Advice on meeting someone?

[Eireann]

Hi, all,

Some months ago, I joined a dating site. When browsing it one day, I saw a profile that looked interesting. I messaged the guy, he messaged back, and things went fairly well. After a month or so, he told me he'd like to continue messaging by email, and sent me his address. I didn't respond to that idea, though I did continue to message him.

Well, the site went down. I realized that I had no way of contacting him, and wondered how long it would take for the site to come back up. As far as I know, that hasn't happened.

Not long ago, I had the urge to log in to Skype, which is something I don't do often. There was a request to connect by a guy whose name I didn't recognize. I clicked on his profile, saw where he lives, and realized he must be the guy from the dating site.

Yep, indeed, he is.

He'd managed to find me based on my first name and location, plus some things I'd mentioned about myself in the messages. He doesn't live anywhere near here, but when the site was still up, he mentioned wanting to come to Europe to visit friends in more than one country.

Today, he told me that he'd bought his plane ticket - directly to the city where I live. It was the best airfare he'd found to Europe. He's arriving this month, and will be here for a few weeks.

The idea of meeting him in person has me more than slightly panicky. It's not just the fact that you can pretend to be anyone online, though that is a very important consideration. I didn't invite him to stay with me, of course, and I didn't recommend any places to stay in the area where I live. I didn't tell him in which part of the city I live, etc. I did look him up, and found a Couchsurfing profile with one recommendation. This is fair enough, since I only have one recommendation, too. The photos show him in various areas of the world, usually alone, though sometimes with a group of people.

I'm also panicky because I simply don't know how to behave with men unless we're friends. My track record in relationships is abysmal. I'm busy looking for the traits that I know all too well, rather than picking up on the regular social cues. I'm so accustomed to assholes that I just wait for a guy to do something assholish. As far as friends are concerned, I'm fine - but if a guy is sending out signals that he's interested in something more, I'm not going to pick them up. I'm only used to the pushy, overbearing fuckheads that I've always known, and I'm all too familiar with their behavior.

So - apart from what I'm doing already, what do you suggest?

[It's me]

Hmmm.... if you do want to meet up pick a very public place. And don't go for anything that involves a lot of commitment.... show him around a museum or some other touristy thing. Be prepared to walk away and go home on your own... you have zero obligatgion to making sure he find his way back to wherever he needs to be.

As for interacting: yeah, it'll be a bit hard, but just pretend he is friend. Because really, that's the place any relationship needs to start anyway. If he wants to get touchy-feely and makes you feel uncomfortable or says that he only is there for a short while so you need to move fast: walk away! If he doesn't start with YOUR best interests in mind at the begining that is a good intication of things to come.

[greek_jester]

As well as the advice from It's Me, I would add taking a friend along. It would take some of the pressure off of you, and would be safer; after all, most of what you know about this chap is from online chatting, and the point of online chatting is that you have time to think about your answer before you hit send. You have no real experience of him in the real world.

Any decent bloke in this day and age will have no problem with you taking a friend along for moral (and physical) support. If he has a problem with it, that is a major red flag and you need to exit stage left at speed.

[Kristev]

I agree. Bring a friend along.