the internet is scary

i've seen a lot of kids on here, and it's fine like the website states it's 13+ but guys, please be careful. 

i'm 25 (26 in august) and i've been on the internet since i was around 11-12. and i can tell you many times how me and my friends got into really scary situations because we did not have internet safety.

of course, we got some safety told to us but because the internet was still quite new (social media at least) nobody really knew the dangers or how to monitor etc...

i remember one time, i think i was maybe 12-13? year 8-9 (england school years idk grades lol), my friend and i had these fake/rp accounts of wwe female wrestlers and we (unfortunately) caught the attention of a really and i mean really old person...

this guy would message us very vulgar and explicit things, and we didn't bat an eye. it was exciting, right? we loved the attention! some random dude was telling us all these things and although deep down we knew he thought he was talking to these celebrities we still continued anyway.

fast forward a bit of time and things progressed further... we both gave him our phone numbers. such a stupid thing to do but we were naive and did it anyway.

so yep, we spoke to him on the phone. i remember leaving my house and sitting at the park so my parents wouldn't hear me, and me being a literal 13 year old didn't really know how to speak to this grown ass man. he would continue to say things like "i wanna blank your brains out". 

now, i think you're probably thinking "well he thought you were a grown woman"... and you'd be correct... except i didn't know what the time, but my friend had confessed that she was not the girl in the images and told him her real name and age, as well as sent him a picture of herself; she never told him about me or send anything about me, but i'm pretty sure he was smart enough to put two and two together.

eventually i got a new phone and number so i was no longer in contact with him, and my friend told me she had stopped talking to him.. she lied about that.

what happened next is a bit of a blur to me...

my mom and i went into town for some things, my friend had gone separately with her cousin who had come to visit. i saw her and wanted to say hi; but she shook her head and texted me to leave. it was kinda weird but i did eventually leave....

the following week of school she told me that the guy had found out where she lived, where she'd be that day and that he was following her around town. the police got involved and her parents pretty much banned her from her laptop for a good year.

i'm not sure how to finish this off but please guys... be careful, protect yourselves.

thanks for reading