International dating

Here are some practical documentation tips to keep the serious
Internet dater ahead of the game.

• Make a printout of every profile that you respond to, otherwise
you will forget who they are when they email back a week later.
By which time they could have removed or changed their profile.

• Make a note of the email address of every person you respond
to. Writing it on the profile printout is a convenient way.

• When sending a ‘message’ to someone via an Internet dating
site (instead of direct by email), makes sure that you put their
username in there somewhere. That way you will be able to track
who they are when they reply (from the original message text, if
any), as the email address will be unfamiliar to you.

• Save a copy of their picture locally, it might come in handy later.

• Make a printout of, or at least store in a separate email folder,
every email that you send and receive to each person. This way
you can quickly read up on the email history of that person just
before your meet.

• By all means make a complete ‘Dossier’ on each and every
person. It might seem like a lot of effort, but it may come in
extremely handy. People are impressed when you remember
every little detail about them.

• Save all your chat text. People are more willing to give out
information in a chat room, and it’s to your benefit to keep it,
you won’t be able to remember it all. Most chat programs like
ICQ will have an option to save your entire chat session as a text
file. Keep these text files stored in a unique directory for easy
retrieval, or print them out

• Keep a hard copy of every profile you create of yourself.

• Keep a written track of your profile name (handle), user name,
and password for every site that you are member of. A serious
Internet dater will be a member of several sites and/or have
more than one profile. I still get email from sites I don’t even
remember joining many years ago.

• Once you get someone’s phone number and address, write it on
their profile printout. You never know when you might lose your
‘little black email book’.

• Keep notes of how the date went as soon as you get home. Odds are
you won’t remember much about them after a few other blind dates.
Yes it does seem like a lot of work, but serious Internet dating is
not easy work. It requires planning, perseverance, and luck. Good
documentation will benefit you eventually and you’ll be glad you
did it.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking, “I’ll start documenting when
it gets out of hand.” It’s the lack of documentation that makes it get
out of hand in the first place. Get into the habit from the very start.

By David L. Jone