MySpace and Date Rape

Just about everyone these days has a MySpace page or knows someone that does. Sex offenders are no exception, and many of them use MySpace as a means of finding new victims. This year, MySpace started keeping track of sex offenders, reporting them, and then deleting their profiles. This only works, however, for those sex offenders that have been convicted and are registered.

Recently, a friend of mine had a horrible experience with a man she met on MySpace and decided to meet with in person. She knew this man by the name of Tim, but now isn't sure if that is even his real name. They met on MySpace and then chatted a number of times on IM before she agreed to go out with him. She thought she knew him fairly well - at least as well as other men that she had previously met in bars or through friends.

My friend and Tim had a wonderful first date, she told me. They went out to dinner and then walked around for several hours talking and having a great time. He called her the next day, and they scheduled another date for the following weekend. She really liked him, and she thought that he felt that same way about her.

On their second date, Tim seemed "cranky" and was a bit dismissive of her, she said. They went to the movies, and then to a local bar to play pool and have a few drinks. Her only clue that something wasn't right about him came up while playing pool. He contradicted himself when he told her that he would be spending the night at his brother's house when he had previously told her that he had no siblings. She shrugged it off, convincing herself that she must have misunderstood.

After leaving the bar, they decided to check out a new club in town. She wanted to stop by her house to quickly change her clothes as she felt she was underdressed for a club. That is when the trouble started.

Once inside her apartment, Tim grabbed her and started kissing her. She told him to knock it off, that she doesn't get physical so quickly after she meets someone. He pinned her to the wall in the living room and started trying to remove her clothes. She yelled at him repeatedly, but he continued trying to undress her and slapped her face. Finally, she was able to kick him in the leg and run to her neighbors. Tim immediately disappeared.

My friend was unable to tell the police much, as she was not even certain of Tim's last name. Last she mentioned it, the police were trying to track him down based on their online conversations, but they told her it didn't look good. She feels they are not trying hard enough because she got away and was not actually raped.

She mentioned this to a couple of people she chats with on MySpace, and was told that this same person tried a similar thing with another woman. Tim is nowhere to be found at the moment, but I have no doubt that countless others like him are chatting with unsuspecting women on MySpace at this very moment.

My friend is embarrassed that this happened to her, and extremely scared of it happening again. Now that Tim knows where she lives, she is constantly paranoid that he will one day show up again and finish the job. She instructed me not to mention her by name in this article, but wanted her story to be heard so that other women would be more cautious than she was. She urges everyone that reads this, male or female, to find out as much as possible about someone before you go on a date with them, give them any personal information about yourself, or allow them to know where you live. Being cautious now might save your life later.