Teenage girl, IRL meeting with internet "love".

[Shot_From_Guns]

Any **responsible **teenager would not ask to fly across the country **alone **to visit someone they had met online, especially when they didn’t have the money to finance the trip on their own. Insisting on going alone is, in and of itself, evidence of insufficient maturity to deal with any potential complications. The first time I flew cross-country to meet internet friends, I was 20, I paid for everything myself, and I knew damn sure that people knew where I was going. Once John Carter’s granddaughter can support herself, then she can do whatever she damn well pleases.

@DrCube

Why is it relevant that they met on the internet?

Because the other places where we meet strangers are neutral and we’re usually close to our own support systems of home, family, and friends.

@Markxxx

Well in another year or less she’s gonna be old enough to do as she pleases anyway.

1.) 17 –> 18 = 6% increase in life experience.
2.) Living independently after high school, whether in college or working, changes you immensely.
3.) This girl is still living at home, supported by her parents.

@MandaJo

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. [snip] 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.

This times a billion.

@winterhawk11

Does anyone else get as annoyed as I do at the automatic assumption of so many people that if it’s a teenage girl, she’s automatically flighty, can’t take care of herself, is going to get snatched/raped/otherwise molested, will inevitably make bad choices, and should be protected?

This isn’t being overprotective because she’s female–this is being **reasonably **protective because she’s an **immature **teenager. The vast majory of people I see objecting here are giving “what ifs,” not “omg she’s a girl, quick lock her in a cage”–it’s her parents’ responsibility to ensure that she’s capable of taking care of herself in a worst-case scenario before letting her go rather than just assuming that everything will work itself out. Would you let a teenager take the car keys without driver’s ed classes, just because they’re 16?

@Justin_Bailey

Dio, do you use Facebook? If not, do you have any idea how hard it would be to fabricate a believable profile?

Not very hard at all. There was an incident here in Wisconsin just a few months ago where a teenage boy blackmailed oral sex out of a bunch of other teenage boys after tricking them into sending him naked photographs by convincing them he was a teenage girl on Facebook:

[QUOTE=Journal Sentinel]
Anthony R. Stancl, 18, posing as a female on Facebook, persuaded at least 31 boys to send him naked pictures of themselves and then blackmailed some of the boys into performing sex acts under the threat that the pictures would be released to the rest of the high school, according a criminal complaint. [snip] At least seven boys, 15 to 17, were forced into performing sex acts, Schimel said. The incidents occurred from spring 2008 until the time of Stancl’s arrest in November. Stancl had 300 photos and movie clips on his computer of boys from the school, ages 13 to 19, Schimel said.
[/QUOTE]

[Justin_Bailey]

@Shot_From_Guns

Not very hard at all. There was an incident here in Wisconsin just a few months ago where a teenage boy blackmailed oral sex out of a bunch of other teenage boys after tricking them into sending him naked photographs by convincing them he was a teenage girl on Facebook:

While that is true, I remember thinking at the time that the story as reported sounds incredibly fishy. To keep a male student from admitting he has photographs of other male students, they had to perform oral sex on him?

That is completely backwards in how teenage homophobia typically works.

[mswas]

Could be shady, could be exactly as it seems. Usually it’s pretty much like it seems.

[lobotomyboy63]

I used to work with a woman who had an interesting approach to her kids’ requests to buy them things. She and her husband went 50/50 with them. So if the child asked a new bicycle that cost $100, they wouldn’t say no…they’d say, “Got your $50 ready?”

I thought that was really smart. Kids want everything, of course, and in that example, the kid would think, ‘$50 is a lot of money. Maybe I should just keep my old bike and save the money for something else I really want later. I don’t really ride that much anyway.’ Or maybe the kid would think, ‘My old bike is shot and I need a new one to get to my summer job. This is on sale, it’s a quality brand, etc.’ That approach would help weed out some of the whims, encourage smart spending, and so on.

I mention this because the grandfather is offering to give her the money if it’s needed. I’d say if you want to do that, ok, but she has to pay it back. You don’t need to pressure her to pay it back necessarily: just next time she needs money, you’d say, “Uh, your account is past due.” If the loan is for something you approve of, maybe you’re generous and allow that person to give you her iPod as collateral, do chores to work it off, etc.

You can’t develop responsibility unless you have something to be responsibile for. If a cycle of bailing someone out never carries a price tag for the person, that person becomes all too happy to use you as a safety net. I don’t know who said it, but the secret to motivation is getting the other guy to want the same thing you do.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@Justin_Bailey

While that is true, I remember thinking at the time that the story as reported sounds incredibly fishy. To keep a male student from admitting he has photographs of other male students, they had to perform oral sex on him?

That is completely backwards in how teenage homophobia typically works.

He tricked them into sending naked pictures of themselves by posing as a girl, then threatened to show the pics to their schools unless they performed sex acts. To add more pressure, he also took videos of the sex acts, and used the threat of expsoing those to keep coercing them into more sex acts.

We do not just have to take anybody’s word for this. The police found the actual pictures, videos and computer files.

[Justin_Bailey]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

He tricked them into sending naked pictures of themselves by posing as a girl, then threatened to show the pics to their schools unless they performed sex acts. To add more pressure, he also took videos of the sex acts, and used the threat of expsoing those to keep coercing them into more sex acts.

This is the part that sounds fishy. Any teenage boy that runs around saying “I’ve got naked pictures of Billy!” is going to be the one who will be mercilessly mocked because they’re the one holding naked pictures of guys.

Compound that with him blackmailing these guys into oral sex and then videotaping it? What homophobic teen would agree to that without beating the crap out of him in his own home first?

[Freudian_Slit]

@Justin_Bailey

This is the part that sounds fishy. Any teenage boy that runs around saying “I’ve got naked pictures of Billy!” is going to be the one who will be mercilessly mocked because they’re the one holding naked pictures of guys.

True, but it’s not like Billy is going to get off scot free. The others will probably just assume Billy’s gay, too, and I guess in this situation, Billy (and the others) panicked and just wanted to keep everything quiet.

Ugh. I don’t know what it is about blackmail, but it’s so gross.

[Shot_From_Guns]

@Justin_Bailey

While that is true, I remember thinking at the time that the story as reported sounds incredibly fishy. To keep a male student from admitting he has photographs of other male students, they had to perform oral sex on him?

It wasn’t to keep him from admidding he had their pictures–it was to keep him from handing them out to the entire school.

@Justin_Bailey

This is the part that sounds fishy. Any teenage boy that runs around saying “I’ve got naked pictures of Billy!” is going to be the one who will be mercilessly mocked because they’re the one holding naked pictures of guys.

1.) He had already graduated.
2.) The teenagers aren’t going to think that way. They are going to think, “Oh shit, everyone is going to see sexual naked photos of me.”

Compound that with him blackmailing these guys into oral sex and then videotaping it? What homophobic teen would agree to that without beating the crap out of him in his own home first?

He mostly went after teenagers younger than him–they were 13 to 19, he was 18. You’re thinking like an adult with the perspective of an adult looking back–not with the perspective of a teenager.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

And just to reiterate – the cops found the actual pictures, videos and computer records. They’re not just allegations.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

By the way, he also didn’t tell them that he personally would publicize the pics to their school – he told them the imaginary “girl” would.

[Shot_From_Guns]

So anyway, the point is: many teenagers don’t have the life experience to make good decisions, even when they see themselves as mature. There **are **mature, responsible 17 year olds, but John Carter’s granddaughter doesn’t sound like one of them.

[Giraffe]

It’s natural for parents to be nervous about the dangers the world holds for your soon-to-be-adult children, but the way to protect them is to gradually equip them to have good judgment as an autonomous individual before they’re out on their own, not to succumb to the fear segments of the local news and hide them away from all the murders and rapists who are behind every tree. All the 18 year olds I knew in college who got into the worst trouble were the ones who hadn’t been allowed much if any freedom as teenagers by their overprotective parents. So they had shitty judgment and just gorged themselves at the trough of freedom.

You’ll protect them a lot better if you give them the resources to get out of scrapes (e.g. you coming to pick them up any time, anywhere), teach them to be comfortable asserting themselves and maintaining personal boundaries, and the latitude to make mistakes before they’re out on their own.

[Contrapuntal]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

A child.

That’s a good point.

[sherrylynn]

My fear would be that she would be ‘nice’, so that she didn’t hurt the boy’s feelings, even though she was uncomfortable with a situation. Its amazing how often even older women will be ‘nice’ to avoid a confrontation.

[Lamia]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

You could still just use somebody else’s profile, or pay them to create and sustain one for you.

Bit of a hijack, but a friend (I’ll call her Betty) of a former coworker of mine had someone create a false profile of her. The faker was a guy at Betty’s college who was obsessed with her and may actually have been stalking her. Betty didn’t use Facebook, but a lot of her friends did. The guy looked through the profiles of people he knew were friends with his target and copied photos of Betty from their photo albums. He used these to set up a fake Facebook profile for Betty, then sent friend requests to the friends that he knew about. Once the profile was established it didn’t take long for him to start getting requests from other friends of Betty’s.

The Betty impersonator apparently limited his posted remarks to pretty generic stuff and managed to keep up the charade for quite a while before anyone realized something was fishy. IIRC, none of Betty’s friends ever suspected it wasn’t really her on Facebook, the truth only came to light when one of these friends happened to mention Facebook to Betty in real life and Betty said “But I’m not on Facebook.”

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

She came up here today and we went for a two-hour horse ride. Best thing about a horse ride out in these sticks is that there’s no cell phone coverage. Do you know how hard it is to get a teenager’s undivided attention if their cell is working? GAH!

She’s convinced all will be well. She was more interested in talking about her 21st birthday a little over three years from now. She wants me to be her designated driver so she can go the the Flori-Bama Bar and get smashed. Hopefully by then she’ll have some college friends to provide that service. There were several times back in the day when I had drunk girls on my hands. It ain’t that much fun.

When we got back to civilization the boy had left maybe 30 messages on her phone and she was quite annoyed: “Dude, give me some air!” Maybe he’ll keep this up and she’ll get sick of it. He has nearly a week to piss her off and it seems that pissing her off isn’t that hard for boys to do.

I repeated my offer to pay the boy for her ticket if she decides not to go. I think maybe this time she was paying a little more attention to my offer.

Thanks for all the comments, they have helped me get a better grip. Other opinions, even ones you don’t necessarily agree with can still be helpful.

[Ruby]

@raspberry_hunter

Are you really saying that all the adolescent girls you know are paragons of maturity?

@Shot_From_Guns

You’re thinking like an adult with the perspective of an adult looking back–not with the perspective of a teenager.

You’re right raspberry hunter, my comments were made from the perspective of an adult. I wasn’t a paragon of maturity at 17 even though I thought I was and my son didn’t have the same level of teenage angst as others his age.

@John_Carter_of_Mars

She came up here today and we went for a two-hour horse ride. Best thing about a horse ride out in these sticks is that there’s no cell phone coverage. Do you know how hard it is to get a teenager’s undivided attention if their cell is working? GAH!

She’s convinced all will be well. She was more interested in talking about her 21st birthday a little over three years from now. She wants me to be her designated driver so she can go the the Flori-Bama Bar and get smashed. Hopefully by then she’ll have some college friends to provide that service. There were several times back in the day when I had drunk girls on my hands. It ain’t that much fun.

When we got back to civilization the boy had left maybe 30 messages on her phone and she was quite annoyed: “Dude, give me some air!” Maybe he’ll keep this up and she’ll get sick of it. He has nearly a week to piss her off and it seems that pissing her off isn’t that hard for boys to do.

I repeated my offer to pay the boy for her ticket if she decides not to go. I think maybe this time she was paying a little more attention to my offer.

Thanks for all the comments, they have helped me get a better grip. Other opinions, even ones you don’t necessarily agree with can still be helpful.

She is one lucky girl. You’re a good man and a good grandfather.

[Magiver]

@John_Carter_of_Mars

She came up here today and we went for a two-hour horse ride. Best thing about a horse ride out in these sticks is that there’s no cell phone coverage. Do you know how hard it is to get a teenager’s undivided attention if their cell is working? GAH!

You can tell her it’s rude as hell to interupt a conversation by looking at or answering a phone. The polite thing to do is reach down and silence it without looking. By answering it you’re implying the current conversation is not as important as whoever is calling.

[Rilchiam]

Well, John Carter, as far as you know, has she been sending naked or otherwise suggestive pictures of herself to this guy? I mean, in order for Shot From Guns’s scenario to play out, she’d have to cooperate some kind of way.

[raspberry_hunter]

@Ruby

You’re right raspberry hunter, my comments were made from the perspective of an adult. I wasn’t a paragon of maturity at 17 even though I thought I was and my son didn’t have the same level of teenage angst as others his age.

That’s too bad, 'cause I was going to make plans to move to wherever you (and the mature teenagers) live when I had teenage kids

My husband, when he was 17, was actually also relatively angst-free, I’m told (I didn’t know him then). Then again, he didn’t have a First Serious Girlfriend until he was older (out of college), which is probably related.

John Carter, I am unchanged in my opinion that your granddaughter is really lucky to have you.