Beware of creepy people online

I'm online way too much. I make a little money online, but most of the time I spend online is recreational to an extent. I do a ton of reasearch, mostly on nutrition these days, but also on anything else I happen to hear about that I'm curious about. I do my searches through the Swagbucks website as I can earn swagbucks that I can trade in for Amazon gift cards, which I think is really cool. I also frequent Diaper Swappers an online cloth diapering and parenting community and Winster an online gaming site that I am a member of. Its a neat site to me because you can help other people as you play games (if you have a piece they need, you can trade with them and vice versa) and its pretty much the only cooperation I get most days. Also, you can trade the points in for Amazon gift cards, which I am a fan of. You can play for free, but I decided to get a membership for myself for my birthday. Its $4 a month to get 300 spins a day that you can use in any of a bunch of different games, plus as a member there are no ads and you can save spins if you don't want to use them that day and you accumulate points faster.

So this is all to say I'm online a lot. I haven't really encountered any creepy people until the other day on Winster. This girl I had put on my friends list (enables you to find your friends who are online so you can play games in the same room with them) found me and started asking me some really weird questions. I had played in the same room with her the day before and she hadn't acted too weird toward me, but as soon as she left the room, everyone in the room said she was trying to get their phone numbers to text them and was being very pushy about it. I kinda forgot about it until the next day when she started IMing me through winster.

First of all, you have to understand that I am a smart ass. I am sarcastic, droll. However you want to call it, that's what I am. And lying irks me. And I also sometimes like doing plays on words. But back to my story.

So she IMs me and asks me if I'm a good person. Since I am a Christian and I don't like to lie, I said it depends on your perspective. If you're looking through God's eyes, then no I don't meet God's standards of a good person. But if not, then you'd probably consider me a good person.

So she asked what I meant by God's standards and I told her that God regards anyone who has sinned as not being good.

So she asked what sin was and I told her it was breaking God's law, the 10 commandments and I gave her a few examples: thou shalt not lie, thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not covet.

So she jumped to the conclusion that I had killed someone and told me she didn't want to talk to me anymore because I was scary. Ummm, ok. I would only consider myself scary if you're a bug in my house or someone trying to hurt anyone in my family, but whatever. At this point in time, I just thought she was a moron.

5 minutes later, she is IMing me again, asking me if I'm home alone. By this time, my creepy alert started going off and I removed her from my friends list, blocked her, and stopped talking to her. Pretty soon, she left the room and everyone else in the room breathed a sigh of relief and said she was pressuring them to get their phone numbers and asking if they were home alone.

So I thought I would write a post, reminding everyone that there are some very strange people online and for safety's sake, please remember not to give out any personal information. Most of the people you meet online are great, but as the book Berenstain Bears Learn About Strangers taught my girls (I hope), you have to be careful because the "bad apples" don't always look "bad" on the outside.

So while you surf the net, be safe, avoid the bad apples and safeguard your personal information. There are some real weirdos out there. . . They draw you in talking about general crap and then before you know it, they're asking if you're home alone. (*rolleyes*)