Background Checks

I'm completely fine with background checks for employment where it's required that strangers be able to trust you and be comfortable with your character - such as working with children.

Any other situation seems very weird to me, especially someone interested in dating you. I would like trust to be a foundation for any relationship I have, and starting out with a formal background check sort of throws that away before the relationship even starts.

For me, online vs offline doesn't change this. Whenever you meet someone irl that you met online it's a good idea to meet in a public place and maybe each bring a friend or something, but formal background checks? A little extreme in my opinion.

It doesn't bother me, I have nothing to hide and I might actually find some use with that site. The truth is sometimes you can be dead wrong about someone and really screw yourself over with it.

Amber.ly said:

I just think of all the serial killers out there who had squeaky clean background checks until someone found their piles of dead bodies buried in the basement.

I wouldn't request a background check for a friend or love interest, no matter if I met them online or not. Because there are many other ways of knowing if someone is legit of not.

Click to expand...

This.

ETA:

Any other situation seems very weird to me, especially someone interested in dating you. I would like trust to be a foundation for any relationship I have, and starting out with a formal background check sort of throws that away before the relationship even starts.

For me, online vs offline doesn't change this. Whenever you meet someone irl that you met online it's a good idea to meet in a public place and maybe each bring a friend or something, but formal background checks? A little extreme in my opinion.

Click to expand...

This too.

The whole idea doesn't make sense to me....

i've met guys online before, and I tend to be a good judge of character for the most part. If I felt like i needed to run an actual full-out background check on the guy that means there is something about him I don't trust. And if I don't trust him I'm not likely to want to date him. Therefore the background check would be pointless.

I'd be turned off by any guy who wanted to run a background check on me as well. for the reasons stated above. If he trusts me, why does he feel the need to run the search?

(I'm not counting googling someone's name as a background check. I don't care if someone does that. )

You know what worries me more than meeting random people online? Having people so paranoid they are requesting to see everyone else's background. To me, they seem to be hiding something, by shifting attention to other people. And honestly, can I trust a person who finds it hard to trust? I don't know.

Criminal background checks tell a very incomplete picture because they only show when a person has been arrested. Yet a person can have disturbing behavior without having a criminal record. A great deal of violent crimes are never reported for various reasons especially; rape and sexual assault.

I would assume a person that requires a criminal background check from me would also try to demand a copy of my medical history to establish that I am not being treated for psychosis, addiction, violent outbreaks, certain sexual issues such as pedophilia, etc.

Notice that none of these would usually show up in a police report unless I was caught in the commission of a crime. Yet I could have been “treated” to control pedophilia for 20 years but not show up on a sex offender list.

I once traveled out of state to meet a former CFer, and she told me that she'd Googled my username (I had a different id at the time, and used it on more than one site), and that I'd checked out as a safe person. Considering I was to be picked up at the bus station at 10pm, and would be staying at her family's place for a few days, I understood.
About formal background checks: I have nothing to hide except for my social security number, but I can provide character references.

JennieAmber said:

So one of those "Been Verified" commercials came on and it got me thinking of this scenario.

What if you hit it off with someone online (whether it be here, a dating site, or somewhere else) and y'all decided on meeting but they said on one condition, that they could do a background check on you. Would that be okay with you? Or would you feel uncomfortable/deal breaker kind of situation?

Discuss this!

Click to expand...

I dunno if I'd want them to find out about the three homicides I mean find out about my perfectly clean and completely legally inconsequential past.

I'd be a little creeped out if somebody I was dating or looking to date ran a background check on me. I can understand googling my name or w/e...That doesn't provide many details unless you've done or accomplished something major (either good or bad). But an actual background check that you pay for? That's definitely creepy.

If you can't or won't trust somebody, then why bother?

K9_Trainer said:

I'd be a little creeped out if somebody I was dating or looking to date ran a background check on me. I can understand googling my name or w/e...That doesn't provide many details unless you've done or accomplished something major (either good or bad). But an actual background check that you pay for? That's definitely creepy.

If you can't or won't trust somebody, then why bother?

Click to expand...

Because trust is earned, not merited. As a female, wouldn't you want to know if your present love interest just got out of prison for murder or rape or battery? Would that affect your decision to date them? How does willful ignorance help you?

Blind trust is foolish, imo. The world is full of people who will con you or who are good at presenting a false front. You don't have to *assume* your SO is bad in some way - but there's no harm in checking to protect yourself prior to letting your heart lead you into trouble.

The fact it's even a discussion is proof that society is paranoid. Asking for something like that is invasive, rude, and a definite sign of paranoia. I blame the constant access to media and the rise of the 24 hour news networks. Filling news cycles, and people's continued access to them, produces paranoia and reactionary panic as people hear about every thing that happens around the world.

Trick or treating is a good example of this. When I was a kid (and I'm only 30 so we aren't talking about that long ago) there would be dozens and dozens of kids out on Halloween night knocking on doors in the neighborhood. Now parents take their kids to the mall, before sunset, and kill the entire experience. All because of a few isolated incidents that were over reported, and a few of them are nothing short of urban legends. The match.com rape incident, if you review the facts of the case it's questionable whether it was even a rape. But for the sake of argument we'll say it was. It still ignores the thousands of other meetings off that site alone that don't end with a crime of any sort. Being paranoid isn't going to stop bad things from happening.

I don't think there's anything wrong with doing background checks, and I wouldn't object if someone wanted to do one on me.

JennieAmber said:

So one of those "Been Verified" commercials came on and it got me thinking of this scenario.

What if you hit it off with someone online (whether it be here, a dating site, or somewhere else) and y'all decided on meeting but they said on one condition, that they could do a background check on you. Would that be okay with you? Or would you feel uncomfortable/deal breaker kind of situation?

Discuss this!

Click to expand...

I would walk away. It would be a deal breaker. It may be a deal breaker if I found out she used one early on in the relationship as well. If she would, best bet is to remain silent and trust/hope that feelings will manipulate responses as time and love comes in if I find out.

I don't have anything on my record that I am ashamed of. The worst that is on my record is a DUI and that is now non-active as far as I know as I was once told the various of stages that misdemeanors go and really I don't know how it is at this point. If it causes a problem, I'll research more. Been quite a few years now and the rest are traffic violations that are now all off my record.

The problem is, that the person didn't do the normal way of finding things out. Ask, talk. Instead, they decide to use something at their disposal to satisfy their desire to be sure, "they are safe" or "gotta be sure I find that addicting security". I really don't want to be with someone that resembles more like Linus than a real human being that trusts because of your word, that takes reasonable chances.

Plus, if one has that much of a trust problem, why in the world is that person meeting someone online? All it will do is feed that insecurity and make matters worse, or manifest in other areas of the relationship...or is it because they want to be in complete control in a world that no matter what we do, we don't have complete control, or just simple fear that I have no respect for?

Whatever it is, I don't want to be a part of it.