How does someone find you when you don't tell them where you live? How much can someone find out about you? What happens when you start disclosing personal information?
Here's my story.
When I was 12, I set up an ICQ account (do you all remember ICQ?) well, with that account, a handful of Cosmopolitan magazines stolen from my mother's collection and an inherent flirt inside of me, I was ready to take on the internet!
12 YEARS OLD taking the new, dial up internet by storm. My mother none-the-wiser.
For those of you who don't know, 'ASL' (age, sex, location) was a thing back then. You'd come into the chat room and type ASL to people as a greeting. So, being a smart kid, knowing internet safety, I lied about all of those (except my gender, that was always a key part of my role.)
I met someone one day in a chat room and began privately chatting with him. Things were pretty mild and tame at first but over time, they escalated and now I became (as far as he was concerned, based on what I told him) a 16 year old female from the States with DD's (as in double D's) and a passion for getting into trouble.
Again, 12. TWELVE. Twelve. (cringe.)
Being the sassy vixen Cosmo taught me to be, I had this 18 year old from Australia all over me. We talked for hours every day, honestly I don't even know how we kept the conversations going but it eventually turned into a very intimate relationship where I began divulging real details of my life to him as our trust grew. Never serious details though.
This went on for years until I actually turned 16 and I got a message from him on MSN (because times had changed and the internet was now detached from that terrible DSL that used to be the death of me and everyone left ICQ in the dust!) His message said he was taking a trip to Canada...
Well, that sure was interesting because I lived in Canada and by that point, (after 4 years of communicating on an almost every day basis) we had covered that part, he even knew my province. I let the years and time spent convince me to risk my once guarded, secretive, protected life believing since he was literally half way across the world, it could do no harm.
Starting to backtrack and try to save myself from what at that point was seeming to be an internet crime in the future... I began telling him untrue information to throw him off my scent. He knew all of my secrets, everyone I had relationships with, (most of the time I used fake names and it took me years to finally tell him my first name, mostly because MSN betrayed me by showing my email address...) He knew what I looked like from my profile pictures... Oh goodness...there were campaigns being organized to try to stop internet crimes for situations just like this one... and yet, here I was.
Once I confirmed that he was planning on coming to Canada for real (not just saying so), I made sure to give him a bunch of wrong information in case he decided to show up and somehow find me. I had never told him where I lived but I told him about the town, its surroundings and culture. I had never told him my school name, or any particular details, just a bunch of general information so I figured I might be safe. In fact, I had only told him the first letter of the town and approximately how far away it was from the capital but that was a long time ago and I was sure he wouldn't remember.
One day shortly after he had left for his trip, I was at work, stocking shelves when he walked in! I nearly peed my pants. I could not believe he had found me. Our talks had gotten pretty intense, even so far as breaching cyber 'relations' at points... it was very weird, new territory for two clearly tormented teens. I recognized him right away, he had sent me many pictures and so I dove behind the shelf and started to panic.
What the F was I going to do? Had he come to kill me? Probably. That's what all these stories have in common. The end is the girl gets killed by the scary, obsessed dude. I ran to the back and told my manager that I was terrified. She said she would keep an eye on me but to go approach him in public to keep myself safe and ask him to leave me alone, as I wasn't feeling comfortable anymore.
I approached him and it was the weirdest feeling. Partly because he didn't tell me he was coming directly to see me when he said he was visiting Canada and up until this point, I thought I was being paranoid. I had no idea how he found out where I worked or my town for that matter and... I was too young and dumb to die.
Our conversation was short as I basically waited for as many customers to be in the area as possible and told him I found it inappropriate to show up like that, especially since he had never told me he knew where he could find me and that I was scared. He left after asking me to join him for dinner which I declined. I was shaking with confusion.
The next day we had a post man come to the house (we have never had a post man come to the house, we always pick up our mail at the post office so this was extremely strange!) He had a huge envelope which I was scared to open. My dad told me that it could be poisoned (at this point I had to tell my parents just in case it ended up being a story on the news.) You wouldn't believe the tricks a mind can play when you start to get scared...
My mother put an abrupt end to the internet for me and honestly, I didn't even mind because I was really concerned. I felt like I had taken extra precautions, made sure to apply all of the safety steps I learned in school and still someone had managed to find me. Mom was irate with anger for putting the family in what she deemed to be serious risk. She called the police and had someone sit outside watching and waiting.
The phone rang and it was him. (How did he get my number?) Remember calling the operator? Well, that's all you had to do back then. Only thing was, I never even gave him my full name (ah, but my email address betrays me again!) Only thing is, my number was listed under my step dad's name... so that wouldn't have been easy to figure out, I didn't give him any information to find this out... so how would he have gotten it? (I still don't know how he pulled it off.)
My mother let me talk to him but she listened in. He said he was leaving but wanted to see me, I said I could not see him after the way things had gone down, him knowing my work, my house, my number... and so he begged me to open the letter and I hung up the phone abruptly and began crying hysterically. What had I done?
Eventually we decided to open the letter since it didn't smell or tick... good indicators it wasn't too much to worry about. I was stunned to find that it was a lovely birthday message on many pieces of paper professing a love for me that I had only hoped to find in a fairytale. I was feeling really devastated about thinking the worst of him... but now he was gone who knows where, no phone here and not knowing when he would have access to the internet again.
My mom banned me from the internet for a while but I hacked the password and went on anyway while she was at work or out doing various chores. It was always a gamble though because she had the only computer in the house in the front window so when she drove up, she could catch me red-handed.
It took me time to make sense of this all but I realized that there is good in the world and we are taught to fear it and think the worst.
Mind you, I realize this guy could have been a sociopath and killed me and my family right there but that would have been a hell of an effort to do so. Traveling that far and going to that much effort would be the most commitment imaginable. However, whatever the intention, the fact that he was able to find me without me giving him any clear details was a wake up call. How much more safe could I have been? I felt I covered all my basis and that part was the scariest.
Now looking at it through the eyes of love, makes sense. People do crazy things for love, don't they? But how can we differentiate the two at first glance? The people trying to take advantage of you VS the people who genuinely want to connect?
After taking some time to let the dust settle, we eventually got right back into the same swing of things, only now I was the one in love as I was convinced I had an Australian prince out there waiting for me.
For 10 more years we talked online. As the social media platforms advanced, so did our relationship. We went from ICQ, to MSN to MySpace to Facebook and all along the line, the intimacy was growing. When we were younger, we talked a lot more, most all of my free time was typing to this boy across the ocean. Whenever I was in trouble or did anything I felt I couldn't tell anyone I was directly in contact with, I would go crying to him. He knew my every little secret, fantasy and nightmare.
Finally, 14 years after meeting in that chat room and 12 years after our brief encounter at my work, we decided to meet and while I was making a quick stop in Sydney on the way to New Zealand, I planned to meet him in person.
Do you want to know how it went?
It was incredibly awkward. It was like we didn't even know each other while at the same time staring at each other naked since we had told each other everything for so many years. We were meeting a person we had idolized in our minds, crafted how we wanted them to be and then spending time together felt strained, weird, forced.
"Hey, remember that time you flew all the way across the world to come see me and I had police officers stake you out?"
How strange that a relationship that lasted for so many years online couldn't cut it in real life. That impacted our online relationship prior as well because the awkwardness carried over into it. I'm sure we both felt lost in the fact that we had both been left feeling disappointed.
We don't talk anymore like we used to do...
And that's that you guys. This post started out as a colorchallenge and someone this story spewed itself out of me. It begs many questions though don't you think? Our online identities for starters.
- Who are we online vs RL?
- Are we protecting our information properly?
- How do you protect yourself but also connect authentically?
I asked my Aussie friend here how he was able to find me and his response shocked me. From the first letter of my town's name and the idea of how far way from the capital it was, with some features noted about the town was enough for him to track me down. I'm lucky this turned into a Shakespeare type tragic ending story opposed to a horror story however and so for that I am thankful but also, I get asked so often on Discord my real name, my age, where I live... these are questions that have gotten me into trouble before, and are really irrelevant to my content so I hope you understand why I am not jumping at the idea of giving out my birthday and social security right off the bat :)
Here's a picture of us in Sydney right after he picked me up from the airport. His face is censored for his privacy ;)
I still shake my head at my 12 year old self. I honestly believe she was just bored, looking for something to do and only lied to protect herself, though it didn't work anyway!
What a vortex the internet is, people living inside and outside of it with more than one life to keep up with. Seeing how much online has changed in the span of this story, I am excited to see what happens moving forward. Interestingly enough, this experience had encouraged me to be myself online, no lying, probably still too much personal information though... but hey, I believe in love, humanity... and blogs!
XO,
