When I was a minor I was heavily sexually groomed over course of few months by grown ass man who lied to be my age. Thankfully this was mid 10s and I had some sense of internet safety drilled in my head to not give out my address, full name, pictures of area around my house, school name and so on. I even lied about things like month of birth and pets names. He had no other way to contact me other than one social media and one random ass forum group. Not even via gmail. Only thing he had was my first name, age, broad area where I lived and unfortunately pictures of me cuz I was idiot to send them. Yes, explicit ones unfortunately Long story short, I found out he was registered sex offender in 40s, not 16 year old boy as he claimed. What precisely prompted me to hide and lie about basic info, I’m still not sure to this day because I genuinely thought I was having online relationship with someone year older than me. But I wonder if it literally saved my life. Or at least allowed to live free of fear he had enough info to find me again, be it online or offline So you have no clue how much it freaks me out to see kids and even young adults give out personal info to total strangers every day online
I’m so sorry that that happened to you, anon, and glad that you got away as unscathed as you did.
I really wish that kids online these days understood; being honest about your age does not make you safer.
Assuming others are being honest about their age does not make you safer.
Sad but true.
internet safety is so, so important. as someone who was also groomed, my hesitance to disclose personal information even under threat of suicide probably saved my fucking life
and another thing — kids don’t understand how easy this shit is to find. a woman once contacted me for a commission, and she gave a short paragraph explaining that it was for a group she was in on facebook. well, she included her name with the request, so with the details of her group and a few things she mentioned, i figured out what state she lives in and found her on facebook with a google search and a few minutes of scrolling
now, i’m not a predator, so i told her to delete the parts of this request that were available publicly, but imagine if i was. i had her high school, her work, her family, etc. a fucking GOLD MINE for groomers. her facebook was fully public, too
for the love of FUCK, you should ALWAYS assume that you are speaking to someone who wants to hurt you! ALWAYS!! unless you’ve already met someone irl, better safe than sorry
now I’m thinking how lucky kid I was because my first time on internet was at 6-7 y. o only, and I always posted my photos/real name/day of birth🙃idk how i didn’t get groomed but now I believe I have some luck hah🗿the last time I get creepy message I was already 16 or 17 y. o so I knew what to do – block that person and that’s it…
Also I knew a girl, she was younger than me (16y.o and I eas like 18 or 19) and we couldn’t meet because her parents told her I could be someone else and older. well, guess they were right to worry about such things. too bad they were wrong about me 😅
Discussion ¬