Conversely, I've found that a lot of women have pushed me to meet early. They tell me that a lot of men just want to talk, and they're not interested in pen pals.

That never worked out well for me: I'm a person of words, and while I really do want to meet, I'm unlikely to click with somebody who doesn't love conversation enough to chat before that. So I stopped meeting women who weren't interesting online; it seemed that the hope that they might be interesting in person never panned out. I hope they met somebody more to their taste.

Meeting strangers is dangerous, but if you arrange it in a public place, that's reasonably safe. And probably at least as good as trying to feel out whether they're dangerous via chat.