Better with Age

As teenagers, many of us get told over and over the dangers of the internet. There are sketchy people! Sketch! I tell you! On the internet! (There are sketchy people everywhere. Believe me. It's like the Law of Sketch.) We listen year after year to presentations being made at schools about the mask the internet provides. (I once saw this presentation where a forty something year old man was telling us about how he pretends to be a young girl, like for fun or something since this isn't even part of his job or anything, and attracts perverts. Like, goes to chatrooms and has sketchy conversations just so he can turn them in. Err. Okaaay.) "If some stranger asks you to have sex with them, DON'T DO IT!" Err, this applies not just to the internet I would hope. If one is sensible enough, this usually does not present a problem, and can also generate a lot of humor depending on the circumstance. The following tale is a rather amusing anecdote on how entertaining not being able to see who you are talking to can be.

I frequent a message board somewhere on the vast interwebs, some of you may know of it or hear me talk about it from time to time. The message board is by and large populated by teenage girls. One particularly new member, who we will call Susie, had been causing quite a stir with recent comments, but we can all forgive her because we remember what it was like to be a thirteen year old girl new to a message board and just how naïve we can be. One of our older members, who we will call Mark, is a married man in his fifties, who is thankfully not the kind of sketchy internet person they warn you about in school, except for the fact that he is middle aged and a man, he is really quite innocent and loves to joke around.

There was a particular thread going on asking about what people's "types" were, as in, what kind of guy or girl do you usually crush on. Mark responds to the post, commenting on how he had in his life dated people of all different appearances but he tended to attract a lot of introverts. Susie sees the post and replies, "Neat I've been thinking I'm an introvert. Can we date? *instantly regrets saying this and wonders how old he is*" On another thread about our effect on other people, she replies "You've changed me. I want to date you. How old are you? *snogs picture of him*" As you can imagine this got a lot of laughs, and a patient explanation or two that Mark was married and way too old for her, and that really, asking random strangers on the internet to date was not a good idea.

(Note: Susie later claims this was all a joke. Regardless, I let the tale stand as is.)


Sachi