Predators in chat rooms

I admit, I spend a fair amount of time on Facebook playing Bingo. While the game is nice and relaxing, interacting with other players from all over the world in the chat rooms is often funny and uplifting. That is, until some nut job starts making sexual comments or innuendos. 

When this happens, members in the chat room are quick to give the sex talker the cold shoulder, tell him his comments are not welcome, or report him for offensive language.

Yes, men are often thought of as being sexual predators and women are advised to exercise caution on websites and chat rooms. But what if the sexual predator is a woman or a young girl?

This week someone by the name of Nikki entered the room. She greeted everyone with a “Hi” and for the longest time remained quiet. That is, until someone by the name of Adam made an appearance. Nikki’s interest was sparked and she latched on.

She started by asking Adam how old he was. He replied “24”. Her next question was “Where are you from?” to which Adam replied “London, UK”.

Nikki, obviously not a geography expert, asked where that was. She then said that she was from Alabama.

After some mindless chatting, Nikki asked Adam if she could be his girlfriend. Adam did not answer.

For the next five minutes Nikki posted comments such as “Adam are yu there?” and “Adam why dont you talk to me anymoor?”

Eventually Adam came back and asked how old Nikki was. First she pretended to be 22, but eventually she admitted to being 11. Adam must have heard alarm bells and seen red flags because for the next while he didn’t post any comments.

For a while Nikki kept up her mindless chatter, to which nobody replied to. She got annoyed and posted “If nobode wants to talk to me thats fine. Thats there choice. Im so bored.”

I half expected someone in the room would suggest that Nikki study English spelling and grammar, but apparently everyone was too polite to point out Nikki’s mistakes.

When Adam (who we all thought had left the chat room) won the 2nd price in Bingo his name and picture flashed across the screen and Nikki shot into action. “Adam, why are yu ignoring me?” – “I mis you” – “Do you mis me?” – “Pleese contact me, my email adres is ......”.

Adam didn’t respond and Nikki wasn’t having it. “Adam Im talking to yu” – “anser me, did yu rite my email adres down?” – “I want to heer from yu, I want to your girlfriend”.

Adam couldn’t be persuaded. Whether he left the chat room or merely ignored Nikki, we’ll never know but there were no more post from him.

Nikki then proceeded to telling the room that she was looking at shirtless pictures of Justin Bieber. One woman commented if Nikki wasn’t a little young for that and Nikki let fly with a series of insults and swear words which were censored by the chat room. At this point I had enough of Nikki’s silliness and left the room.

The next day I played Bingo again and found myself in the same room as Jasmine. Jasmine stated that she was getting married in three weeks and that she was desperate for a fling before tying the knot. Would any man please contact her at ... (she gave her email address).

If some men are predators, it would seem that some women are too. The strange thing was that while women remained silent, men cautioned Jasmine about giving out her private information. They were rewarded by the comment “Mind your own business grandpa”.