From Beginner to Expert, Your Guide to Chat

Safety In Chat

Online and Real Life Relationships
 

    Here is a few articles submitted by Chatmag readers and others who are as concerned for your safety and enjoyment both in chat and in any real life encounter.  Please take the time to read them, and let others know of this page.  The Staff of Chatmag.com and Friends.

Text of a recent E-Mail from Caryl.
 

    I had a few thoughts while reading your page and first would
like to say that you have good information there. I would probably also
add ICQ as a communication medium also with an "ignore" feature. It also
has a netphone feature, which brings to mind your information on Yahoo
and chat sites with voice verification. You mentioned that some record
their voice using a windows program. It seems like it would be easy for
a guy to disguise his voice or talk a female friend into recording her
voice and claiming it's his.

    You use HNG and "poser" to describe only someone pretending to be of one
gender when they're not, but there are also those who pose as other
things, probably most typically as being an honest "real" person when
they're actually just out to play games with others. It's not rare, with
all the pic trading to get one from someone who is attractive and pass
it off as your own. This can be done by a woman who weighs more or is
older than she's claiming or by a man misrepresenting either his looks
or gender.

    A HNG can also describe a male (many times underage yet
claiming to be older) who's just looking for some easy cyber sex or
phone sex. They may use any number of ploys or may be very upfront about
it. I think it may be a good idea for you to suggest that even if they
feel very comfortable with the one they're chatting with they should
never give out their real name, place of employment or address.

    Personally, I think anyone and everyone should have a PO Box address for
those times when they want to agree to having someone send them
something. On a side note, I had a man in Florida fly up to where I
lived in WA State and found me at a club I worked at with only my first
name and the type of work I did.

On meeting someone in public, I like the precautions you list but would
also possibly add that they should agree and commit to in advance that
the meeting will end at that public place. Too often, they may hit it
off and decide to move to somewhere more private or to another venue
where noone knows they've gone. A man may make a woman feel that she
mislead him or owes it to him to take it further than she wants, and if
she gets in his car, she's pretty much given up any defense she has.

I regularly meet people in person from online but have gotten pretty
good at judging what a person is seeking and keep in mind all the
precautions. I think the main key is to be patient rather than scared.
Take your time getting to know who someone is by keeping the
conversation away from sex. If that's all they're interested in, they'll
soon be bored and disappear.

    I also avoid anyone trying to get too much information too soon.
Just the other night on IRC, someone messaged me and their first question
was "Hi caryl, what's your last name?" Many people would  automatically answer.
 

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