Amara,
I am truly sorry to hear about your problems on the WWW. It is true that
the
web and internet in general allow us to mask ourselves (if we have the
skills) to a great degree. I myself have been bitten a few times by such
actions. I hope that your self-imposed vacation from the web will be a short
one, but I fear that the problems you encountered will still be there when
you return. How to deal with them? By and large you'll have to find your
own way. I try to take reasonable precautions, remember I can always say no,
but take people as genuine until they prove otherwise. It's not a perfect
method, but I don't expect perfection.
As for myself, I would guess that I am pretty much the same online as in
real-life. But of course, I have always been known to be a little on the
silly and dramatic side in real-life, and on the otherhand have had the great
good luck of being able to write in a way that sounds much like I'm speaking
(or so I am told). Some of those online here may be able to comment whether
that is true or not. I hope they will, and that my perception that I'm
pretty much the same online as in the flesh is accurate, and that that gives
you some hope that not everyone you meet in cyberspace is pure illusion. Of
course, we all have a bit of smoke and mirrors built into our personae<sp?>,
even in real-life<bg>.
Take care and good luck,
Glen Finney
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:03:25 MDT