My Experiences with Offsite Contact
Hello, everyone! I hope you’re doing well, and that you’re having a great day 🌞
This post hasn’t been an easy one for me to write, because it has so many negative feelings associated with it; shame, anxiety, embarrassment, even a little bit of fear. But, with a lot of encouragement, I’ve decided that it’s best to share with you all my personal experiences with offsite contact, both via 7 Cups and off 7 Cups.
Yes, you read that correctly. Back when I was a young teen listener (I’d been a listener for no more than 2-3 months), I connected offsite with a member. It was very, very stupid, and quite frankly, it was downright dangerous. Not to mention against the rules! This isn’t my only experience with offsite contact/dangerous activity online generally, and I will get to this very soon.
I know what you may be thinking. I’m a safety leader - an ambassador, nonetheless - and I broke one of the most important rules relating to safety. I’ve thought about this a lot (with help from others), and I’ve come to the conclusion that my previous actions have influenced me to care so much about safety. I have lived through what could happen as a result of offsite contact, and that is why I can be so pugnacious when it comes to the safety of users, especially teens. I am not my past mistakes.
Written below are my experiences with offsite contact and dangerous actions online.
7 Cups
I had no idea of the rules regarding offsite contact. I didn’t know that it was prohibited (even though I have more than 1 brain cell, so it should have been obvious). Thankfully, I was safe during this interaction (as was the member), but other users have definitely not been as fortunate.
As soon as I was made aware of the rules, I removed the user from my social media, and sent them a message on 7 Cups stating that it was highly inappropriate of me to engage in offsite contact with them, and that it was best for all communication to be had on the site. I had no intention of breaking any rules.
Back when I used to have profile pictures of art that I had drawn, one member was able to find me on a site where you can write stories. As soon as I noticed the connection, I removed all followers who I did not personally know and changed the username/profile pictures, both on that site and on 7 Cups. Even if you don’t share offsite contact explicitly, some users may find you because of similar usernames or profile pictures.
You may trust a person you meet online. You may really like their personality, and click with them in so many ways. You may feel like they’re a friend. Your friend. They may feel the same way, and they may even actually be the person you think they are. But so many things are possible when we share our details. For example;
The person could be dangerous
The person could be looking to harm you
The person could attempt to blackmail you
The person could attempt to locate you/invade your privacy
The person could be ‘catfishing’ you, i.e., pretending to be someone and acting as this person, sometimes with or without photos, only to be completely different
Yes, we make friends on the site, and that’s great! But that’s where it needs to end -- the site. It should not ever, ever go any further than chatting in the rooms (or PMs, if with a listener), because it can be (and is) dangerous. People aren’t always who they say they are online; I know this from my own personal experiences, which are detailed below.
Games
I remember being a very small Rebekah, I think I was around 7 or 8 years old. Still using my brother’s 1990s acorn computer, I started playing a game (which I won’t name). It was aimed for children 6+ (though anyone could play it, feasibly). I remember another user asked me for my name and where I lived. They told me they lived just a few miles away from my very small Welsh town (exceptionally unlikely), and that their name was very similar to mine. This made my small child brain happy -- this user then asked if I wanted to marry him, and what did I say? I said, “no, thank you, because I want to change my surname when I get married.” This is such an innocent, childlike thing to say, exactly because I was a child! This user was clearly an older person looking to cause harm to me. It’s terrifying when you really think about it.
In the same game, when I was older, I connected with a user on Skype. We had a video call, and they refused to show their face or speak into the phone. This is a major red flag that I couldn’t see as a young 13-14 bambino. He told me to find some alcohol in my house, and to drink it. He took a screenshot of me doing this, and said he was going to post it on his social media. I don’t think he did this, but I will never know. He asked me lots of personal questions that I don’t quite remember. I can only see how blatantly predatory this is now that I am an adult.
In a different game, I made friends with someone who eventually started to beg me to come and live with them in their country. I was no more than 8. I asked them to stop, and they wouldn’t, so I told my mum what was happening. She told me to block them and to come off the game, which I did.
Games are fun, and we can make friends on them. But, they need to stay as game-friends. Just like how 7 Cups friends need to stay as 7 Cups-friends.
Social Media
When I was 11, I created an account on a popular social media platform. I was obsessed with Monster High, particularly one of the characters. I would follow any and all accounts that were related to this character, and that involved one that was something like, “charactername_official”. The ‘official’ part to me made me think, ooooooo, they must like the character as much as me! So, I ‘followed’ them.
What came after this was nothing short of completely predatory behaviour, that I only realised when I was around 17 or 18. I don't remember how old they said they were (they were definitely over the age of 18). They told me they lived in a spacious flat in Florida, and mapped out their location to me, with a red line going from where he lived to my country. He told me that I should come and visit him at some point. He sent me a photo that he said was himself, but I now know that it 100% was not. It was heavily pixelated and looked like a model. Even if it was him, the picture he had sent me was inappropriate as it was a shirtless photo. I’ve tried searching for the photo on Google, but I’ve not found it. That random man had/has pictures of 11 year old me, and that’s absolutely terrifying.
Conclusion and Key Points
Here are the key points from this post;
Sharing your details online is not safe, under any circumstances
People are not who they say are
You are NOT your past mistakes
Photos are never completely erased from cyberspace
If you are catfished, targeted by older people, or hurt in any sort of way, it is NOT your fault
Learning is growing, and growing is important so that we can be the best version of ourselves
If you meet someone on 7 Cups, STAY on 7 Cups
I’ve made mistakes, and I have learned from them. I am the best version of myself. It’s okay to make mistakes -- this is something that I have been taught from a young age, but only really began to understand recently.
If there’s only one thing I want to make known from this post, it’s this: if you are currently in contact with someone offsite, please remove them. I know it sounds mean or even unfair, but please, listen to/read everything I’ve said and really think about it. Not only is it against the rules, it can impede your safety.
I’d like to give a special thank you to @Heather225, who has encouraged me to create this post. I wouldn’t have been able to do this without you, and I’m grateful for all that you’ve done, not just for me, but for the greater community.
Resources
@Rebekah @harin25 this post could helpful for you
@Rebekah
Thank you for being so vulnerable and sharing this with us. I had a similar story. On my member account, this member ended up finding my (social) what had happened was this member had acquired personal information about me. It was nothing big. They learned my best friends name, that she swam, and that i was in band. Very casually and simply. Somehow, I domt know how, they found her ***. They messaged her claiming that they were my friend from band and had misplaced my email, and she without asking me Gave them my email (my first and last name) I started talking to this person, pretending to be my friend from band. They said oh I play saxophone and I said *name*? And they said yes. I was dumb. After aboit 3 months of talking theu revealed they were my long term listener. It ended being really bad for me, and only recently did I end up stop talking to this horrible person.
I didn't give my pffsite but even such small details can give away everything. And once they found out my name they found were I lived. It was so so so so so so stupid of all of us.
*follow the rules, all of you*
@Bunnylovesyou, I'm so sorry to hear all of this, it sounds really scary! 😮 Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope you're safe and well. I'm proud of you for cutting contact with them!
@Rebekah it definetly was 😯 we don't realize just how scary the world can be 😔
@Bunnylovesyou
@Rebekah
Thank you for sharing this. I will say I have had my experiences with this stuff too. I used to play on a doll site growing up and I remember the summer of when I was 16, I got very close to someone who was close to 40. It got very dangerous. I am glad it wasn't anything more than what it was. These rules are here for our safety.
I’ve had several experiences like this too before coming here. I didn’t have anyone in my life at the time, so all my friendships were online back then. I always felt like I had bad luck with people in person, but I was able to connect and had more in common with people online. I was aware of dangers and thought I was being safe, but things still ended up surprising me.
One was just a friend I’d talked with for a couple years. I thought after that long I’d known her pretty well. I didn’t really feel any need to take things offline, but she shocked me one day by saying she was leaving, posted her email, and said she was closing her account soon which would erase the message. The time pressure and risk of losing this long time friend made me push myself to do something I felt weird about. Nothing really scary happened luckily. I just noticed that it seemed like she was trying to move things off that site because she wanted me to talk only to her and cut off anyone else. She’d get mad when I said I still had other friends. She started talking about going into business with me. I started getting freaked out by how pushy she was getting, so I ended it.
I thought maybe it was just her, so years later I gave another friend a chance, again who I’d known a long time. Luckily whenever I’ve done this I’ve still kept things fairly anonymous. Again nothing really scary happened, but as soon as we moved things off that site, they started pushing things to romantic when they knew I already had a significant other. And they wouldn’t stop, so I ended it.
I don’t know why I tried anything like that again. I fooled myself into thinking they were isolated incidents. The last chance I gave to a friend like that, I thought again we’d known each other long and well enough. We both ended up interested in each other romantically. The scary thing is I thought I knew him better than anyone my whole life. I was even ready to give up all my anonymity and meet him. I’m so thankful I didn’t. It took me years to realize how sneaky and manipulative he was. It took me so long because in the beginning of relationships I try to be flexible and giving. Nice people or like me with low self esteem do that, but you need to realize people will take advantage of that. He hid a lot of things from me, and things just didn’t make sense. I tried to be kind and didn’t push. He got jealous of my male friendships. I found myself getting the same way and getting jealous of one of his flirty relationships. I’ve never been like that. There were problems every time I actually talked about needing better communication. Everything would be a big deal that I’d end up feeling guilty about. He wouldn’t talk to me openly about things but would have these little punishments, which would take me a while to figure out. He got used to me being understanding and would make me feel bad about compromising. I kept brushing it off as normal relationship problems or my fault, because I have always had low self esteem. I cried all the time, though I never told him not wanting him to feel bad. I’d go between panic and depression about him constantly. Then things would be fine again. After a while I started getting angry, and even little things bothered me all the time. He’d always deny me affection until he felt I was pulling away, and then he’d lovebomb me. Eventually I realized something wasn’t right. I realized it wasn’t good to be so confused, struggling to get someone to communicate directly with me, crying constantly, or feeling worse about myself because of them. He hinted at wanting out too. I thought we could go back to being friends because we had been for so long, and he agreed it was best. But then he started making mean comments out of nowhere, while also making little comments like he wanted me back romantically. He’d make me feel guilty about being friends. I wanted to be done but still felt bad for him, so I tried to create some distance. He’d complain about that. So I started suggesting that maybe we should let things go completely, because I seemed to be upsetting him a lot too. But he never wanted to do that. I was feeling stuck, unhappy, drained, trying to do the right thing. The last day I talked to him, he said something about me being a reject, and while I was in the midst of letting his words sink into my truth, it was like a light bulb went off in my mind. I realized how bad he made me feel about myself, and how he’d said many things like that before. I understood in that moment how I had been starting to gain self esteem back when we first met, and I remember him making me feel guilty about that. He’d argue positive things I would say. He’d appeal to my heart by putting himself down and wishing we could go through things together. He had a way of making me want to give things up for myself to help him. But he didn’t want my light or real help, he wanted to bring me down to be miserable with him to feel temporarily better. I realized how he’d play mind games to keep me hooked. He completely messed with my way of thinking, and I became someone I really didn’t like. I became more afraid, more negative, more depressed, more insecure and needy. I felt like I needed things from him to feel better. All the work I did for myself went out the window molding myself to be like him for him. I remember just shaking when it all hit me. I’m so glad I stopped speaking to him. It’s been many years since then, but it still affects me in some ways. It scares me that I willingly changed so much without even realizing.
The last one was on an actual dating site. He seemed nice at first. But then started pushing for my information, and out of nowhere completely changed how he talked, telling me we were destined to be together living with an alien cult. That one really scared me for a long time.
This is a website where people share their deepest thoughts. It’s an environment of support and positivity, and I can see how it is so easy to trust and become attached to people. Especially if you’re someone who doesn’t have many friends or family, it can be addicting. You can still have very real friendships here that remain just here. There’s nothing wrong or missing with that. Please take care of yourself first, and stay true to yourself. If something doesn’t feel right, listen to yourself. We can sense if someone’s being sneaky, not up front with communication, or pushy. So many people here are understanding, but please don’t also be understanding to a point where you lose yourself and allow people to treat you badly. Anyone can type words. You don’t get to see on a screen the other indicators that can tell you if someone’s trustworthy or not. Take what you gain here and use it to better your real personal life. Use this for what it is, try to understand why the rules are in place, and try not to look at it as something it’s not. You don’t need to change yourself for someone else. You don’t need anyone else to make you happy.
