6 Tips To Help You Avoid Online Creeps

Dating is definitely not like it used to be. Guys don’t really have to put forth any effort into meeting a girl. Thanks to computers, they can immediately show their intentions with a click, a tap, a “like,” a “poke” or an instant message. Instant communication is awesome, but what happens when a total leech finds you online, and then stalks you on all your other social media accounts? I’ll tell you that nothing good ever happens, that’s for sure.

# Less is more

We all love our selfies and showing off the goods, from time to time. Thanks to social media, we’re able to put our best assets on display for all our friends to see and envy, and to possibly even attract new friends. But oftentimes, less is more.

Unfortunately, Kim Kardashian and her whole “breaking the internet” thing make the slutty photo sharing behavior come across as acceptable and as the thing to do. Newsflash, it’s not!

Even more unfortunately, many people think that sharing a couple of cleavage shots and the occasional bikini pic won’t invite a couple of creeps into their online social sphere. Wrong! To avoid having the online creeps come out at night, stop posting pictures of you with low-cut shirts and short skirts, stop with the pouty duck faces.

If you want to take a selfie, take one of you in a turtleneck from the Gap. Just get a big comfy oversized Gap turtleneck and take your pic from the neck up. Try it and say goodbye to the creepy men only looking at your chest.

# Privatize yourself

If you find yourself getting a new friend request from dudes that you might have anywhere from 1-5 friends in common, that doesn’t mean you have to add them. If you see that your “mutual friends” are all some of your attractive female friends, it’s pretty obvious this dude is a troll, and he’s just adding you, because in your little avatar photo or whatever profile pic you have up, your blonde hair looks ah-maze with that Valencia filter.

Let’s be serious here, he’s not looking at your hair in the pic, and he’s probably adding you because he can see down your shirt or he thinks you have some photos where he can. If you don’t want to get hit up by rando-types like this, make yourself harder to find. Privatize your photos, make yourself much harder to find via search, and change your settings so that your friends and social networks can’t see all your friends and contacts.

# Ignore

Silence goes a long way. If you don’t want to have any interaction with a creeper who messages you or tries to hit on you, then simply just ignore any and all things they send. If a guy sends you a message saying “hey, you’re cute,” then it’s fine to feel flattered! But if he sends you a sleazy list of all the nasty things he wants to do to you, back away and report the fool.

You don’t owe some random creep your appreciation, just because he gave you a compliment. You have a right to get creeped out by him, and you have every right to respond in any way you see fit.

# Play pretend

If you’ve ever seen the movie Home Alone, which I’m sure you have, then just pull a Kevin McCallister move, and pretend to be someone else when a stranger or online douchebag tries to hit on you. You could pretend to be your mother, your military father, or even your boyfriend.

This would involve you actually replying back to whatever nonsense they have sent you, but it would be something along the lines of how you’re just her mom checking all her Facebook messages for the day to make sure there are no red flags popping up, because just last week, you guys had to get the police involved because a guy messaged your daughter something along the lines saying “I wnt to hit u up grl!” and how you thought this was a real threat and possible danger to your daughter, and so you now have all the passwords for all her accounts, as per police orders.

You get the idea, right? Whoever you decide to be, be great.

# Be direct and stern

A very simple way to let someone know you have no interest in talking to them is by simply telling them you’re not interested. You can be gentle at first, but in time, you’ll need to up the ante by giving them a big fat “NO!” If the creep continues to message you, it just shows that this person has no regard for your feelings, and must therefore be in your list of blocked users.

# Be creepy back to them

An eye for an eye. If a troll is on the prowl and trying to mack it to you, and you can’t seem to get rid of them, then start acting like how they are acting, except a little differently.

For example, if the troll is sending you messages like ‘hey girl, what are you up to?’ you could send them a photo back of poop with no words, no caption, nothing. Just a picture of disgusting poop. You could send them a photo of vomit, gross pictures of zits filled with pus or you could send them that weird photo of Michael Cera with peach fuzz on his upper lip.