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Guidelines to Making Your Open Communication Safe & Successful

eHarmony works hard to provide you with matches that are compatible with your personality and values based on our study of successful relationships. I'm pleased that you have chosen to proceed to Open Communication with this match.

At this point, we want to give you some "rules-of-the-road" for communicating with, and eventually meeting someone that you have been introduced to through eHarmony, or any other website. Especially if this is your first time communicating with a match, please read through these carefully.

1. Use Your Best Judgment

eHarmony relies on the complete honesty of our users to create our compatibility profiles. Our system works hard to screen-out applicants who are not truthful. However, it is ultimately your responsibility to decide if someone is being truthful and honest. Don't ignore your instincts and please don't depend totally on eHarmony for evaluating a person you've been matched with. As with people you may meet under any circumstances, your judgment and instincts are necessary to protect yourself from deceitful individuals.

Here are some signs to consider: Watch out for someone who asks for money, uses vulgar language, asks inappropriate questions, or suggests sexual fantasies. Be careful of those who want to speed up the pace, tell you how to run your life, tell stories with inconsistencies, urge you to compromise your principles, blame others for their troubles or are always speaking romantically. These are just a few of the signs you may want to think twice about before continuing

2. Be Cautious Sharing Personal Information

We strongly encourage you to be cautious when sharing personal information that could reveal your identity. Our Open Communication system will let you communicate while remaining safely anonymous. Once you've given out your name, email or phone number, you cannot take them back! We encourage you to use our anonymous communication system until you are ready for the next step: Talking by phone.

Speaking by phone to the other person is also a critical requirement in getting to know each other better. Before you share phone numbers make sure you have discussed the need to respect each other's privacy, and if either of you decide to end communication in the future, you will not use the phone number as a means to pursue an unwanted relationship. Most people prefer the man to offer his phone number to the woman and that she initiate any future phone calls, but you decide. Keep the first call to a short duration of 15 minutes or less.

3. Make Your First Date Safe and Successful

Meeting in person is a very exciting time. Approach your first meeting with reasonable high hopes, but try to limit your expectations.

* Make sure you meet in a public place, preferably during the day.

* Tell at least one friend or family member about your plans, and arrange to "check-in" with them after the first few dates.

* Try and keep the first date to about an hour. Lunch dates generally work well.

* If one or both or you are traveling a long distance, then arrange for a short first meeting and plan on getting back together, if you both agree, a few hours later or the next day. This takes some of the pressure off the first encounter.

* Do not meet at your house or place of work, or give that information out until you have had a good opportunity to better know the person.

4. Take Your Time

We can't stress enough how important it is for you to take your time getting to know your match. Be aware that on-line communication tends to accelerate one's sense of comfort and intimacy. We encourage you to use eHarmony's anonymous Open Communication system as long as necessary to find out as much about your match as is reasonably possible.

Remember that eHarmony's matching process does not eliminate the need for real life experience. Before you create a permanent relationship together we believe it is vital that both

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