by Kaye Boss

Created on: April 28, 2009

How selfish can humans be? When we think of the subject of online dating so many people relate online dating just to themselves, as my mother had done when I was younger, and they fail to think of the other people in their life. Online dating does not just affect you, especially if the person that you are talking to is not really who you think they are. You could be putting your family and your friends at risk. This is the basis my thoughts on online dating.

I was thirteen-years-old when my parents had divorced, actually it was exactly one week prior to my thirteenth birthday. When my birthday arrived, one week later, my mom had allowed my dad to come back over to the house so that I could enjoy having the family together (one last time, I suppose). While there my dad had sat down to the computer (as he felt that it was still his home and his things were in the house like the computer) and while on the computer he had found conversations that my mother had been having with another man on the computer. They started screaming at each other and then my father left.

It was only a month later when my mother and her best friend had decided to go meet that man from the internet at a hotel a few cities away. She was going to be staying the night at the hotel so my father came to stay with me and my brother.

My father suffered from depression and he spent most of the weekend crying. I can still remember my heart breaking over and over again.

At night time however was when the damage began. A friend of my mother's "online boyfriend" had phoned our house. He started making threatening comments saying that he knew there were two children in the house, he knew where we lived, and that he was going to come and get us. My father had called the police to warn them, but my mother continued staying with this guy for a few more weeks.

If that guy had just shown up instead of calling, my brother and I could have been in danger.

Often on the internet people are able to make us feel more secure. When you have a bad day, they sympathize with you and wish poor feelings on those that have caused it to you. If you are self-conscious about your image, they tell you that you are beautiful.

I have seen people that do not even value their online relationships and many that use online relationships because they feel that it is not really "cheating" on the person that they are already with. Online dating destroys relationships. While I don't believe that it is a real relationship, it is still really cheating.

That is far from my point however. My point is that the internet makes us stupid and online dating is no exception to that. In the comfortable relationship that we are building with strangers online we are putting our families and our friends at risk. Is it really worth it to find someone to tell you you're beautiful? Are you telling me that it's impossible to find this in your own backyard? I doubt that!

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