“I should’ve taken that as a sign, but I figured it was Friday night, so I shouldn’t judge.When we met up in person, he was a [jerk] and kept asking me if I ‘liked to party.’” So a good rule of thumb is: if your date is drunk the first time you talk to him on the phone, end it there.If that didn’t turn her off, then the subsequent emails from the same men asking why she was an ageist definitely did.

Now, it’s time to actually link up with “the one”—or one of the ones—beyond the digital realm and in reality.When we meet a potential love interest in person, we’re taught to look for certain red flags—like being rude to the waiter, calling incessantly or not at all, or claiming that his favorite book is The Da Vinci Code.When we’re choosing potential dates online, though, we sometimes have little more than a picture and a paragraph to go on.It's always your best bet to take your Internet conversation into the real world as soon as possible before you establish a virtual rapport that can become awkward and stilted when it has to translate into face-to-face.So, if you've exchanged a couple flirtatious messages with a potential mate, established a basic foundation of things you have in common and are somewhat assured that it's worth testing the waters with a meet-up, take the plunge and ask her to hang out.