War story: My first "online date".

I still remember the first woman that I met online.

When I first came online, I had just finalized my divorce. I was eager to meet someone who was different from the woman that I had left.

I went to JDate (the largest Jewish dating site), and came upon the profile of a woman who described herself as having "a responsible and a fun side" (I was too new to online dating to realize that it was a cliche), and described the person she's looking for as "someone who plays nice in the sandbox and doesn't eat paste." It sounded appealing, we bounced a few emails, and decided to meet.

Well, turns out this "responsible" woman had been chronically unemployed, and was living with her parents. And, on top of that, complained that she'd like her parents to retire to another area, so she could move out there again.

Painful, yes. But it proved to me that, when people write profiles, they often describe themselves as the person they want to be (or want to meet), and not who they really are.

So... how do you handle this?

First of all... if a woman says something that holds a lot of appeal for you, take it with a grain of salt. She could be exaggerating. And, to some degree, all of my dates have. Even the good ones. You really don't know who you're going to meet until you actually meet them.

And don't just look at how she describes herself. That information isn't very good. But you can come away with a good idea of what a person values, and what a person does with her life.

Oh, did I mention that my first date also used an inaccurate photo?

I'll talk about that tomorrow.