QUESTION:

Do You Have Any Guidelines For Setting Up The First Meeting?

ANSWER:

Abolutely! That first meeting is going to be very important, especially since you met as strangers online, and you really don’t know anything about one another. The first thing is always going to be safety. I encourage people .. at that point, if they have already shared phone numbers and last names, then they have some basic information about each other – they might even have some sense of where each other lives .. so what I recommend is that they never – even if it’s been going on well so far – they never get picked up at their home, or they don’t agree to meet at either one of their homes. Instead, they should meet in a public place.

Because it’s the first meeting, and you have a picture of this person but you haven’t experienced them first hand in person, I tell them to keep it short. I think a great first meeting is over coffee – something simple like that – perhaps lunch, something that’s easy. If it’s coffee or lunch and it’s not going well, it’s a very easy, easy out for either one of the people to say – “oh, I’ve got to get back to the office” or “I’ve gotta run ‘cos I’m meeting friends later tonight.”

If it’s going really well, then you can say “gee, this is fun .. do you want to go get something to eat together” – and you can make it into a sort of early dinner kind of thing. So it gives you that flexibility and it makes it easier on both people, and it’s just a little more relaxed – it’s a more relaxed environment.

So, you don’t plan to be at each other’s homes, you don’t plan this big long involved day, don’t plan something that’s going to require somebody or both people spending a lot of money or investing a lot of time.
Keep it simple, keep it easy, keep it fun.