That was a good read ^^ I agree with the points you made here. So far I have to say my experience with people online has been positive, there was one member of theO who was on the edge of asking silly questions via PM, but they were just messing around.

I'm glad that your friendships have worked out well ^^ I doubt i'd ever meet anyone from theO in person - mainly because I have only found a few individuals who live anywhere near me in England XD

I do have friends who I message over msn etc, but yeah, as you said, I have known them for several months and we trust each other and I feel they are consistent enough to be genuine.

Good message, I hope people take in what you wrote ^^

I met my best friend online, Milkshakess. My experience is sorta similar to yours, I guess. Like, we were both 11/12 and liked the same anime, we had talked and commented each other for 2 years, on IM, MSN. Then we got webcams and I showed my mum she was indeed, not a 48 year old rapist. So we swapped phone numbers, and have been talking ever since. Its been about 4 years now :'D
But we have yet to meet in person, i mean, we've tried several times, but the distance...
Lovely article.

You were not kidding about this being a novel, haha. Great reflection though. You've definitely had a more colorful online friend history than I have.

This is a great essay, I agree with you completely on all of it. My mom didn't like me talking to people online so I wouldn't tell her about my friends to avoid an argument, but now I tell her everything and she thinks most of my online friends are great. She let me exchange phone numbers with two of them, and even said she wished on person lived closer so we could visit. Honesty really is the best policy.

What a fun post. ^_^ Of course it's true that there are good as well as bad people out there, that's true of even your own neighborhood. Heh. I never give out truly personal information. Sure my real name is Sabrina, but SLC is a huge area so I doubt anyone could find me. :p

Ironically I know Crystia/indifference Rachmaninoff/Darren and SunfallE/Beth... but I knew all of them in real life before I joined this place... so that doesn't count. Hehe. ^_^

Anyway, I kind of wonder how that friend of yours is too SomeGuy... also... *BONKS YOU* no putting yourself down in your own post! :p You know what I mean. ^_~

-Sabrina

That's your idea of wordy? I was expecting a whole lot more when you said that SomeGuy. :p *laughs* Twas a fun read and yes as SunfallE/Beth pointed out, this site and OtakuBoards is how we met in the first place. Online friends are great.

~Crystia

@:

No. I'm clueless. YEAY. :D

LOL.

@:

-nods-

I live in Arizona, therefore I understand. Yeah?

I was wondering when the "wordy bastard" in you would come out lately...hehehe

I remember when I first started to talk with people online, it was pretty hard to get personal information from me, I was very vague, the only info I let people know was my nickname and my country. No more, no less.
Sometime after, I found this place and then met this wonderful people and friendship started to bloom, I have this small group of people that I care and considered them as friends, they know my real name and we have fun exchanging goodies with each other. So I'm grateful for being lucky and meeting this amazing people from each corner of the world.

Like I said before, there's always a risk but you can also be lucky enough to find decent and honest people just like you on the other side of the world.

Nice message to send across! There are a lot of creeps out there, but not everyone you meet is a creepy 40 year-old man.

I have some internet friends, and most of them I've never even given my first name out to. I rarely, rarely give out my personal information, including my email and my location in the US. I'm not paranoid, but it's better to be safe then sorry.

I only have one "close" internet friend that has my email, name, and even knows what state I live in. She's give me her information (the same I gave her), and I'd love to meet her someday. 'Course only when I can drive, and I'll take a friend most likely.

Great article, again. :]

Oh, Master of FanWords.

A very thorough and informative essay, Mr. SG ^^ It's good to know these things, and also good to know what can happen if you let your guard down just a bit in the wrong circumstances.

For many years, the only people I communicated with online were friends I already knew from school and the area. I did start talking to one random person who share an interest in Doctor Who, who lived in the same state and was working in the admin office of one of our state universities, but after only a short time we lost contact. All we ever talked about was Doctor Who and sometimes anime, never exchanging any personal info or pictures.

It wasn't until I was in my last year or two of university that I started making friends who were exclusively online, and it was always because we were all part of a larger site dedicated to an shared interest (Progulus Radio for music, and theOtaku and Anime Pulse for anime).

It was a bit unnerving learning that so many of the girls I was making friends with online were still teenagers, often a good 8-10 years younger than me, but I never had any intention of acting inappropriatley with them anyway. I ain't no fool (nor am I a perv) =P

I am very glad for things such as Skype, where you can talk to your friends like on the phone but still maintain your annonymity. I've received confectionary goodies from one friend (none of it posisoned), and exchanged gifts with another. I would like to meet a couple of my online friends (two of them know each other already) and we've talked about them coming down here to visit, but that's still a long way off logistically.

I don't mind some people knowing my real first name, although when we chat and they use it it doesn feel kind of weird =P I think most people would still call me TC even of they met me in person XD

Hm, I know just what you mean. I've acquired plenty of contacts through the internet, but very, very few actually know even my actual first name. Friends I have in "real life" that carry over to the internet, I tell them to not use my real name in something like a comment box or a blog post. I don't want pictures of myself up on the internet either. I have only one (that I took and posted myself), and my face isn't even fully shown in it. Even from when I first began the whole blog-thing, I never wanted to use any real names whatsoever. Now all I hear from my brothers is that at my old high school, kids are being kicked off sports teams for their MySpace pages. It's a long, frustrating story, but I was luckily caught in none of it.

This makes me wonder about people I've met on theO that have left, like MA JR and Original J. I wonder what they're up to.

*Applauds* Great read, I always enjoy reading other people's versions of things I already know. and yeah, Cooper's still kickin'. (Not sure for how long though). My parents know about Duo and Enin, and what they do, where they live and that I know them from online but...

They don't know Duo's staying at our house yet. It shouldn't be too much of a problem once they meet her though.

I deleted Skype.

Great info, great perspective, and great story, ya wordy bastard.

I spent most of my online experience never meeting anyone and never giving out more than say my first name and state I lived in. :p However that changed upon joining here. I started chatting a lot with a fellow member here, and then another who live less than 30 miles from where I am. Then last year since we are fellow moderators at OtakuBoards, we decided to meet at the anime convention in SLC.

At this point no last names, simply a meeting spot at the convention. All three of us are adults of course so we felt it was safe to meet in a place like that. Since then, this is the part that makes me laugh the most because just as that saying about predators is true, it is also true that there are millions of normal decent honest people out there.

Anyway, what I'm saying is the greatest irony of all? One of those nice people I met last year is now my boyfriend in real life. ^_~ So... that's my online history.

I meet this one guy online when I was 13 he was pretty cool we dated a bit but my family hated it because he was 35. It wasn't love but there was something really good about him. Anyway after a year we broke-up. I am not saying meet up with people online but you never know what you will find.

Yeah I did what you did once a upon a time. I gave my cell number to a guy I met who lives down in Florida, and then soon after my dad found out... Obviously Kim. He pays your phone bill. I don't know, it was stupid of me either way. I could have been in serious danger, although I thought he sounded innocent enough. I won't do it again though, and it's not just because I got in huge trouble afterwards. I don't feel like getting stalked.

:)

I've known someone that got involved enough with another person online that they drove alone several hours to try and meet up with them. I don't think they actually made contact, but it could have been disastrous if the person had bad intentions. Stupid reckless high school kids...

That was very impressive! A lot of history and emotion was put deeply into this. I am extremely impressed SomeGuy, extremely impressed.

You've said a good message here. I hope people listen.