Hello Friends, Happy Friday!
Blogging, social media platforms, dating sites, and apps have drastically changed the way we interact with one another. When I was going through my Facebook feed the other day, I saw a post by a young woman who was upset over a conversation she had with a man she recently connected with and I wanted to talk about it here.
While I believe the majority of people out here have good intentions, there are some who hide behind a cloak of perceived anonymity. These people believe they can say or do as they please and they don’t care who they hurt.
Here’s the thing, you are in control of your account. You get to choose who you want to engage with, so here are a few tips to help prevent nasty encounters:
- With so many FB accounts being cloned, it’s a good practice to search the name of a new friend request to decide if there are multiple accounts.
- Be wary of mutual friend requests and don’t automatically assume they are legitimate.
- Prior to accepting new friend requests, check out the person’s timeline for clues to help you decide whether to accept the request. If there is little information about the person, few if any friends or posts, but a ton of pictures of themselves it’s probably a fake account.
- When a messaging conversations begin to go sideways go with your gut and block the person if necessary. You don’t have to put up with behavior that feels off.
- If after accepting a friend request conversations and/or messages posted aren’t agreeable to you, delete the posts and block the person.
Safety and respect should be at the top of the list when meeting anyone online or offline and if your internal gauges are off the charts it’s better to be safe than sorry. Ultimately, if we respect ourselves we will refuse to allow others to disrespect us.
What crazy experiences have you encountered online? Please do tell. ~Abby