Blurring the lines between professional networking and dating?

I recently attended a virtual marketing conference and connected with several people on a major professional networking platform. One of the guys I connected with has been messaging me, and the tone is definitely shifting from industry talk to flirting. Is it ever acceptable to use professional social networks for dating, or is that a strict red flag?

It really depends on the context. I actually know a couple who met through a professional industry group online. However, they had a mutual connection and kept things highly respectful. If his messages are making you uncomfortable or feel overly aggressive, definitely set a hard boundary right away.

Mixing dating with professional networking can definitely get complicated. A few years ago, I had a situation where an overly persistent connection kept sending me inappropriate messages under the guise of 'networking.' It got so annoying that I decided to overhaul my profile's privacy settings to filter out unsolicited messages. While trying to figure out how to restrict my visibility to second-degree connections only, I ended up browsing a https://linkedin.pissedconsumer.com/customer-service.html just to see if other users were complaining about similar privacy control issues.