It's Not Just Kidnappers and Rapists:
So this friend and I are close. We've shared plenty of secrets, stayed up late into the night chatting, and in general just have the fortune of being completely frank and honest with each other. And as I mentioned, this friend was also the first online friend to whom I ever mailed hard-copy presents and letters. I can really only thank myOtaku and theOtaku for allowing me to meet such amazing friends, so I'm glad it did indeed work out for us.
Come Christmas that year (2004), several of us were compiling mailing lists for little trinket gifts or cards. Again, it had been over a year now and we were starting to feel pretty safe that we could trust each other. I guess you could also say that since there were so many of us from all over in on this, we had a better sense of security and if something was amiss we'd have at least a basic means of helping each other out if we needed to... how exactly, I can't say, but in any kind of thing involving internet friends, the more people with you the safer you'll always be.
So I mailed out a lot of presents that Christmas. Most got a box of Pocky and maybe one other little anime trinket; the one friend got maybe three times as much stuff. Actually, far more than that...
...we exchanged phone numbers too. It was always in my mind that "normal friends call each other on the phone!" So I called her one afternoon when she was off work and we chatted for a good long while. And at that time I have to say I thought maybe this internet friend thing wasn't gonna be so bad.
Yeah, they got bad.
I guess we can say that this is the other side of the internet culture. On one hand you want to be careful what kind of information you give out to others because you can't be certain exactly what kind of person to whom you're speaking. Now I do feel that people are people regardless of whether you meet them on the street, in a classroom, or on a website. Still, the "safety" of net anonymity also means we're more free to express and divulge thoughts and feelings a whole lot quicker... and next thing you know, you might be a whole lot closer to people than you might have otherwise originally intended, best intentions or not. This friend and I got really close, and words exchanged between us expressed that.
Well, one day her husband saw those words. When he got their phone bill that month and saw an hour-long phone call from someone on the other side of the continent, he saw a red flag go up. So he caught a glimpse of the letter attached to her Christmas parcel, saw something he didn't like considering it was for his wife's eyes... and that led to his checking through our MSN conversation logs. And yeah, when those conversations where you're talking about your troubles sometimes include your communication problems with your significant others, well... it's really bad.
I really can't blame him for not liking what he saw. In hindsight, I was maybe using language I shouldn't have used for a married woman and had gotten far too carried away with having a friend that I could love and care for so freely. I complicated their lives far more than I ever should have, and as a result this friend and I were no longer allowed to speak with each other for quite a long time.
So yeah. I was once that guy and I'm not proud of that.
As time passed and more of this stuff came out in the open with my circle of people, I got some new insight into things. It's possible this friend and her husband were themselves having some communication problems, or that her husband simply didn't know enough about these strange anime people who were sending boxes of gifts to his wife... as time went on, they did start getting better with communicating and stuff - but really for the two of us, the damage was done.
This works for parents too, guys. Of my younger current online distance friends, I find the ones with the best "internet friend conditions" are the ones who do tell their parents about their online friends. They tell them who they are, where they live, what they do, how old they are... what kind of things they're studying, shows they're recommending they watch... communication never leads to trouble.
I know a lot of concerns are that if they find out about your online friends they'll get angry, force you to never see them again and think they're all rapists and murderers. If you want to prove them otherwise, you need to fill them in, explain your reasoning for why there's a lesser risk of that being the actual case. Show them the pictures if you can, show them the postcards they sent you while they were on vacation, whatever you do you must keep your family in the loop. They can't support your decisions and choices of friends if they don't know what or who they are.
