Um, that was Ingridave with the e-pal, not me.

Your experiences are a cautionary, Patty, that make me even more reluctant than I already am to engage with this form of meeting people.

On the other hand, my first experience was really good, so perhaps I will have a good instinct if I ever see another ad that I want to follow up on.

I have a bunch of email addresses that I use for junk mail . . . and I can terminate any one of them without looking back. I have one email address set up as the reference for personals, nothing connected to my real identity. Once a month or so, I scan the listings. That's about it.