“I’d like three cyberstalkers to go, please.”

I know a woman who swears by online dating. It’s easier to meet people with similar interests, keep in touch and come out of shy-shells. After several unsuccessful long-term relationships with men she met online, she kept going back until she found the one. Personally, I think internet dating takes the fun out of “the first time we met”. Not to mention the perverts who mingle with the honest on those sites. My friend has had to be very cautious in using this social tool, and her realisation of this fact has provided her with the love of her life.

Adorable, right?

Within the internet lurks many dangers, but my friend had to be most cautious of cyberstalkers and predators. In their article “Cyberstalking and Cyberpredators: A Threat to Safe Sexuality on the Internet”, Francesca Philips and Gabrielle Morrissey define a cyberstalker as someone with an opportunistic relationship with the individual, most are strangers whose actions (are claimed to) escalate beyond their comprehension. A cyberpredator differs in that his or her targets and actions are more intentional and selected, often there are set characteristics being looked for. Both are severely dangerous and traumatic.

From what Philips and Morrissey have discovered, there is no sure way to avoid these cyber-harassers short of not going online. So why do people online date? They practically throw personal information at strangers while getting to know them in chat rooms and e-mails, it’s like an all you can eat buffet for a low-sign up fee. But I’m being harsh; there are normal people who are simply looking for a friend or a partner online as well, just like there are creepers in the real world.

Dating off the computer screen can be just as risky with the common practices of blind dates and drunken hook-ups; most times these people know less about their love interest than those who originally met online. I mean, the guy you met at the coffee shop could be a potential predator if you catch his eye; strangers you pass on the street could stalk you.

Fiction sees it too.

There is risk everywhere and there always will be. Comparing the dangers of dating mediums is foolish because anyone who dates faces the same threats. As the internet is a new medium of communication, it is scrutinized often in the public eye. If certain individuals weren’t so liberal with their personal information, intentions and profile pictures, I wonder if internet dating would actually be safer?

Philips, Francesca, and Morrissey, Gabrielle. “Cyberstalking and Cyberpredators: A Threat to Safe Sexuality on the Internet” Convergence: The Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 10(2004): 66-79.