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New York Romance Expert Has Online Dating Tips For Valentine's Day

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - On this Valentine's Day, do you already have a honey or are you still in-the-market, as they say?

Well, you might pick up some tips by reading "Love @ First Click" by Laurie Davis.

WCBS 880's Pat Farnack spoke with Davis Thursday this morning and she said if you are doing online dating, you should probably be on at least two sites.

"Really the best thing to do is join a big dating that's a mainstream site and then a niche site that's a smaller community of people and more specific," Davis told Farnack.

New York Romance Expert Has Online Dating Tips For Valentine's Day

"For example, you may choose to be on a mainstream site like OkCupid or Match.com and you may choose to be on a more specific site like howaboutwe.com, which helps you meat over activities, or ChristianMingle, which is obviously for people who are particularly religious," she said.

Davis herself met her husband-to-be on Twitter.

She has advice on protecting yourself both physically and emotionally, both online and off.

"Staying safe online is always a priority," she said. "Everything is Google-able today and you want to make sure that your identity is protecting because, until you meet, you're not exactly sure who the other person is on the other side of the screen, which is why getting offline is the most important part of online dating. That's where the magic is going to happen. So, ideally, you want to have just about six e-mails, get offline, and let the chemistry take over."

She recommended not giving too many specifics, such as the name of the company where you work, until you meet for real.

"When you talk about your career, make sure that you're leaving things vague enough that someone can't pop in your first name, your title, and your city into Google and find you," Davis said. "So, one of the things that you should actually do is Google yourself. Take some keywords from your profile, pair it up with your first name and your city, and that will show you what's out there about yourself so that you're aware of what people are going to find."

You can follow Davis on Twitter @eFlirtExpert.

Do you have an interesting online dating story? Share it in the comments section below.

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