No one wants to hear this but I believe the solution is : if someone in one of our parishes cannot find a True Orthodox, or let's say, to be reasonable, a conservative World Orthodox spouse who seems open to considering the merits of True Orthodoxy, think that perhaps God intends a monastic life for this searcher. At least, he or she consider the possibility without dismissing it out of hand.
I know some, many even, will roll their eyes.
But of course we need some viable True Orthodox monasteries and convents to sufficiently attract these spouse-searchers.
Even more, thriving monasteries. We have too few as it is.
One thing to NEVER do, however, is to meet any prospectives online. A recipe for dire catastrophe 9.9 times out of 10 !
That's why one would do better if no suitable match is found fairly easily to skip the entire fad of "online dating" and employ that energy toward one's salvation. One may consider himself or herself to be shrewd and not fooled by con-artists.
But when famous experts in this field such as Hare who spent decades studying sociopaths admit that they themselves can NOT discern ANY sociopath whom they meet, how is it that an average Orthodox layperson is going to detect one ? One's whole life can be destroyed at almost the flip of a switch from making this fatefully bad decision.
Safest way : become a postulant at a monastery or convent so that your time on earth will COUNT. Better to be slaving away at obediences and have this work go to YOUR spiritual "credit" than to have your "credit cards" taken from you or misused along with incalculable emotional and spiritual damage from which it may take 15 years to recover !
I have read many of these cases, so I know how many predators lurk. We religious people are considered ideal prey by these aggressors, because we are trained to be obedient to God's rules and to the Holy Church and to her representatives.
If one absolutely feels impelled to do some online scouting for marriage prospects, my best advice would be : don't disclose your religion because it will be used AGAINST you. Test the potential suitor by pretending to be some other religion when chatting.
SEE how the person reacts. Do they reply with apparent heartiness : "Well ! Of all things - I too was born a Roman Catholic but I also fell away from the Church. Now I am not really anything, but I am thinking of joining the Mormons [this was YOUR cover story] ".
Right there you have caught out the person. He or she is only mimicking YOU with the sure intention of defrauding you.
This person is YOUR ENEMY. Not suitable even as a distant acquaintance.
This is called "mirroring", which is how ALL of the con-artists work. They have NO original repertoire because they are agents of the Devil, who is never original. But repeats the SAME tricks over and over.
Sociopaths are believed by anecdotal evidence to be maybe 1 in 10 out of this country's population. Many people believe the percentage is actually higher. BE CAREFUL, is the message ! You don't want to meet them in any context : online, Church parishes, work, etc. !
