What pisses me off? Cyber predators

As I write this I’m feeling rather pi**ed off, why you ask?

I’ve lived 65 years on this beautiful earth, learning many lessons along the way and now when I should be a trusted, trusting member of society, I’m being asked to bow to the inevitable and change!

I’m told “lose all those mad ideas about giving someone a go, innocent till proven guilty, not pre-judging people, become a miserable old witch, scared of everyone around you, even scared of your own shadow.”

And all in the name of “staying safe”!

I lock my doors (although as kids none of us ever had a key to our home).  What is there to protect for heaven’s sake, I live in a caravan! Yet, I have security screens on my windows; I don’t walk anywhere at night and even in broad daylight I take note of who is around me just in case someone tries to steal my purse. (Fat lot of good it would do them, although I’d feel good if they would pay my bills for me!)

Now it seems I’m not even safe in my home, because all over the world wide web there are predators and stalkers trying to steal my dignity and my purse.

I love people and enjoy a wide circle of friends and acquaintances from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. I grew up with people who had no time for judging a book by its cover, or judging a person by the colour of their skin or the accent in their voice.

I look at the Internet as a way to meet more people from even more diverse backgrounds, so yes I accept friend requests from people I don’t know who seem to have no relationship whatsoever to me, even given 6 degrees of separation.  And I can think of a number of people I’ve met this way who are very special to me.

BUT, yes there is a big BUT.

Recently I “friended” a person from Gambia, Nyame Sowe.  Nyame Sowe is very polite, his profile picture is a family group and for about a month, he sent occasional, non threatening messages; in other words, he was grooming me. I was wary, even told my GOM I smelled a rat, but decided to give him a fair go, isn’t that what we Aussies do? I’m not naïve, I know the stories about people losing their life savings, to say nothing of their lives, to scam artists, but am I willing to forego the possibility of a finding “a silk purse” just because they may be a “sows ear”?

Then I received the message asking for money!  Even though I was expecting it, I can’t tell you how disappointed I am that Nyame Sowe is not a “silk purse”!

I’ve spent a lifetime becoming the person I am, a person I want to see looking back at me in the mirror, not because the face or body are spectacularly beautiful, but because here is a person I’m glad I know.

I think it’s that way for many of us, we just want to be trusted, caring members of our community; we don’t want to be constantly looking over our shoulders for the “boogey man”, not accepting “friend” requests be they actual or virtual, because they may be from a “sow’s ear”, not smiling back at the little kid who smiled at you, because the next person to smile may have malicious intent.

I don’t want to talk to a person in the Starts at Sixty community, for instance, and wonder if they have a hidden agenda, worry if meeting for coffee could be dangerous, constantly editing my remarks in case I say too much. Let’s face it, not all predators are young men from Gambia!

So Nyame Sowe, I blocked you and I’ve reported you to Facebook, not that it matters because you already have a million different identities and closing one FB account won’t change your ways.  But what really pi**es me off is that you tried to take more than money from me; you tried, but failed, to take my peace of mind and that is unforgiveable.

So have I learned my lesson? Probably not! I know there are many more “silk purses” to discover and I want to discover as many as I can. But be assured my real and dear friends, I promise I’ll be careful.

Have you struggled with cyber predators before? What dramas have you come into online? Tell us why it pisses you off in the comments below…