I just had coffee with a 27 year old whom I met on SA.  We spent about a half hour together.  Neither of us ever brought up sex or money.

I took GaGambler's advice and let this first meeting be one where she could see she could trust me.  In fact, I told her before we met that I would not ask to see her again as I didn't want to make her uncomfortable in any way and that if she wanted to see me should could volunteer that.  Well...guess what?  It ended with her saying that she wanted to see me.  

is the only way to communicate to buy  the membership?  I thought if I posted a picture the site said I could communicate?

Yes you have to buy a membership.  They advertise 10 free messages on your trial.  What they don't tell you is that you can send 10 messages but you can't read any messages until you pay up.

But IMO, it is every bit as valuable for someone who wants to play this game as TER membership is for people seeing hookers, I of course do both.

Like most things in life though, it is what you make of it.

So far lucky me have arranged on first date.    I think it depends how needy they are and if their lonely.   You have to show them trust.