College is an exciting time to make new friends and even meet someone special who just might turn into more than friends. As exciting as the prospect of this is, it’s imperative that you approach dating in college with the knowledge and understanding of the potential dangers that may be out there.
No, this is not meant to discourage you! In fact, it’s meant to empower you with the knowledge needed to have an incredible experience. When you take a safe and calculated approach toward the process of dating in college, you not only protect yourself, but you increase your chances of success.
To help, here are nine things to focus on when dating online in college to keep yourself safe.
1. Avoid putting personally identifiable information on your public profile.
Here’s the reality. Even if you go to a huge university, campus is a lot smaller than you might think. Ideally, every date you go on goes incredibly well. In reality, though, you may find yourself going on at least a handful of bad dates throughout your time in school.
Depending on how badly a date goes, you may find yourself in a situation where you’d like to be able to permanently distance yourself from someone you met. If you’ve shared a lot of personally identifiable information already, though, that person will be able to find you with quite a bit of ease.
Protecting yourself starts with proactively keeping your personal information off of your public dating profile.
Here’s why this is even more important, though. Not only does this protect you from the people you do choose to go out with, but it also protects you from the people you don’t choose to go out with—or that you don’t even know are looking at your profile.
There are no special college dating apps out there that require a student email address or student ID verification to sign up. This means that anyone and everyone (including non-students) can join the same dating apps you’re on.
If you have personally identifiable information on your profile, these people can see it without you even knowing they’re looking. And if they’re bad actors with unsavory intentions, they can use that information in a malicious manner.
Again, this is not meant to discourage you! What we’re encouraging you to do is share information about yourself on your dating profile, but keep anything personally identifiable off of your public facing profile.
Here are some examples of things you may or may not have thought of that you’d want to keep off of there:
- Photos wearing fraternity or sorority letters
- Photos taken inside your dorm room or clearly outside your residence hall
- Photos of you at (or information about) a special club you’re part of
- Screenshots that show your full name, username, or email address
- Class schedules, textbooks, or notes that reveal where and when you’re on campus
- If you’re a student athlete, team jerseys, practice uniforms, or gear with your name on it
- Badges, lanyards, or IDs worn in photos, even if partially covered
- Pictures in your work uniform
- Photos taken at your regular gym, coffee spot, or study location
- Photos that reveal recurring routines, like “always here on Tuesdays”
- Mentions of your exact major combined with your school year and schedule
All of this information may seem harmless, but it all makes it very easy to reverse engineer where you’ll be and when. Again, to most people that read it, harmless. But in the off-chance someone with less-than-great intentions sees it, you’ll be safer without it on your profile.
2. Be protective of your socials.
There are several dating apps out there that actually encourage you to link your social media accounts to your profile. Yes, sharing these would make is really easy for prospective matches to get to know you and see more picture of you.
That said, here’s the other side of that coin.
When you give someone access to your socials, you give them access to everything. They see who your friends are, who your family is, where you hang out, where you work, what your habits and routines are, what’s important to you, what your hometown is, etc.
Is this information you want strangers to have? Probably not. In reality, it’s also probably not information you want someone you’re just meeting or have only gone out with a few times to have.
Our advice? Keep your social media private (in general), keep it off of your dating profiles (completely), and don’t share it with anyone you meet until you’re very comfortable with giving away that sensitive of access.
Remember, once you give the access once, you can’t take back the information.
3. Watch what you say when you talk.
To close out the importance of protecting your personal information, we want to encourage you to continue the carefulness in your conversations with people you’re just meeting.
Here is something you have to understand.
Just because someone tells you something, doesn’t mean you have to tell them the same thing.
Just because someone says, “Hey I’m a sophomore biology major. I have Mrs. Johnson for chem this year. What’s your major? What classes are you taking?”
It can feel like the polite thing to do to respond, but if you’re not comfortable sharing that information, don’t feel obligated.
“That’s cool. I’m studying something in the science realm.”
You can respond broadly without giving away a lot of information that you don’t want to. If they press, you can just tell them you aren’t comfortable sharing that information as you just met. If they get upset or weird about it, that’s a big red flag.
Again, reference the list we shared in the first tip as a good starting point for the things you should keep to yourself until you’re comfortable sharing them.
4. Take advantage of internal chat features until at least after the first date.
When it comes to dating in college, there’s a trend of not wanting to actually chat on the app itself. Instead, people will quickly move the conversation to their social media DMs or via text.
Yes, we understand that this does feel more convenient. However, again, what happens if you meet someone or start talking to someone and they turn out to be different than you expected?
If they have your phone number (or your socials as we previously mentioned), they can find out pretty much any information about you that they want.
For the umpteenth time and at risk of sounding like a broken record, this is not meant to discourage or scare you away from dating online! It’s just meant to help prepare you for the potential digital threats that are out there you may not ever expect would happen to you.
Instead, keep the conversation on the app. Don’t exchange phone numbers. Set up your first date from within the app itself. If after you meet the first time you feel comfortable exchanging numbers, go for it! But doing it this way gives you the ability to safely and fully cut ties after the first date if you want to.
5. Be wary of download links or verification requests from someone you’re talking to.
One of the ways that malicious actors take advantage of college singles on dating apps is through malware and phishing attacks. These bad actors will try and get you to click on a particular link, download a certain file, or “do something to prove your real.”
Unfortunately, something as harmless seeming as clicking a link or downloading a picture they send you can be all it takes for them to gain access to your technology and information.
While the general consensus of advice is not to click on anything you don’t trust, we’d go a step further and say there really is no need to click any links or download anything from someone you just met online.
If they really want to show you something, Google whatever it is and find it yourself instead of clicking on the link. Or, if it’s something they want to show you, have them save it and show it to you on their phone on your first date.
Again, this may feel silly and you might not want to have an awkward conversation if they ask you to do something, but it’s going to keep you safe. The right person is going to understand and respect the fact that you’re looking to keep yourself safe.
6. Never send money, gift cards, or financial information for any reason.
While this tends to be a bigger digital safety problem for older generations, it’s still important to share.
Under no circumstances should you ever send someone money, gift cards, or share your financial information for any reason.
The operative part of this is ‘for any reason.’ Some of the most popular romance scams out there are built around pulling on someone’s heart strings and desire to help someone in need. For many college students, finances are already tight. This makes it evermore important to protect yours, but also creates some unique storylines that bad actors could use to take advantage of you.
Some examples could be:
- “I really want to go see my family, but I can’t afford the ticket.”
- “I need medical attention, but I can’t afford it.”
- “I spent all my money on books and I have nothing to buy food with now.”
- “I have this amazing new business investment idea I want you to be a part of.”
Again, these things could be true, but more often than not, they’re used to manipulate and defraud as part of a romance scam.
If someone asks or shares a story like this, it’s okay to show compassion, but we’d encourage you not to give in and send any money. It should also serves as a red flag that the person you’re talking to online may have ulterior motives about the reason for the conversation.
7. First dates should always be in public.
Once you meet someone online that you think might be worth spending time with, the next step is a first date. The advice here is simple and can be backed up by an endless stream of pretty scary crime data. We’ll spare you the scare-fest, but take our word for it that you’ll want to listen.
100% of your first (and even second, and sometimes third) dates should take place in public. This allows you to get to know someone in a safe and controlled environment that you can easily leave or get help if you need it.
Again, we hope that everyone you go out with has the best of intentions and things go smoothly whether you hit it off or not. That said, taking your time to get to know someone is always the safest path forward.
8. Always tell someone where you’re going, when you’re going, and with you…and set up a time to check in after the date.
For every date you go on, you should let someone else know where you are going, who you are going with, and when you’ll be back home. Additionally, you should set up a system where you check in with them when you get back.
This provides an added layer of protection so that someone knows if something doesn’t go right on your date and you don’t make it home. This not only protects you if something happens with your date, but if you have car trouble or something else happens, you know that someone is expecting you and will be reaching out if they don’t hear from you.
9. Trust your gut.
The last tip we have for staying safe when online dating in college is to trust your gut. Sure, you’re young and may be new to a lot of this, but this doesn’t mean you aren’t infinitely wise beyond your years.
If your gut tells you something is wrong, listen to it. Period.
It is not worth taking a risk that could turn out badly for you just because you’re worried about not meeting someone else. We’ll spare you the cliches that there are plenty of fish in the sea, but the reality is that it’s true. There are a lot of great people out there, so if you run into one that sets off your spidey-senses, listen and move on.
Healthy Framework Team
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