OMG! I’m an internet stalker!
Hi Folks,
Have you ever gone on the internet to look someone up from your deep dark past? How about someone your daughter started dating? That cute guy/girl from exercise class? If you have, you may not be full blown, but you do have internet stalker tendencies!
Now, I must confess that when our daughter was young, I did monitor her msn messages. (yes! we did use that messaging service back in the day – I can’t believe that something my daughter (who’s only 26) used to use on the internet is now passe.) I wanted to make sure that no internet creepers were trying to engage her in conversation. I was actually shocked by how many horny young boys, who did not even know her blatantly asked to see her boobs!!! I suppose they were young, they might have been forty year old pedophiles, for all I know!
I will also confess, though I am not proud of it, that I did pretend to be a mysterious teenage girl to my daughter’s 16 year old ex, who was being an asshole to her, just to see how he would react to another girl paying attention to him when he was supposed to be dating my daughter. Not surprisingly, he failed! I still see adult people online playing these childish games on Facebook and dating sites to try and “catch” their love interest trying to cheat!
While I no longer feel a need to monitor my daughter’s online activities, I find it weird how you know so much about people in your friend’s circle of friends on sites like Facebook. There is one girl I am ‘friends’ with who has been through a lot in her young life, and I have read many posts where she is interacting with her friends. It is amazing how when you see people’s photos doing their everyday activities, playing with their kids, celebrating birthdays, going out on girl’s nights, pictures from the teenage days, at school, at sleepovers, etc. that you get such an intimate picture of who these people are that you think you know them.
The other night Paul and I were having dinner out when I saw a young woman, a friend of my friend, out to dinner with her husband, her children and some other friends. I recognized these people, but they didn’t know me from Adam. It was a surreal feeling, having been witness to something as intimate as their Christmas morning gift opening through pictures on the internet, when they didn’t know me as anything other than a stranger! As I pointed out to the young woman that her son had left his hat under the table when they went to leave, I was reminded of Robin Williams in the movie “One Hour Photo” where he began to live vicariously through photos he viewed through his job at a One Hour Photo Service. Creepy? It sure feels like it!