SAFETY POLICY AND GUIDANCE ADVICE

Your Profile

Whilst your profile is designed to tell someone details about yourself and your interests.  It does not reveal any personal details such as your surname, actual address or your e-mail.  It has been designed to keep your identity secure whilst you are searching for a partner or friend.  All profiles are checked by ourselves before being viewed to ensure that you have not unwittingly placed some personal information on the profile that could compromise your safety.

Sending and Receiving Messages

The moment has arrived and another member has shown an interest in either dating or friendship!  Unlike the old way of dating/friendship where you could suddenly find yourself placed on the spot and you had to get know each other face–to–face, the beauty of online dating is it gives you the chance to talk to your future date/friend by email.  Take advantage of it!  Message each other lots before you actually arrange to meet.  Not only does it give you time to think of those relevant questions and funny one-liners (forget all those times you’ve walked away thinking why do you always think of the best things to say afterwards!), it is also interesting how much you can learn about someone this way. 

The messaging system with PetsPartnersAndPals gives you complete safety and anonymity, the person you are in contact with will not know any personal details or your e-mail address.  However, there are certain rules you need to follow and although these can seem quite obvious it is amazing how easy it is to forget them in the heat of the moment when you are excited because the person you like appears to reciprocate the feeling, or the new friendship looks as if it is going to be great.   So just take a few moments out to go through them and remind yourself.  It’s all part of the service, we’re here to help. 

1.     Personal Details - Make sure you do not give out any personal details online such as your home and work addresses, phone number and email.

2.     Parting with your Money - Strange one this and will probably never happen, but strange things do happen and just in case!  Do not forward any money.  For example, a suggested evening out to a concert could follow with I’ll get you the tickets you just send me your share of the money.  There’s a good chance you won’t see the money or tickets again!

3.     Be yourself – it might be easy to make yourself sound witty and clever and talk about amazing things you have done in order to try and make a first good impression.  If that’s not the real you the person on the other end is going to have a severe shock when you meet up face–to–face and discovers that, although you said you spent years strutting up and down the catwalks of Milan, actually you then struggle to walk into the pub in those four inch heels.  Similarly, don’t say you hardly drink only to knock several pints of beer down in the first half hour (we don’t think you’ll get away with the excuse of nerves!) Remember, the real you is the person people want to meet!

4.     That little inner voice – It’s always good to follow that sixth sense, it’s amazing how often it’s right!  If something doesn’t feel right it usually isn’t.  A rough guide to perhaps why you should stop exchanging emails with someone could be they are asking for your personal details, they don’t seem to show the slightest interest in you, but just talk about themselves all the time, things they say about themselves don’t seem to match up with their profile (did you really believe he was the first man to land on the moon!) and finally if they’re asking to meet up with you after the first message and won’t take it slowly.  Basically, if you start to feel uneasy you can always block them to prevent them contacting you again.  If you feel that they are abusing their membership then please report your worries to us.

Exchanging details when meeting for a date/friendship 

Now it’s time to arrange that date/meeting. Don’t arrange this after just a few exchanged messages; use the messaging system to find out answers to lots of questions and to check that everything matches up with the person’s profile. To arrange the date/meeting you may have decided to exchange phone numbers or email addresses. We recommend using a mobile phone number which can be easily changed if need be in the future (when calling you can always block your number from appearing in their caller ID) and using a free email account through Yahoo or Hotmail if you decide not to make arrangements through the PetsPartnersandPals messaging service.  Of course, we advise using our messaging service for the first few dates to arrange time, date and place.

The Date/Meeting

Feeling excited and extremely nervous?  Just check through these points before you go ahead.

1.     Arrange to meet in a public place that is familiar to you 

If they’ve suggested somewhere and you don’t know the place very well then go and visit it in advance to check it out, ask the owners how busy it is likely to be. 

2.     Plan Ahead

Think the evening through.  If the date/meeting becomes intimidating have a plan as to how you can get away early.

3.     Friends

Tell a friend about your date/meeting, where you are going, the date and time.  Arrange for them to call you during the date/meeting to check you are ok.  You could even have a code word to say if you’ve got into difficulties and need rescuing.  We’re sure your friend won’t mind just happening to turn up at the same pub as you if you’re finding it awkward to extricate yourself.  Tell them what time you expect to be back and call to let them know you are back. 

4.     Travel Arrangements

Make your own arrangements, ideally ask a friend or family member to drop you off and pick you up.  Don’t arrange to be picked up or dropped off by the person you are meeting.

5.     Mobile Phone

Remember to take it and make sure it is fully charged with plenty of credit.  

6.     NO

Don’t be afraid to say no if you are asked to do something or go somewhere you don’t feel comfortable with.  Any decent date or future friend will be understanding.  If they’re not then instigate your get-away plan!  

7.     Drink

We are not trying to scare you, but your mother would probably say the same thing!  You are meeting someone you have never met before and let’s face it there are some very strange people out there.  Keep an eye on your drink, spiking does happen and whilst we’re nagging the other thing your mother would say is don’t drink too much.  It’s a good idea to keep a clear head on those first few dates/meetings no matter how nice and sincere the other person appears to be.  

Also, we promise we are not trying to scare you, but you are possibly meeting a complete stranger.  Keep an eye on your drink, spiking does happen.  

8.     Sixth Sense

Again!  Same rules as messaging above.  That little inner voice is often right, listen to it.  If conversation isn’t adding up, if you’re starting to feel uneasy there’s probably a good reason.  

9.     Slowly does it

This applies really for those of you on dates, but it’s good old-fashioned advice.  Less haste more speed!  It’s very easy to be caught up in the whirlwind of the moment and get carried away, but how many celebrity relationships have you read about that have fallen apart because the couple let the relationship move too fast.  We all have the hunting spirit in us, but a little anticipation and patience makes a relationship far more likely to last.  

10.  Safety

One of the nicest parts of running a dating and friendship website is that your end goal is to make people happy with fulfilling relationships and friendships.  So it is extremely important to us that our website is a safe and honest place for members to be.  If you are suspicious that someone is abusing their membership please let us know.  This would be strictly confidential and, should you wish, the person concerned would not be aware that you have made the report.  

 PetsPartnersAndPals.co.uk