Email: Candor in online dating [AS]

It's been a peeve of mine for 30 years that people use the Internet for dishonest purposes. In fact, in the beginning, I had the notion that if everyone had to put their full name on everything they said and did, no one would say or do anything reprehensible on the Internet (as in print, when journalists put their names on their words to stand by them). However, where anonymity and stalkers abound (with fewer [legal] resources to date than the world of print publishing), caution is still the word of the day for the Internet frontier. I agree with you: "The Internet can be a great thing, if used correctly."

I suppose one of my leading [questions when dating online] is: Are you interested in me as a person, not just a potential dating partner? Because I don't want to date and consider a committed relationship with anyone who wouldn't want to know or communicate with me (as a friend) if we weren't dating. I'm interested in [a dating partner] as a whole person, not as someone who will fulfill a need or desire. In other words, I don't want to date anyone [who] meets, kisses (or dallies), and then moves on -- as it were, leaving a list of former dating partners behind like a trail of used Kleenex. I seek a dating partner who knows herself and what she wants, but doesn't make our acquaintance an all-or-nothing, what's-in-it-for-me transaction. Men do that often enough; I don't want a woman who does that too.