Sure, it would be invasive. But at least it would be honest.
Fundamentally, this comes down to “Is it okay to be dishonest for the purpose of rooting out other peoples’ potential dishonesty?” and I’m gonna come down firmly on the side of “NO”.
So then, do you feel that way regarding all pre-date screening that is done, unless you also apprise your prospective date what you’re finding out about them beforehand?
To me, it’s more a matter of degree. If it’s okay to pre-screen a person in “lesser” ways, then again, while it might be mean, harsh or invasive I still don’t see it as dishonest. Unless ALL pre-screening that isn’t absolutely disclosed is also considered “dishonest”
And for the zillionth time, this option is NOT available or legal, and again I don’t know, especially at my age, if I would use it if it were.
Why would I tell my date a lie?
Yes, if I were going to run a background check before a first date, I’d tell the man. No, I would not go on a first date if I felt the need to run a background check because it would tell me that either something about the man is creeping me out or that I am such a child that I can’t be trusted to judge people independently of my crotch.
Yeah, which is why this is so touchy. Such things have to happen before its “serious” but what is serious? And people get serious at different levels. If I’m a girl who will have sex on the first date and risk pregnancy and would be raising the child, then someone’s ability to pay child support is actually fairly relevant. If I’m the type who falls in love on the second date, then prescreening is wise for me (but simply covering up my own weakness, and I don’t think that in either of those circumstances I’d be the one who is a great date.) Some people stay pretty detached and can detach themselves late…other people become little bundles of “true love” sometime before dessert is served on the first date - in which case all is lost even if the guy turns out to be wanted in four states.
There are, it seems to me, several posters in this thread who are concerned about protecting themselves. I don’t think anyone on the other side of the table is suggesting that self-preservation is inherently a bad idea.
But what I keep seeing is a discussion that goes like this:
“I need to look out for myself.”
“OK, but what about the privacy of the other person?”
“But…I need to look out for myself!”
“Yes, but doesn’t the other person have the right–”
“I COULD GET SCREWED OVER!”
When your right to protect yourself encroaches on my right to be creep-free, we have a problem. And I’m still waiting for those who are out to protect themselves to address at what point I have a right to the knowledge that you’re going to dig into my background. Do I ever have that right, by your standards? Because I find that sort of behavior deeply offensive, but by your logic, if you wait until three months down the road to tell me, then I may already be head-over-heels in love, and OH NO, it’s just too late for me to back out. So I’ve been unfairly trapped by you, even though I would have wanted nothing to do with someone who is that invasive.
So what about privacy for the other person. Assuming we aren’t talking about using illegal means to get one’s credit report (which is skeevy) - if you are going to stick your penis in my vagina, risk pregnancy and AIDS and herpes, it seems silly to argue about privacy.
Date her or don’t date her, but I don’t think that there is anything horribly wrong with asking.
Nobody thinks there’s anything wrong with asking, presuming that you’re asking the person in question.
I really don’t get this. I either trust a person enough to date/fuck/marry/breed with them, or I don’t. Spying on that person may provide me with information, but it will never provide me with long-term peace of mind, because both trust and the lack thereof are internal mechanisms. Are you going to spend the rest of your life checking up on this person? At what point do you stop expecting to get screwed?
We are in complete agreement on this quoted statement. It’s the digging without asking that is at issue.
ETA: What DianaG said, although I’d add “in the bad way” to the end of her last sentence. 
After about the first five years, sadly. 
Oh, you mean financially. 
Edit: damn you Asimovian, and your editing skillz too!
If I were financially screening a potential mate, I would probably tell them. I’m a pretty cut-and-dried kind of person, and someone who doesn’t like blunt people wouldn’t be a good match for me anyway.
Trust, but verify. Unfortunately, people often lie.
Yup. Especially by omission, like when they fail to tell you they’ve run a background check on you.
I don’t get the “why would I tell my date a lie” question. In the post you quote I’m saying, you WOULD tell the prospective date the truth, that is, that you don’t know him and are going to do a basic background check. After all that’s what people are complaining about here, that the prospective date isn’t getting to know this information.
My point is, there is no “judgment to trust” if you haven’t yet MET the man. For instance, people who date online. Or someone a FOAFOAF has put you onto. Prior to meeting this person for the first time, you are not only not basing anything on hormones (the aforementioned inelegant “crotch judgment”), you have nothing on which to base your decisions. Such as, do I even want to go out with this person in the first place? If a person were to do a basic background check and find out something that made the person undate-able and then did NOT go out with them, that’s not dishonesty, it’s self-preservation.
I have seen so much about online dating over the past decade or so. I thought that background checks on complete strangers were just the normal thing that people did. And from what I’ve seen, if a person also dates online this is something that they consider normal and aren’t offended by it. Generally, (again from articles I’ve read, interviews I’ve seen), this seems to be viewed as just the way things are now.
And again, I am not talking about someone that a person already knows, and is just now thinking about dating. I’m talking a complete stranger. Several people in this thread seem to have gotten the mistaken impression that this is some sort of ongoing “spying” on their date over a period of months.
And as to the “why can’t you just ASK” that keeps getting asked despite the fact that many of us have already answered it. YES, YES, YES, Yes, you CAN just ask. But on the first one or two dates, there is a limit to how many questions you can ask about a person without coming across as putting the person under a spotlight and grilling them. There IS a proper time limit so to speak over which to spread out information hunting. Who wants to get several months worth of dating into it before finally finding out that the person’s dream is to find a sugar daddy and “retire”? Which frankly, isn’t something a person with that agenda is going to tell the truth about anyway, even (or maybe especially) if you did ask on the first date.
And of COURSE if you feel obvious creepazoid vibes, you are not going to date that person again. But there are people who are very good at conning and hiding their non-dangerous, non-creepazoid deal breaker traits (such as job history issues and so on).
And I haven’t seen anyone answer my other questions. If you are one who feels that every prospective date has the right to know what you are finding out about them, does that then mean that you then tell them any and every little bit of pre-screening that you do? If not, don’t you also consider that dishonest? After all, you got to find out something that they didn’t get to pre-approve.
I believe that if I choose to go beyond the person I’m going to date and get information about them from a source that is not that person, it would be dishonest not to tell them that. I think it was Cat Whisperer (sorry if it wasn’t) who said she would take whatever information she could find in the person’s profile if we were talking about an online dating site. And I think that’s legitimate, since that person put the information out about themselves with the understanding and intention that it would be read by prospective dates.
So – with apologies if you’ve already done so above; feel free to re-quote – please give me some examples of other types of pre-screening that are done typically which don’t involve information provided by the target of the investigation. And before someone asks, yes, I would tell a date that I had Googled her name if I had done so. Which, frankly, I probably wouldn’t do before a first date.
I don’t see anywhere in this thread where anyone has said that the prospective datER (or is it datee?) has absolute rights to your information anytime, all the time, for your ENTIRE dating history. What most people coming down on the side of “pre-screening background checks” have meant is PRE-FIRST DATE with a complete stranger. With the understanding that such a screening, if it is even done, may result in NO FIRST DATE at all. End of story.
Ah, here lies the rub. This is EXACTLY the reasoning that those on the "I’d like information PRIOR to dating’ gang are using.
Everyone is correct here. Both sides. It’s not "fair’ that some information is unknowable for either party prior to dating. Again, PRIOR TO DATING. No one is saying that the person never gets to know if a check has been done. So which side gets to protect themselves against this part?
People who truly understand the age we live in will have a more reasoned response to a safety measure such as a background check. YES, it’s unpleasant, but in this day and age where we’ve got people like the Craig’s List Killer really, is it really that unreasonable that some measure of safety would appeal to some?
Please remember, everyone in this thread on the “it’s not a bad idea” side has stated that they would NOT do it, haven’t even done a background check, and are aware that it is currently illegal. What they have expressed is support for the idea that it would provide greater protection against those that are con artists and the like.
I’m amused that you quoted me, but missed the point of what I said. Let me quote from the OP:
Emphasis added.
The issue that I am trying to address is whether anyone should – legally, ethically or morally – perform such a check without the knowledge of the person being checked. That’s it.
You wanted to know if I would tell my date that I was going to to a background check. I wouldn’t have any reason to do so because I don’t do background checks. If I did, I would tell. I don’t, so telling would be a lie.
You’re demanding to know what I say when I do X and I’m telling you that I have never done X.
I married a man I met online. I am currently dating a man I met online. I have never done a background check on anyone in my life.
bolding mine
EXACTLY. People, (particularly if they have not even met you) lie, misrepresent, pretty-up, OR they may not even be aware that their deal-breaker even IS a deal-breaker. Pointing it out to them by telling a complete stranger “I’m going to be doing a background check” or “here is a pre-date questionaire” isn’t invasive?
So how does one verify without making the other person feel invaded? Do you “verify” after a first date? After the 19th date? What sources do you use to verify? Do you tell your date each and every verification you make? Isn’t that in and of itself JUST as “invasive” as a pre-date background check that they don’t find out about until they are deemed “safe”?
Just for clarification purposes, I’ve never done any sort of background check or even asked friends of my partner about them to find out information. Looking back, I SURE as hell wish I’d been a lot less “romantic” and trusting and a lot MORE practical. And, also looking back, if I had it all to do over again, I sure as HELL would have wanted pre-first date information so as to not even date certain people AT ALL. This is part of why this idea appealed to me. Doing things the blind and trusting way sure doesn’t work.
It’s too late for me, but I just cannot see, especially as I said above in this day and age of people like the Craig’s list killer, why anyone would fault someone for protecting themselves by potentially not dating someone whose background check turns up iffy info.
The only reason I can see for not telling each and every potential date is that, as I said, the information you obtain may prevent a first date from even happening. So if a person does do background checks, are they then supposed to call the person up, in the name of honesty, and say “I won’t be dating you ever because of X”?
Ummm HUH? No, I didn’t want to know if you would tell your date you were going to do a background check. First, you misunderstood the question. Second, it was a groupwide question, NOT aimed at you.
And that wasn’t the question I asked. Second I’m not 'demanding that you tell me anything about what you do. Again it was a rhetorical question aimed at everyone.
That point is moot. It’s illegal to obtain that sort of information, as everyone coming down on the “plus” (to simplify) has said. They’ve also said that they haven’t and wouldn’t conduct such a check if it’s illegal. That doesn’t then mean that such a possibility can’t be appealing to people who want more safety in their dating career.