A: It is important to remember that meeting someone online is different than meeting someone during the course of everyday life. Therefore, relationships formed online need special handling while you get to know each other.

1. Meet Face-to-Face
If you meet someone online and either feel chemistry or think there may be potential, set up an in-person meeting. I suggest you do this sooner rather than later, since you want to perhaps form a relationship with him or her, and not just with his or her online persona. No matter how honest and forthright a person is, you cannot fully experience someone while solely interacting online -- you only get a one-dimensional take. Too many times I have seen people falling in love online, only to meet and find out they are not very compatible.

2. Keep Your Expectations Low
Have low expectations and see if you can be detached from the outcome of the first meeting. It is stressful to meet someone new, and even more stressful if you have gotten to know each other in the artificial environment of online dating. Don't add to either of your discomfort by having huge expectations about how things will turn out.

3. Stay Safe
This almost goes without saying, but I will say it anyway. Meet this new person in a well-populated public place only, and remain in public for the entire date. If you have more dates with this person, continue to meet in public until the two of you really get to know each other. And while you are out on these dates, have your cell phone with you, have a back up plan to take care of yourself, and let a close friend or family member know where you are and whom you are with.

4. Take Your Time
When everything goes right and the person you met online turns out to be just the type of person you like and are attracted to, still take time to get to know each other in everyday, real life. As far as I can tell from coaching hundreds of singles, the biggest predictor of a successful relationship is the amount of time a couple takes to get to know each other in person. In other words, if you take three months of real-life dating to get to know each other, you are more likely to have a successful relationship than if you got to know each other mostly online, or if you jumped quickly into a relationship.

5. Wait to Get Intimate
To follow up on the above, the second biggest predictor of a successful relationship, as far as I can see, is establishing intimacy slowly. Really, there is nothing wrong with sex between consenting adults, except that it creates a false sense of intimacy. Once you sleep with someone, you will often feel close and endearing toward each other. You will tend to overlook incompatibilities, which may otherwise make this relationship a "no go." Unfortunately, this sense of intimacy will last at most for about three months, at which point all things you could not see -- or refused to see -- in the beginning will reveal themselves. It's better to see things as they are at the start and then to have a choice about whether or not to go forward with the relationship.

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