Rules For Being Human

I am an 18-year-old guy. I recently found a girl on Orkut who I think is my soulmate. We like the same things and we have the same thoughts. We are really friendly. We chat at least twice a week and I’m really interested in her. How do I make sure she is not already committed?
–Worried About Online Love

You know, it’s crazy what the kids get up to these days on the Internet. Makes me glad that I’m still hammering out my column with a stone tablet and a chisel. Look, kid, you can’t possibly know that this girl is your soulmate from talking to her twice a week on some lame networking website. You can’t even be so sure that she really is a girl, and not just some 45-year-old overweight guy with breathing problems and a rash. The question you should be asking here is not whether she’s already committed, but whether you know her well enough to consider the possibility of getting together in the first place. And you can only find out the answer to that by meeting in person and hanging out like real humans.

That being said, there are some basic rules of safety that everyone should follow when meeting up with a stranger from the Internet. 1.) Always meet in a crowded, well-lit place, and during the day. 2.) Let a friend know who you’re meeting, where you’re meeting, and how long you’ll be. Ideally, you should have the friend come along and hide out incognito-style wherever you’re meeting, just to keep an eye on things. 3.) Keep a cell phone and some cash for a rickshaw handy in case you need to make a quick getaway. (No sense hanging around with no money if the other person turns out to be a dork or psychotic killer.) 4.) Never give out any identifying details about where you live.

You follow those rules, and you should live long enough to figure out whether you actually like this girl enough to hunt woolly mammoths together, or whatever it is kids get up when dating these days.