People are usually reluctant to chat with strangers online because they are skeptical about what lies behind the other screen. They can lie about simply everything about themselves and could even misuse your personal information and photos. The many online sex scams have also deterred many from falling prey to such schemes. Thus, they feel safer with people they have met before as opposed to their makeshift impression of people’s personas.
I wanted to see a contrast between chatting up someone with a profile (Facebook) with someone who’s completely unknown (MIRC). The reason behind this is because through Facebook, you would actually know who you are chatting with because their pictures are uploaded. On top of that, details like their hobbies, birthday and even school/workplace are available. Compared to MIRC, you have no inkling about the profile of your fellow chatter.
Thus, I first started out with Facebook Chat. Facebook users actually add random strangers just so that they can earn more money/generate armies with these additional “resources”. The last time I check, more than 100 people on my Facebook list are strangers due to applications. Hence, I started conversing with three of them. One of the other conversations stopped due to language barriers as she could only converse in Spanish while the other guy ignored me after saying hi.
The only successful case was with this Tunisian guy, Mel Taha. I find that it was easy to strike a conversation with him as topics like school, languages and our experiences as students gave us more common issues to talk about. As a matter of fact, I felt at ease chatting with him and we ended up chatting for an hour. We even talked about our cultures and life in our respective countries as well. Mel Taha had striked something about profile securities. He shared his experience whereby others had impersonated him by using his photos. As such, he had created another profile solely for leisure and another private one for people he knew. I personally think that this was a brilliant idea.
The primary reason that I and a few of my online chat friends turn to the cyber world is due to the fact that the online realm is where we can pour our grievances to strangers and possibly not worry about being ratted on because anonymity can be kept. It’s also easier for us to wear a mask and then talk about anything thought provoking or would have been uncomfortable if raised through face to face conversations. I even had friends who found their significant others via this channel.
However, the downside to this is that not everyone can be trusted. People keep a façade when talking to others. There are some who display a different personality when they are online. Cases of pedophiles and rape cases have seen a rise in the past few years because girls fall victims to online deception. Men were not spared either as they were overcome with lust, only to find out that the “girl” that they had been chatting with turning out to be men with the intention to fleece. Thus, it is always important to keep confidential information like your address, IC number and handphone number away from people you do not know.
An example would be with Jeff (Refer to Appendix C). He initiated the chat with me instantly upon seeing me coming online; trying his luck out to see if I was a girl. He even seeks my help in introducing a girl to him. However, I couldn’t bring myself to trust a stranger and subject any unforeseen harm towards my friends. I was so disgusted with his earlier question of a threesome and had to stop the conversation before his sex connotations gets more as we chatted. To think we were chatting in the “Singapore” channel and not the sex chat rooms.
As I had mentioned earlier, I have had friends who seek love via the online portal. After Shandy’s break up with her boyfriend of over 2 years, she turned to online chatting. Through this, she had about 4 boyfriends. However, these relationships managed to only survive the storms for barely a few months or even weeks.
Most people do online dating because they have given up on finding love the conventional way. On the other hand, there are people who seek sex online; particularly in MIRC (and In the case of Jeff) or what we would call, one night stands. Some use love on the pretext of gaining sexual pleasures but ends up dumping their significant other after their satisfaction has been met. These are real life examples and have been covered in Crimewatch.
Personally, I believe that the success of online love is subjective. If we get two minded individuals who sincerely seek for a partner, the relationship might work. The issue I have with online love is that we are not exposed to the flaws of the other party because we tend to sugar coat our words and get away with our true feelings because our expressions are not easily read via our typed words. However, personally for me, I would rather stick to the conventional way as “what you see, is what you get.”
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