What did you expect?

How many times do you hear that? And, before I'm thrown in the "pirhana pond"...it's happened to me too, the games. But, is that suppose to be some kind of reason why it's OK to use the internet to do harm of any kind? Seems there's so much more of it lately.

Maybe I'm still too naive, but I don't come on the internet EXPECTING everyone to be a liar, a bully, a predator, someone who takes another's emotions and play wicked games, fake, etc. Seems to me there's too many who use that phrase to excuse their own behavior. I have a friend who was in a horrible auto accident and her means of socializing has become the internet. Whatever the reason we find ourselves here, I don't think many of us come here EXPECTING the bad we inevitably find. K, I'm off the soap box.

Nope your right for that phrase is right along with the Nice Guys Finish Last is is a crock!! And only and excuse that some use. JMO

I have nothing to declare, except my genius.

If it's naive to expect to be treated like a human being, to be treated decently and with some respect, than a LOT of us are guilty of the same naiveté.

Which is a bad thing to be guilty of, when one finds oneself in a cesspool....

people lie on here.

Ive only lied once.........when I said I had huge boobs........but then again I was having delusions of grandeur!!!!

I think the same problems occur with people off-line and on-line. But...the truth eventually comes out.

oH And there was that one time when I said I was a kazzzzzzzzzzzbillionaire..........

People are people and will be people. They lie and cheat and overall are assai. That said, it's simply easier to be that way online than off, and we meet a LOT more people online from many places than we do IRL. So in the end it's all about numbers, really:

1,000 people we "meet" online in a day -- 5% of those are liars, etc. That's still 50 people you meet that are assai, as opposed to the 20 people you meet in, what, a year? More? IRL. If 5% of those are assai it's only 1 person you meet IRL that's an ass.

Of course, those numbers are inflated but you get the idea.

My point? People are people. They will be nice or they won't be. There aren't more bad people online, there are just more people period.

So True.....

M. Michiganman.

Complaining about the horrid criminals and boors on the internet doesn't do anything but alert the criminals and boors to the fact that you might be worth taking advantage of.

I'm not being a jerk to ya--that's just how it is. You wouldn't carry a wad of hundred-dollar bills in your hand through a crowded bus station, right?

The internet is, when all is said and done, a really wonderful thing. I mean, I literally couldn't make a living without it, my day job is completely linked to the internet. It also makes socializing a lot more safe and fun, in my opinion.

One always has to be careful in a social setting, regardless.



Word.

I hope you start feeling better. yours in Chaos, Scarlett

It's much easier to deceive someone online than it is in person, people keep saying that meeting someone via the internet is no different than say, the bars or the clubs or the grocery store or whatever. However, in "real life" you might know someone who knows the guy you're interested in and can warn you about him, or embellish his good qualities. In reality he lives 100 miles away and is actually a 50 year old, married, pervert instead of the 24 year old "hottie" graduate student he pretended to be. Or he really could be the so-called "nice guy" and family man you're looking for.

So you should be more on guard on here. Saying "it's just the internet" isn't really a copout, it's just saying, hey be careful and not so trusting, use your common sense. And if you do go in with blinders, head first and believing everything someone hiding behind a computer screen tells you, you really have no one to blame but yourself.

I don't come on with blinders, that was like 10 yrs ago when I first came on and at that point I had no clue what could really lurk behind those screens. I've learned. The point, I guess, I was trying to make is that the statement "what do you expect" makes it sound as if that's the ONLY thing anyone ever finds on the internet and I don't believe that the majority of people are EXPECTING what those people who make that statement seem to be defending.

These times are a grey area concerning the internet. All use to be warned of the predators and scam artists. But now the stigma is wearing off.
Kids who were born in 1986, have never even known a life without the internet.
It has become common practice and accordingly more good people have become involved.
Any person with intelligence would rely on the fact that they can decipher predators or bulk**** scam artists. But those scammers too have become more sophisticated.

I do like the fact that I am able to interact with people I would never otherwise be able to meet. It makes anything possible.

But... there is always that but.

I think that the good will overpower the perverted, scamming, corrupt, sociopathic, harmful peoples. At the moment however, I think they have the reins.

Goodness is a plenty in the barrels of bad. I know it is.

Maybe it would help if I posted the reason I made the post in the first place. I was in another forum. Some lady, (very young) had gotten involved with a man from this site who she did not know was married. She had only posted 5x. She thought she was doing something good by posting a warning.

I have no clue how long she'd been on the internet and how savy she "should" have been, that's not my place to judge. But when some of the other posters were finished with her...it was more as if SHE had been the one to do the wrong instead of the man who has misled her. More then one of the other posters had written "what did you expect, this is the internet afterall". That doesn't make it any more right...or because you use the internet to do harm doesn't mean it's OK cause "after all it's the internet".

As far as RL and internet life goes...I don't go into a grocery store and EXPECT some guy to walk up to me and drop his pants and show me his penis. It could happen but I don't EXPECT it. If I were to EXPECT all the crap that happens here, then every time a man sends me an email I should EXPECT that he's up to no good and if a female sends me an email here, I should EXPECT that's she's caught her hubby doing something he shouldn't and my name was on his "friends" list.

If you're using the internet for a business, do you EXPECT to be hacked and all your files stolen...no. Otherwise, you'd not use the internet for business.

What I'm trying to say is just because the internet is what some use as their means to do whatever harm they do, doesn't mean it's any more OK because "it's the internet" then it is to do it in RL and if they did some of the things in RL that they did on the internet, they'd be sitting in jail somewhere.

I still want those pics.

Well of course not sweet one. It is not okay in real life or through the US post or on the internet. But unlike, as through business, private personal computers are not monitored...and you better think twice if you wish that was the case. Business (i believe) they do anticpate that, and there are restrictions and blocks, that is not what you want.

What I am getting from your lament is that you are a goodhearted person just wondering why others do not share in your integrity and values.

I wish they would but sadly the majority sees this as opportunity for agendas that are not appreciated.

Makes me angry too.