Someone going with her is something I hadn’t thought of. If this had been planned out for a while, probably someone would have traveled with her. After all, suitable arrangements have been made for the boy to come here. Now there simply isn’t time for somebody to drop everything and go with her.
No, she’s not 18 yet and could, technically, be “forbidden” to go. Nobody wants to play that card. She’ll be 18 in a few weeks and at that point in time she can do whatever she’s willing to accept the consequences for. I’d really prefer for her to make the decision to change these (possibly dangerous)plans herself.
Freudian Slit: That too! What if she gets up there and simply doesn’t like it? It doesn’t have to be dangerous, just BLAH? She’s stuck there for a week!
Auntie Pam “But do they have real life friends in common? I wouldn’t let her go unless she actually knows someone who knows the boy.”
No real life friends in common. They met on some common interest website.
After some thought, I agree with Giraffe that it would be hard for an older predator to fool a 17-year old through long telephone conversations. I can hardly comprehend the talk I overhear in person between she and her girlfirends.
Put it this way: Let’s suppose, even, that this is a best-case scenario. The two really are each others’ perfect soulmates, they’ll meet, hit it off, and have a long, successful, and happy relationship. There’s still going to have to come a point, eventually, in the relationship where they meet each others’ families. Why not now?
Look, the reason they couldn’t wait a few weeks is that they’re kids and they’re in love (why not?), it’s summer time, and two weeks seems like forever. As an adult, you cannot comprehend the length of time you’re actually discussing here. Whole civilizations will rise and fall, stars will be born and die, galaxies will be sucked into black holes before they’re able to see each other.
I met somebody online when I was 15 and fell completely in love with him over the length of my summer vacation. My mom took me to Vegas for my 16th birthday, and agreed to meet my Internet love at the airport–he flew in from Los Angeles to join us. That will be 10 years ago in a month, and not only was he not a psychopath waiting to kill me, he was the guy I married and still love. In the weeks leading up to my birthday, I thought my poor heart would just break. I didn’t want to wait days and days, I wanted to see him immediately. If I had been 18, I would have found a way to CA as soon as I could.
She might regret going because it’s boring, or he’s a jerk, or whatever. But the chances of them being a couple of 40 year olds trying to lure a girl in to chop her up as pig food are pretty slim. Most people online are actually just regular, normal people. Of course, “young woman flies several hundred miles to meet boyfriend: finds him sane, attractive, and charming” isn’t really a great story, so we don’t hear too much of those in the media.
Don’t put her in the position where she needs to defy you or her parents. That won’t actually make the situation better. That will just make their awesome love forbidden, and thus even more appealing. Then in a few weeks when she’s legally an adult, she might think “Well, if they want me to choose them or him, I’m going to choose him” and then you’ll really be sorry (and possibly she will be, too). My grandparents hated my then-boyfriend-now-husband for no other reason than he was 2 years older than me, and the subtle accusations and threats (statuatory rape charges without any evidence for one) made me really despise them for years. I know they’re not jerks and they were just trying to protect me, but there was nothing to protect me from, and it only really damaged my relationship with them.
That sounds perfectly logical but it leaves off possibly the most important factor to a 17 year old: bringing your grandfather with you to your first face to face meeting with the guy you’re madly in love with would be mortifying. All the logical arguments in the world won’t change that fact.
Could you let her know that you’re not totally in favor of this, because you love her and you just can’t help worrying? And tell her that, no matter what, if it doesn’t go well, or if she just isn’t happy with it, you will make arrangements for her to come home? She can call you and you’ll do whatever it takes to help.
I think the odds are good that it’s safe for her to go. But sometimes it’s nice to have backup.
If it were me, I wouldn’t let her go alone, but mostly because it’s a pretty dumb and naive thing to do, and if she’s really that close to being an adult, she needs to learn how. I understand “kids and in love and impatient”, but something about this isn’t sitting quite right with me.
I’m certainly not going to do that. Besides, I have her horse here. That guy may think he’s numero uno witrh her, but I’ll guarantee that in her heart he’s somewhere in line behind that horse. This girl and I aren’t going to have a falling out.
I’d really like to get this situation to where everybody concerned is safe and comfortable. My wife is livid and the girl’s parents are going all bonkers. Since I’m only scared, I’m the freakin’ libertine of this outfit.
This I have done, and will reinforce a couple more times before departure date.
The sudden, last minute change of plans is upsetting. It was all going ok when the boy was scheduled to come here in a few weeks. Her going up there is very different, to us anyway. Maybe sexist over-protection stuff, but there’s one fact: WE knew that boy was coming to a safe place. We DON’T know for sure just what she is getting into, so WE are apprehensive. His mom may now be relieved, who knows?
17 year olds think they know a lot, but they don’t. Can she handle herself, alone, in a strange city, for a week? I doubt it.
Especially if she is still legally a minor, then her parents are legally responsible for whatever happens to her, and for whatever she might do. It’s daft to let her go without supervision of any kind.
I know it’s fiction, but sit down and watch Taken and then come back and let us know that you (and/or her parents) could possibly think that it would be a good idea to let her go alone.
Frankly, if it were my daughter, she would not be going, and he wouldn’t be coming to visit for 2 weeks. 14 days (and 14 nights) is a loooooooong time to hang out with a stranger. Heck, I don’t even visit my Mom for half that time in one stretch, and I already know and love her :D.
I might have missed this in another post, but was his Mom going to accompany him when he came to see her? Or was he (supposedly) coming alone?
I think if she’s adult enough to take on a visit like this on her own, she needs to be adult enough about it to provide her own place to stay and transportation while she’s there. It’s not adult to just plan to stay with someone you met on the Internet for a week. The fact that she doesn’t realize this indicates to me that she’s not adult enough yet.
Also, consider the possibility that he might put a great deal of pressure on her to have sex. Is she prepared for that in terms of STD prevention, birth control, beliefs about how to respond to the failure of the above, and emotional expectations about what that would mean for the relationship? I’m not sure if grampa is the right person to have that conversation with her, but somebody should. And just because she may have had sex with guys she knew for years in HS, doesn’t mean she’s 100% ready to screen a guy she’s meeting in person for the first time. Looking at it from a negative light, the guy could see her as easy, desparate and disposable for dropping everything to travel out there to see him.
Until she’s 18, she can’t legally sign a contract, would have a hell of time renting her own apartment, etc. Her parents have a legal obligation to her as a minor, and she has an obligation not to bite off way more than she might be able to chew.
What Harriet said. As a woman in her thirties, I’ve navigated new cities, found a place to stay, rented a car, etc. As a seventeen year old, likely without a credit card, she’ll find it difficult on a practical level to take care of things if she doesn’t get along with the guy and his family.
I do remember being 17 (vaguely) and I agree that at that age, everything is exaggerated – not only the joy and excitement of being in love, but the heartbreaking tragedy of things going wrong. Which is to say that if I, as an adult, did something this rash and it didn’t work out, not only would I have the practical ability to get out of a bad situation, I’d also be better equipped emotionally to deal with the situation going bad.
That said, if I’d decided I couldn’t stop her from going, I’d sit her down and make her talk through what she’ll do if she’s uncomfortable or in trouble there. I’d require her to be specific (I’d call this cab company and use the $60 in cash I have to go to this hotel located at X and rent a room for $100 by calling mom and having her book it) about how she’ll get out. And I’d require her to call in at frequent intervals.
Before anyone even considers the mundanities of the visit, someone needs to find out if this person is who he says he is! That’s just basic common sense. The fact that he can talk like a teenager proves diddly-squat.
And my use of the term “diddly-squat” is a clue that I’m not a teenager.
Either do that or go with her. If my niece were seventeen and doing something like this, I don’t know what I’d do. Logic and reason are useless here. You have to remind her that you really love her, and that you worry about her. I also think you should have mom sit her down and give her the sex talk again- the long version that includes talk about the emotions involved.
Why don’t you specifically ask how the two met? If it was on facebook, do they have mutual friends, and does the guy have a legitimate page? If so, she’s probably in the clear. Could it have been a specific-interest message board? Random chatroom? Couldn’t hurt to ask.
Come on, Taken was a great movie, but it’s more deserving of the “fantasy” tag than The Lord of the Rings. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but an American teenager disappearing far from home quickly becomes national news talks to the 24 hour news cycle.
Or she could put a great deal of pressure on him to have sex. Or they could have already discussed how they each feel about sex. Or she could be on BC now and Grandpa doesn’t know about it because 17 year old girls don’t tend to share that sort of thing with grandpas. Teenage girls want to have sex just as much as teenage boys do. Regardless of the socially acceptable fantasy that young women don’t really want sex at that age, they’re still just big balls of crazy hormones. That fact may not make John Carter of Mars feel any better about the situation, but why frame it like she’s going to be a victim of some guy’s evil manipulation, instead of mentioning the reality that she could be looking forward to sex as much, if not more, than the boyfriend?
Well in another year or less she’s gonna be old enough to do as she pleases anyway.
That’s something to consider.
I would be less worried about her being harmed physically as being taken either for some money or emotionally.
The thing about Internet romances is they are not built on reality, as much as we hate to admit it chemistry plays a huge part. As Kelly Bundy told her brother Bud “Look Bud a girl knows in 10 seconds whether or not she’ll ever have sex with a guy.”
Now that’s a bit extreme but I’ve talked to many people with Internet romances and I can named only two that worked. Mostly the people meet and find their is no physical connection. Now granted those are adults not teens.
Another thing that is off point but one thing I learned is that European Teens often develop friendships to exchange travel. I used to volunteer at a youth center and I know people under 20 who have traveled all over Europe, for virtually nothing because they made friends with people over the Internet. They get invited to Europe and vice versa. They stay at each others houses and such. So if you want your kid to travel that might be something to look into. I’m told that Germans are great, cause they take you in, feed you, show you around and are very nice to Americans.
So despite all these scare stories, and some do exist, there are lots of good stories. It’s like the maniac kidnapping your child. Statistics show that if you child is missing there’s a better than 90% chance that a relative took them not a stranger.
Lastly does she have a webcam? If not they’re cheap and an easy way to verify and record someone
If she wants it, gets it, and is fully prepared for it,* that’s not a problem. The problem is that’s not really the most likely situation for a 17 year old girl meeting a guy in person for the first time, and the consequences of things not going as planned are more immediate and more likely to be life-changing for her than for him. I’m not really into the whole mythology about who wants it or who doesn’t. If I were advising the boy’s grandfather, I’d say pretty much the same thing.
Which I really doubt anyone who can’t even travel independently for a week is. If you need someone to pay for your airfare, are you really up to paying your own medical bills?
It really depends on the type of teenager she is. If she gets there and it’s horrible: he’s not at all like she thought, his mom is creepy, she’s uncomfortable with the whole situation, does she have the self-possession to deal with the situation–would she be capable of getting out her phone, calling information, finding a cab company, get to the airport etc., etc? Some 17 year olds are perfectly capable of handling this sort of thing and others are not.
If she goes, I would talk to her about this situation–not telling her what to do, but asking her “what if” questions to see if she can formulate a plan. This is a good exercise with anyone headed off to college.
I would absolutely make sure she has a credit card, not just her own debit card. You don’t want to have her stay in an uncomfortable situation because she can’t afford to go.
I would also talk to her a little bit about the way they just bought her a ticket and now she “has” to come or else it will waste their money: that’s a bit creepy and controlling. It’s not enough in itself to be significant, but it’s worth having a talk with her about the subtle ways someone can be controlling without being mean so that she can be aware of any pattern that is developing.
Does she not have a girlfriend who could go with her? It seems to me that that would be the ideal situation.
Exactly. She’s going to be 18 in a few weeks, people. At 18, I was backpacking around Europe completely by myself for 2 months with no help at all from family. I knew no one on the continent. Best experience of my life. 17 is pretty much an adult. Be sure she knows how to get a hotel if she’s not comfortable staying with the guy, and then let the girl live her life.
