Online relationships
refer to both dating websites as well as the various social media sites, chat
rooms and forums to which one might visit, join, or subscribe.
Social Media
Social media has
changed the way we communicate and connected the world. There is no better example of this than the
fact that dictators and despots want to tightly control and shut these sites
down during times of unrest.
Unfortunately these sites have opened up a new venue to predators. In consulting on a case involving a man who
was harassing local female business executive we found a pattern of
media-centric predatory behavior. He has
selected this woman for his attentions simply because he had seen a newspaper
profile story about her. He otherwise
had no connection to her. While
conducting our investigation we review is facebook page and found that he was cyber-stalking
teenage girls and inviting them to come meet him for sexual encounters. In a few situations where the mothers of
these girls intervened he attempted to convince them that they should let their
daughters have these encounters so that the mothers could reap the rewards of
having beautiful Grand-babies. While
this man clearly had emotional problems his method of attracting these girls
showed a detailed level of planning and execution. He would become a member of a facebook fan
page that he knew would skew to teenage girls.
By looking at the photos of the other members of the fan page he would
select his targets and send friend requests to them. Some of those girls would see that he was a
member of the fan page and accept his invitation. From there he could also look at the photos
of that girl’s friends and select more targets.
His chances of having them accept his invitations was fairly high as
these girls would see that he was a member of the fan page and a friend of one
of their friend. From there the stalking
and solicitation began.
Security Tips:
Everyone needs to
understand that none of the social media sites give out a prize for the person
with the most friends. So the first step
is:
1. Limit your
friends.
a. Put your “friending”
criteria right on your page. For instance
I state that I do not “friend” anyone that I do not personally know nor anyone
with whom I currently work. The personal
things that I may post are not meant for everyone at work and you need to
realize that anything you post or that someone else posts on your page can be
copied by anyone who has access to your page and forwarded to others who may
forward it even more people etc.
b. If you need to
decline an invitation or reduce the number of friends who have access to your
page simply announce that your work load or school projects are keeping you so
busy that you don’t have time to keep up with facebook and, in order to
simplify your life your will be reviewing your friends list and only keep the
ones who are the closest to you.
2. Review your security settings. The default settings on most sites are way
too open and some of them, especially facebook, periodically resets your
settings when they make upgrades to their software. I recommend checking them monthly and
selecting the strongest controls.
3. If you are a parent
you must:
a. Have access to your
children’s pages to see what people are posting to them.
b. Periodically review
their friends or followers and challenge them on anyone who seems suspicious
such as people who are older or leave postings on their pages which make you
uncomfortable.
You have to know what your children are doing on the
internet until they have demonstrated that they have the maturity and savvy to
identify and protect themselves from predators and scam artists.
I recently provided consultation to a woman who had a very bad
experience with online dating. She and her potential “match” had a total
of five email exchanges and one phone call before the trouble
started. When he first emailed her she expressed that she was
not interested due to their age difference (he was 10 years younger) and
distance between locations (he lived about 2 hours away). He was
persistent and they finally talked on the phone on a Monday and made plans for
dinner on Friday evening. On Tuesday an issue at work arose that was
going to cause her to work on Friday night. She sent him an email
telling him about it and stated they would have to reschedule. His
response was swift and fierce. He blew up and became verbally
abusive (and remember; this was after only 5 emails and one phone
call). He sent her 65 text messages that day and attempted to call
her numerous times as well. I reviewed his courtship period emails
and texts in order to determine if there were any warning signs in his
communication. There were. Most of my analysis of his
communications came from comparing them with the warning signs from the chapter
entitled “Survival Signals” in Gavin de Decker’s book “The Gift of
Fear”. I cannot recommend this book too highly.
The first 7 warning signs are from de Becker’s work. The 8th I
have added from my work experience.
1. Charm: Charm is actually a performance; you are witnessing someone acting “nice” but it is not their real character. Now naturally at the beginning of a potential relationship people tend to be on their best behavior but the old saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” should be considered sound advice for online dating.
1. Charm: Charm is actually a performance; you are witnessing someone acting “nice” but it is not their real character. Now naturally at the beginning of a potential relationship people tend to be on their best behavior but the old saying “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is” should be considered sound advice for online dating.
2. Forced Teaming is a technique where someone tries to insert themselves into your life. Frequently you will hear the person using the words “we and us” when you aren’t really a couple yet. In my client’s situation she mentioned that she volunteers at the humane society. He immediately championed that stating that he did too and “we should work together because it’s up to people like us to save these poor animals from being put down”. When someone quickly states that they are involved in the same activities that you are ask them some basic but technical questions that only someone who was really involved would know. Listen to the words they use; most people who work in animal shelters refer to the animals being euthanized, not “put down”. Similarly he told her that he was a true outdoorsman and couldn’t wait to take her camping. First of all this came up in their first phone conversation so it was way too early to be planning camping trips. She followed the camping invitation up by informing him that dinner on the terrace was about as outdoorsy as she would ever be. I have a lot of friends who are really into the outdoor lifestyle and finding out that a potential suitor is not an outdoors person is usually a deal breaker. However, in an instant he went from being an avid camper, hiker, and fisherman, and developed a preference for intimate, romantic, candlelit dinners. This is not a good sign and shows that the suitor is trying too hard to meet up and that always is cause for suspicion and concern.
3. Type Casting is a technique whereby someone
attempts to put a negative label on the other person to influence them to get
what they want. For example if the online match is older he might say “I have
had a lot of women reject me because I am a few years older than them. I find
that to be so repugnant that someone would rule another person out without
having actually met and spent an evening with them. I hope you are not one of
those people.” Realize that this is a manipulation technique and another
warning sign.
4. Loan Sharking is an attempt by the other
person to get you indebted to them generally because they gave you something or
did something for you. Beware of someone who volunteers to help you with
something before the relationship evolves to that state naturally.
5. Providing Too Many Details is a tell-tale sign
that the person is lying or trying to obtain undue influence over you. The
truth is as solid as a rock and it does not need a lengthy explanation.
Anyone who has kids has probably heard them lie by making up a
story of how they weren’t there, or someone else must have done it, etc.
The great thing about this is that the person doesn’t usually remember
all the details they have spewed forth so going back later and asking them a
question about what they said usually finds that some of those details will
change. The truth however, doesn’t need to change. In my client’s
situation he began to tell her how much his 8 year old daughter liked her
online profile picture and is dying to meet her and can’t wait show my new
friend her room and her collection of toy ponies. Here we see that he was
relating too many details to try to influence her to meet him and come over to
his house.
6. Discounting the word or concept of “no”. This
is pretty easy to understand and this online match exemplified it. In
most of her emails she tried to “let him down easy” (which is a name of a
chapter in de Becker’s book). The match ignored and persisted in being
charming until she finally agreed to meet him.
7. Issuing an unsolicited promise is used by someone who is trying to alleviate a concern you haven’t yet expressed. Someone with genuine intentions doesn’t think to do this.
And here is my warning sign:
8. Fishing. This is a sly technique where someone mentions something a little uncomfortable to see if you take the bait. If any response is given other than an immediate objection they will interpret it as a green light which in this instance he was fishing to see how she reacted to being a part of a submissive relationship. Had she given no response he would have interpreted her lack of revulsion as a green light. If you object or show disgust they will quickly apologize and assure you that they were joking. Objecting to these things is important as you are setting boundaries.
If your intuition is telling you that something is wrong you
should listen to it and get out of the relationship quickly. The longer
you stay in the relationship the more emotional investment the other party will
put into it and it will take you longer to put this relationship behind you.
When the intuition sends up the red flag take a moment to review these
warning signs and you will probably figure out why your intuition sounded the
alarm!
