No Dating Ritual is Complete Without a Cell Phone Lookup

Men are a lot more reckless than women about their dating habits. It's like they think they are invincible and the normal rules for reasonable precaution don't apply to them. Nowhere is this attitude more pronounced than in the gay dating arena. For obvious reasons: it's all men and their egos.

A gay friend recently described his dating ritual as very simple and straightforward: chat online - meet for a date that same night. The meeting place must be the other guy's home, because my friend has roommates and lacks privacy. He is very young (it takes me back to the stupid things I did in my 20s ... ) and even more cavalier about his safety. I felt it was my duty to straighten him out on this topic.

I told him that to protect himself he must take just a small extra step before going on a date. Since his dates usually give him their full names and addresses, he can do a quick online cell phone lookup and find out a little more about every one of these strangers before meeting on their turf. This way he may be able to tell every time if the other man has lied about something or has been in trouble with the law. Even if the cell phone lookup report doesn't alert him to anything unusual, it's still a good idea to give your date's name, address (where you are going to be) and cell phone number to a friend - just in case. Of course, the obstinate pup laughed me out of the room and didn't heed any of my tried-and-proven wisdom.

As fate would have it, I was to be vindicated the very next night. As I found out later, my dear young friend followed his typical careless pattern and went to some dude's place in a questionable part of town. What confronted him there was so bad that he couldn't even tell me in detail, for which I am thankful. Whoever or whatever it was he found there was scary enough for him to swear to me right there and then, of his own volition, to make a cell phone lookup a permanent part of his dating ritual. As much as I wanted to say "I told you so", I didn't need to. My mission has accomplished itself.