*This post was written in collaboration with Mature Essex Dating and Mature Devon Dating.

As far as 2021 has gone, the year we thought would be a bit better, it has actually thrown out a few surprises. If we thought 2020 was bad, we are only in January and we have already had Armie Hammer eating people, a rumour about Jeffree and Kanye and an insurrection at the Capitol in America. It’s easy to forget, with so much going on, that 2021 is the year we are all hoping to “get back to normal”. The vaccine should have us getting back to normal sooner rather than later, but until then, you can start to try and get a bit of normality back. There are plenty of things that can keep you occupied in lockdown, and dating is one of them! Here are some tips on how to date online safely. 

Find a GOOD local dating site

The first thing you need to do if you are going to date online during the lockdown is to find a good local dating site. The national ones always end up matching you with people miles away anyway, so go with a site that is reputable like Essex dating. You’ll find local dating sites tend to attract people that are a lot more serious about dating, so if you ask them to do certain things to make you feel safe, they will more than likely be willing to do this for you. 

Be wary of links to social media in your profile

There is a certain dating website that allows you to connect your profile to Instagram. Because we are conditioned to see this as “normal”, someone setting up a dating profile might think it is harmless to list all of their social links. Bad idea. It’s worth remembering that ANYONE on the dating site can see your profile. Even on smaller, local dating sites, you just don’t know who is looking. Personally, I like to leave it until way, WAY down the line until I share my socials with someone. Then at least they won’t get an “impression” of you before you actually get to meet. We all have a slightly different personality online to the one we have in real life, so it’s definitely worth meeting up before you swap socials.

Limit the number of people you give personal details to

I know what it’s like, and I am the worst for it. Oversharing. I do it at work, I do it when I meet new people, I do it with dating. Say you meet someone on a site like Devon dating and you hit it off, once you start a conversation that flows naturally it can be easy to give away personal details, like exactly where you live or where you work. I’m not saying you should avoid sharing anything, ever, but make sure you are speaking to the person a while before you get into life details. It’s not nice to be naturally sceptical, but it’s also not ideal to be too trusting online.