Of Internet Predators

I've been reading an article about the death of a 21-year-old girl who fell down from her condominium while trying to climb nine storeys down to elope with her 34-year-old boyfriend. She was climbing down on a raffea string (can you believe it?) tied from the kitchen balcony and assisted (!) by an Indonesian maid. Apparently she lost her footing and plunged to her death, just as she was scaling down to meet her boyfriend who was waiting in a car.

It seems the boyfriend had 'coerced' the girl to elope via such a method, as it was claimed that she might have gotten pregnant by the guy. What's frightening is that this guy is apparently a cyberspace 'predator' as he had allegedly befriended 25 young girls from rich families via Friendster.

At this day and age, we really have to be careful of who we befriend in cyberspace. We've come to a point where a lot of our interactions with other people are restricted to behind the monitors only, which is kinda depressing if you ask me. Flaws and faults can be easily disguised as you wouldn't be able to verify for sure what the real character is like.

I have a daughter of my own, and I sure don't want her to be fooled. Let our children see more of the real world instead of the virtual world. The real world may not be perfect but at least we'll get to know the real deal.