Unwilling to put their hearts or safety on the line, people looking for love online go all out to vet potential partners.
When it comes to online dating, Erin Derby has a system.
Before Ms. Derby, 49, agrees to meet up with a match, she typically spends a week or two texting back and forth to get a feel for how they communicate — gauging their sense of humor, and “whether they use full sentences with periods at the end.”
She does a bit of sleuthing, too: a close read of their dating profile, some preliminary Googling.
Ms. Derby, a photographer and content creator, also asks her matches big questions up front, like who they voted for in the last election and what their religious beliefs are. And if a potential date finds her vetting process invasive or arduous, so be it. When a conversation peters out, that tells her what she needs to know.
“You’re putting together the puzzle of who this other person is,” she said.
For many singles like Ms. Derby, screening matches is an essential part of modern dating, offering some semblance of control in a process that can feel overwhelming and risky. According to a 2023 Pew survey, less than half of online daters in the United States believe the apps are generally safe (women are more likely than men to think they’re unsafe) and more than half say they’ve come across someone who they think has tried to scam them.
Vetting dates isn’t just about safety; it’s also about emotional self-preservation, said Shira Danzig, a clinical psychologist and co-founder of the River Psychology Group in New York, which offers dating therapy.
Many of the clients she sees have become risk averse, wary of putting their hearts or safety on the line.
“They’re very concerned about putting themselves out there, of being vulnerable, of the experience of dating — which mostly feels bad,” she said. “The extreme amount of data we can collect on a person beforehand makes us think that we can protect ourselves from getting hurt.”