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Cerissa's Rules of Safe Cybersex~ Cerissa ~ Well, cybersex itself is safe by definition. Those li'l viruses have a heck of a time getting through the ethernet. You don’t even need a keyboard condom. Unfortunately, cybersex can also be boring. Sooner or later, if you play this game, you are going to actually want to meet someone you've been writing to. I answered a personal ad once, it was a disaster. I was so careful too. First we wrote letters, then phone calls . . . always from a pay phone. Finally, I knew we were on the same wave length. We made plans to meet at a motel . . . I told him what kind of car I had . . . I would leave the room key on the front left wheel. I was supposed to be in the corner, naked, waiting for him. So he came in, I was scared by then, and he said not to turn around. He stole my purse, my clothes and my car and left me alone in the room naked. I called my best friend to bring me some clothes. I had to report the stolen car . . . Paraphrased from a chat log. With apologies to Dave Barry, I did not make this up! It was logged by a friend of mine who is on AOL. We’ve all heard the horror stories, thanks in part to sensational journalists. Really, though, I don’t think that dating someone whom you’ve met on the Internet is much more risky than dating someone you’ve met in person. In fact, if your personal contact occurred at the corner bar, the Internet could be a much better bet! You should, of course, use some common sense . . . Before even considering meeting.Writing and Lies. Your first indication of who this guy/girl is will come from letters and/or Internet chat. With this in mind, there are a few warning signs that someone may not be everything he claims. If for example, a man (or woman!) says that he never lies. . . he’s lying. How tall does he say he is? If he says he’s 5’8," he’s probably telling the truth. On the other hand, about 90% of the men I’ve chatted with online have claimed heights of over 6.’ Interestingly, only about 19% of the male population aged 35-44 are actually over 6’ tall. Can we conclude that Internet chat disproportionately attracts the tallest 19% of the population? I think not. Is the first thing that he tells you the length of his penis? And is that 11" or greater? Look at a ruler, ladies, and tell me how likely this is. While you’re at it, tell me how desirable it is!! The word that comes to my mind is, childbirth. * The Internet and Sexual Fantasies. Lots of people seem to use the Internet to express sexual fantasies. It’s great that folks can find a place to get together with others who share the same. . . interests. But if this is your thing, please remember to keep at least one foot firmly planted in reality! It’s one thing to imagine having a sexual encounter with someone whose face you will never see, but look how it worked out for our friend from the chat log! The "sane and safe" people who are online to share and act out fantasies are always reasonable and understanding about "limits" and safety precautions. Anyone who has any experience in these things should be suggesting safety measures to you. If you come across someone who gives you the least bit of grief about these matters, run!! Anonymity. Think of it as an onion. Peel the anonymity away a layer at a time, but make sure that outer skin is intact to start! There are people reading ads who you would be just as glad didn't know who you are. You might be surprised how much someone can learn about you just from your real email address! So, consider using an anonymous email address . . . Hotmail, Yahoo, and the like... when placing an ad and for the first few letters. Once you're comfortable, drop it... the other person has a right to know who you are, too. (Guys, have patience, please. Women, being more physically vulnerable, get to check you out first.) Internet Accounts. I have to say, in the interest of fairness, that I have met some really nice people on AOL. On the other hand, services like AOL make it far too easy to have a fraudulent identity. Even in those rare instances when the service is persuaded to reveal a customer’s identity, what is to say that it is their real identity? All you need to open an account is a credit card number, and any semi-resourceful waiter can accumulate a dozen of these in a single evening! I’m not saying that having an account with a smaller, local provider is any guarantee of honesty, but I am saying that I’d take longer on the "writing only" stage with anyone who has an account with one of these mega-providers. At least long enough that the first month "free trial offer" would have expired! * Get a Real Name and Address. I'm not talking about in the first letter, but before you ever consider meeting someone for real, do know who he or she is. Get as many details as you can, and confirm that they are for real. Use local phone books (your public library has a collection from all over), send a letter via snail mail and wait for an answer, whatever. Don't be offensive about it, but don't leave yourself open to fraud, either. Web Pages. It’s no guarantee, but a web page is at least a partial confirmation of who a person really is. Especially a business page with a URL whose domain name corresponds with the person’s email address. If the domain names don't correspond, find out why. Probably this person just doesn't like to use office email for personal use. But you should be able to write at least once to the business address, and get an answer, to confirm that they are really associated with that business. Do remember that personal web pages can be changed at a whim. Probably, if it is on a local provider, it is real enough, but you'll have to use your own judgement. * Phone Calls. Guys who’d insist that I call instead of writing back were instantly scratched from the ‘list.’ Can you say "Caller ID" boys and girls? I knew that you could! Even if the guy is not a physical danger, it could turn out that you’d just as soon not have him calling and bugging you. Get to know him through letters first. After a few letters, though, phone calls are desirable. First, you can get a better idea of what he’s really like when he does not have hours to carefully compose responses. Second, having a home phone number goes a long way toward confirming identity. Some women have told me that they would rather give out their office number. I guess this is OK at first, but I really can’t imagine going out to meet someone whom I wouldn’t trust with my phone number. Advice from a male friend: Ladies, if a man will give you only an office number, it’s a safe bet that he has a wife at home. Photos. I had a male friend who told me that not only did he demand a picture of the woman he was going to meet, he wanted more than one, to increase the likelihood that it was really her own picture she was sending. He also wanted "real" photos sent by snail mail. As inconvenient as this may be, I see his point. If you ask for a digitized photo, it will probably be genuine. But I have lots of pictures of men I’ve written to. And a few, forwarded by friends, who I've never written to! Ergo, I could conceivably pose as any one of a dozen men, as many times as I wanted to. No reason in the world why someone else couldn’t do the same thing! I guess they could do this with a "real" picture too, but at least not over and over with the same picture. Regardless of what kind or how many photos you ask for, do get something before you travel to meet someone. Knowing what they look like in advance can go a long way toward avoiding disappointment. Anyway, how else are you going to recognize them? A yellow rose in the hat band? Please!! The Meeting.* CYA. Cover your ass. It’s always a good idea, before going to meet somebody, to let a friend know where you will be and who you’ll be with. Tell your friend to expect a phone call at a certain time, and to panic if they don’t get one. And tell the person you’re meeting that you have done this. Paranoid? Maybe, but any guy whose "intentions are honorable" will understand and approve. If he raises any fuss, red flags are a-flyin’!! Don’t go out with him! Your Place or His? City, that is, assuming they are not one and the same. Personally, I prefer my own turf. It makes it easier to walk away from encounters that you don’t want to go any farther. That's just personal preference, though... some people prefer the other city, saying it doesn't reveal their home. If you go this way, just make sure to have a motel room reserved. Keep Your Own Transportation. Early on, I caught hell from a more experienced friend for letting a guy drive me away from my own car in a strange meeting place. She had a good point. Be sure that you can walk away, if you want to. * Meet In a Public Place. Even if you are planning to go to somewhere private afterward, an hour or so in a restaurant or coffee shop will help you decide if you really want to do this. It’s been suggested to me that it’s a good idea to have friends of yours at this public place, to keep an eye on things. I’ve never done it, but it’s not a bad thought. Take it one step farther. Introduce them to your date. The more anonymity you can take away from him, the safer you’ll be. Note: Points that I consider absolutely essential are marked with an asterisk (*). The rest might be considered "good ideas" or "things to think about," or "additional safety checks." But were I writing to anyone who gave me any difficulty regarding the asterisked items, I would not meet him. OK, Lecture Over. Now For the Pop Quiz.Go back up to that chat log and see if you can pick out all the stupid things this woman did. Careful? What is her idea of not careful? She couldn’t have made herself more vulnerable if she tried!! Maybe it’s too mean to say she asked for it, but. . . She’s just lucky this guy was only into robbery, and not strangling people! For perspective, by a quick count, I’ve met ten people whom I first encountered on the ‘Net, and my worst experience on a first "real" meeting has been spending an evening with a man who had hairy ears and made smacky noises when he ate. Not the greatest evening, but I doubt the trauma will put me into therapy. Sorry, I don’t anticipate gaining a larger sample space myself, since I married Internet Date #10, but I’ve several friends who are actively dating people they met online, and their experiences seem similar to mine. Not all great, but nothing horrendous, either. So relax, this is supposed to be fun! Most of the people you encounter will be nice, normal folks who are looking for about the same thing you are. And the others are not that hard to avoid. |
