How to Cheat at Online Dating -- Part 1

Most standard dating advice -- passed down for centuries from consoling friend to heartbroken breakup victim -- goes something like this: Don't play games, be honest, just be yourself. And while that's all well and good, much like IRL dating, the world of online romance involves some major shades of gray.

A scenario: You've gone out with someone a few times and are really excited about him -- so much so that you want to show him to a few friends and see what they think, re-read his details to make sure you're not missing some major, gaping flaw and -- most importantly -- see how often he's cruising online. A little neurotic? Maybe, when taken out of context, but trust me: Everyone does it.

Here's where the lines start to blur. You want to see how often he's been on, but you don't want to seem like you're obsessing, and you know that when you click on his profile, Match.com slaps your name onto his "Who's Viewed Me" list, letting him know you've been studying up.

For part one in our occasional blog series teaching you how to cheat at the online dating game, here are a few simple tricks aimed at helping you figure out whether he's still playing the field -- without seeming like you're keeping tabs.

1. First, something that's good to know: Match only adds your name to his "Who's Viewed Me" list once per day. So, if you're guilty of logging on to look at someone's profile a dozen times in a 24-hour period (and, ok, maybe that could fairly be considered a bit neurotic), you'll only show up once.
2. To see if someone's online (or find out when he was) without being discovered, click the "Who's Viewed Me" link in the left-hand navigation and scroll through to find him. (If you're already talking, he's looked at your profile at least once, so he's gotta be in there.) At the bottom of the listing, it'll say when he was last online or "active."
3. If you've had some contact with this person (i.e., he's winked or favorited you), an even faster sleuthing technique is to click on your "Winks" or "Favorites" list and find him there. His status will be below his photo.
4. Match.com lets non-members view full profiles. If you want to check someone out anonymously -- even if you already have a profile of your own -- you can log out, enter a bogus email address and use the fake account to access his details.
5. Lastly, a word to the wise: You might be tempted to query your new love interest's username, hoping that the search listing will give you a quick-and-dirty clue about his surfing habits, but beware -- typing in his name will take you right to his page and let him know you were looking.