Facebook as a dating tool

Finding Facebook friends can be a little intimidating if you are new to the massive social network. There are so many different ways to find people with common interests, and possibly even people to date, that it is certainly worth it to take the time to seek out some good quality Facebook friends.

Facebook is a great place to make friends, but as with any online situation, you need to be careful about what you say and how much information you give out. Everyone in your networks, not just friends, can view your profile, which may include a lot of personal information you don't want to make public. Make sure you review the security settings on your account and block access to anyone who you don't want to be able to see your information.

What is Facebook?

For those who don't know about Facebook already, it is a huge online social networking website. Originally designed for people in college to share information and meet people in the offline world, it has now expanded to include networks of high schools, employers, geographical locations, and more.

Facebook helps people share information and photos in a public setting closed off to people who are not in your particular group, that is, your Facebook friends. Facebook has more than 14 million users and more than 40,000 networks. It is one of the top 10 most visited sites and the number one photo sharing site, according to comScore.

Getting Started with Facebook

Facebook is similar to MySpace in the way it is set up. You'll have a personal page with a blog-like section where you can add information as often as you like. There is room for your name, location, school and work history, birthday, and relationship status.

You can also note whether you are looking for a relationship or just want to make friends on the site. This is a great way to tag your site and let all your Facebook friends know that you're on the lookout for someone special.

The site allows you to post photos, videos and articles, and a list of your Facebook friends will also appear on your site. When you log in you can see the activity of your friends, new messages, friend requests, and more.

Registration is simple, requiring a little basic information to place you in the proper communities. After confirming your registration, you can add yourself to the communities that interest you, update your profile, and search for friends.

Finding Facebook Friends

One interesting function of Facebook is the ability to enter your e-mail address (Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL or MSN) with your password and Facebook will look for the e-mail addresses in your address books to see if any of those people are in Facebook already.

You can also search for keywords such as your hometown, school, other places you have lived, or anything else you want.

Once you have joined a few networks, such as the one for your state, your hometown, your college or employer, for example, you can browse or search those particular people to find more prospects you would like to have as Facebook Friends.

Look at profiles randomly or search by gender, age, relationship status, what the person is interested in or looking for in political views. You can also search by residence, school status, graduation year, and religious views.

It's pretty easy to narrow down the list of hundreds or thousands of contacts to those you're really interested in. Click on a person's name for a more detailed profile and to see their pictures, posts, and friends. You can send people messages or add them to your friends list here as well.

The other person must agree to be your friend in order to be listed as your friend, but most people on Facebook are pretty friendly and interested in increasing their numbers of friends.

Using Facebook for Dating

Facebook, like MySpace and Craig's List was not originally designed as a dating site, but that doesn't mean you can't use it as such. Spend time building up your profile and looking for people with common interests. Ask them to be your friend first, and then get to know them through their blog postings, photo albums, and the comments they leave on yours and other people's sites.

As time goes by you'll probably want to send private messages or off-Facebook e-mails to the person you are interested in. Arrange a meeting in a neutral location (in public) and have fun getting to know each other in the real world.

Facebook is decidedly young in it’s demographics, which is fine if you're young, too, but it might not be that useful to people who are older than probably 35. Because the site started with and grew from college students, that age group represents the majority of people on Facebook. If you're looking for friends or maybe more in that age group, Facebook is a great place to find them.