I have noticed of late that some members are attempting to contact one another in real life. While I appreciate this sentiment (I'd love to meet many of you in person), some of our members are minors, and most of our members do not provide easily verifiable credentials to connect a user profile to an actual person.

As such, I urge you to exercise a prudent level of background research on the person you are contacting here. One level of research you can conduct is asking for the person's real name and email address via a private message. There are tool for doing more research about a person - Zabasearch.com is one.

Always meet in a public place (the mall is always a good idea) and don't be too specific in where you're going to meet - just say "by the central fountain, I'll be wearing a blue shirt" - not "I will be at the Walden Books main entrance, wearing a Chicago Bulls Jersey and green sweats, I have glasses and blue hair and I drive an unmarked white van with no windows." - that way if the person gives you a bad vibe you can just keep walking.

Never meet in a car, or in a parking lot.

FWIW, I've met plenty of people In Real Life from my online activities - only once did I feel that things were "off" and that's a whole different story.