A great new online dating product, the Personnel Security Standards Psychological Questionnaire (PSSPQ). What condoms are to sex, the PSSPQ is to online dating! This is not just a
cute parallel comparison, it is absolutely true, unfortunately so -----! Condoms are a safety tool, you really would not want touse them without being motivated for safety. The PSSPQ
is also, just a safety tool and no one would purchase its utilization unless one was appropriately concerned regarding safety. One has to be aware that just about all people, who make
use of any of the online dating sites, or who are contemplating use of these sites, are aware of the great number of dangers that one opens him/herself to when starting to use these
online dating sites, hopefully to meet their Mr. or Miss Wonderful. Only a VERY few of the available online dating sites (and these few are a couple of those that charge fairly steep
fees to make use of the sites) offer customers any safety features at all. eHarmony.com does make use of a built-in lie scale, which is a small part of its advertised 400+ item
personality testing battery, however, this particular lie scale only consists of only 20 True/False type items (i.e., not very sensitive) that are fairly ‘transparent’ as they stand out rather
prominently in contrast to the other couple hundred personality testing items. In other words, this eHarmony.com lie scale is rather obvious to those ‘taking’ the whole test as the
scale looks like it serves a different purpose than does the rest of the testing battery. A good lie scale should not be able to be ‘spotted’ as a lie or anti-truth-telling type scale; rather,
it should faultlessly blend in with all of the other items that comprise the overall test. An other popular (and expensive) online dating site, that offers some rather real safety to its
customers is the True.com site. Its safety mechanism offering is to do a criminal background check, as well as a current marital check, on those who apply for membership. This
really sound better than it actually is. Apparently, their background checking database really does no cover the entire USA, only done at an individual state level, or for some
combination of a few states. In other words, their data bases, which are used to accomplish criminal background checks, is frequently questioned as being fragmented and incomplete.
Another very major problem arises when a candidate for True.com membership makes use of a name that is not his/her own, or even worse - uses someone else’s name. Using an
incorrect name can defeat the whole criminal background checking. So what safety device or tool can be employed by a safety-oriented potential customer of any of the online dating
services? Fortunately, one is available that really works. It is the PSSPQ, a psychological test that was originally developed and constructed by a very senior psychologist, who at the
time of its construction was the Chief Research Psychologist in the USA’s then largest intelligence agency. It was developed using the most scientifically sound test construction
procedures and was designed to predict whether individuals, very early-on in the investigation/adjudication process the Government has set up to evaluate individuals for unusually
high-level security clearance status, would eventually be successful or not in being granted such a clearance status. The PSSPQ, which in reality is a very advanced test for personal
honesty/integrity, was found, based upon lots of repeated research, to accomplish exactly what it was designed to do. It successfully predicts the success or nonsuccess in eventually
being granted high-level security clearance status at about a 95% accuracy level. For the past several years the PSSPQ has been sold for individuals use on the Internet (see:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/psspq.html). During the latter part of 2006, it was discovered, by user customers of online dating sites that the PSSPQ was an idea tool for use
in evaluating the personal honesty/integrity of persons who they had come into contact with through online dating sites services. At about that time, research was conducted regarding
use of the PSSPQ in the online dating prospect situation. The results have been almost completely strongly supportive of such a usage. By the way, the PSSPQ contains what is
believed to be the very best lie scale ever placed in a real-world psychological test. It contains none of the lie scale problems that does the scale in the eHarmony.com lie scale. The
PSSPQ’s LIE Scale is much larger, stronger, and less visible [as a lie scale] than any other lie scale in use now or in the past. The PSSPQ also provides comparative information,
regarding the prospective dating partner, on 11 different human frailty or problem areas that are highly correlated with favorable levels of personal honesty/integrity. Finally, an
overall score for generalized personal honesty/integrity is provided; it is this scoring that very accurately predicts success/failure to be eventually granted high level security clearance
status in the PSSPQ’s original purpose situation. Information regarding use of the PSSPQ for evauating prospective dating partners, that one might meet through the services of
online dating services, can be found at:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/psspqdatingtest.htm.
Posted by Dr. L. A. Stone on 03/30 at 06:44 PM