You say goodbye, I say hello

So, I've run into this problem a couple of times where I found someone on a dating site that I knew in "real life." The problem is, once I view a profile, the site records me as a "visitor" - so that person will know I've viewed his profile. (And yes, I know some sites will allow you to turn that off, but not all will, and that's not the point here anyway, because I have the function turned on.)


So then what?

Do I just pass them by, and pretend like I never saw the profile? Or should I send a message, a friendly hello, and just acknowledge that I was there?

I've always leaned towards saying hello - and it hasn't been a bad thing. I asked one guy out - which he ignored. I find that rude and juvenile, but hey, at least I learned what he was really about, right? And we went right back into our normal, twitter relationship, so no harm, no foul. With another guy, I just had some friendly back and forth, no big deal. And another guy, I actually went out with (once).

I guess I kind of look at the dating sites as one big bar; as we view each other's profiles, we're sort of checking each other out from across the room. If I was at a bar and I saw a guy that I knew, I'd say hello, wouldn't I? Whether I was "interested" or not?

I'd like to think I would. I'd like to think my friends would do the same with me, too.

But I don't want to creep these guys out, or hurt my friendships. If it turns into something, fine, but really all I want to do is say hello; let someone know - hey, we have this in common! Sucks, doesn't it?

So what do you think I should do? What would you do?