Hello....My Name Is NOT Marvin!

I have a confession.......My name is NOT Marvin. I am NOT a 68 year old pedophile stalking the internet trying to lure you in. Are you shocked? Yeah I was too, but its true! I'm NOT sitting here at my computer in my beer stained wife beater and jockey shorts looking for kiddy porn sites. I am NOT now, nor will I EVER be online trying to seduce young men into meeting me...with the intention having my way with them.

Ok well maybe ONE young man...but that's another story all together. *smile*

So .....WHY is it then that this is the first reaction my friends get when telling others about meeting me online? I can understand the need for caution. Meeting someone on the web can have certain pitfalls. I'm not denying the obvious concerns anytime you meet someone online.

But computers are a fact of life. Everyone from your Grandma to small children are using them and surfing the internet. They have become as common as the mircrowave or TV. It stands to reason that with all the limitless places a person can now travel via the internet...that you also automatically open yourself up to a larger group of people you can now interact with. So maybe its time we started to change our thinking about what is normal a little.

Anytime you meet someone new its a risk. This is true no matter if you meet them online or on the sidewalk of your hometown. If you think its safer meeting people because they may live next door, then you obviously don't watch the news. Or you've never checked out the local sex offender websites. Because if you did, I think you would be extremely surprised as to who some of your neighbors are.

I will concede that the world can be a very scary place. Because of technology we have all gone from being in this very small pond of people we DO know.....to a very large ocean of people we COULD know. Are there more predators in this deep water? Yes probably so. But Id be willing to bet that there are also far more people just like YOU and ME that are just decent, semi-normal people, who live healthy normal lives.

If the question is can someone deceive you when meeting them online? Then the answer is yes they can. More easily than in person? Maybe so. But isn't it also true that you can and probably have been deceived in the past by people you actually knew face to face too?

I think its all about using common sense. You have to take the time to get to know someone, no matter how or where you meet them...You have to be willing to ask the all important questions. You have to be willing to listen for the answers to those questions. And when I say listen...I mean really listen not just hearing what you want to hear.

The internet has opened up the world and its people to you. For me that means learning that other people in the world are a lot more like me than they are different from me. The world is a much smaller place than I had ever imagined. To me that's a comforting thought..not one that scares me.

I have met some really great people on the internet. People who I can say without a doubt I consider to be my friends. People that I have yet to meet face to face and maybe never will. Does that make them any less of a friend?...NO not to me it doesn't. Because its not always about meeting someone face to face in order to become friends with them.

Its time to stop making the HOW we meet people more important than the PEOPLE we meet themselves.