With regards to online people not being who they claim to be... this is sadly often true. There are many excellent articles out there on spotting the danger signals but the best way to uncover someone it to actually meet them and this is where a munch becomes important. You see, you should never agree to meet someone alone or in a non public place (at least not the first time) and a munch is therefore an ideal place to meet someone for the first time and get those important real life first impressions.

You can, of course, arrange something outside a munch - meet them in a public place with you having a friend or two nearby and a call back arranged for your safety. Either travel to the place for the meeting with a conspicuous friend with you and/or arrange to meet at a place where you commonly frequent - a bar, cafe or whatever where you are well known by the staff and clientele.

And of course basic safety protocol says you should never play on the first date and most sensible scene people will understand this if you tell them so.

As for SisterHoney's situation, I don't think this is unique to the bible belt though I think it is more pronounced there. There are relatively few scene people who are 'out'. You have a greater chance of finding someone publically out in large urban areas but even then a lot of them will be hidden. Ours is not a very public lifestyle. On the internet you can be more open because issues of confidentiality and identity are less prominent (at least perceptually so, whether they are or not is another issue...). So, on the internet you can find out information like 'is there a munch near you?' when you normally would not be able to find this out at all as they hardly advertise in the local papers.

So, I would say that the internet is more useful in this regard for finding out if there is a scene local to you and where to find it rather than actually finding a partner.