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Ugh. I feel like having an extended whining session about something, but I'm not sure what. I have two prime contenders, but neither of them are making it particularly easy for me to write them.

One is your straightforward 'look, see how much I suck' whine. The specific subject matter for it is interviews; specifically, the fact I'm being a total stressbunny (bursting into tears every five minutes, hand-flacking, words-all-rushing-out-at-once, not being able to do anything right, the full works) over the *mock interview*. Yes, that's right, the thing that's meant to build my confidence and that doesn't make a *blind bit of difference* to *anything*. And yet, here I am getting so stressed I need to write a whiny entry about it. Did I mention I suck yet?

The second one is a serious subject that really deserves significantly better treatment than this, and I might re-write it up another day if I don't get the response I'm looking for from this post because everyone stopped reading when I said I was going to be whiny. The issue is - how do you decide when you can trust someone? The reason this issue has come up (and the context I mean 'trust' in) is because I'm flat out of nearby ScaryFriends (ScaryFriends in this context means people I can trust enough to take as insurance against random people I'm meeting for the first time turning out to be MadAxeMurderers or suchlike. e.g.

naath,

sath,

passage. I suspect quite a few other XF-people would do as well.) and hence I can't meet up with

dr_vannacutt and his friend in Chelmsford.

However, I have met

dr_vannacutt IRL before. Which raises the question - how much do you need to know someone before they can be accepted as trustworthy? (This doesn't, of course, include naturally or selectively untrustworthy people; for instance, I trust

enchantedmelody significantly less far than I can probably throw her in this particular catagory of trust, because she's as good as said that her idea of self-defence is to point me at the threatening person, and also because despite the amount of time I've spent with her I still don't think I actually know her, or at least not the her I suspect she is on her own territory.) Some examples of my faliure to be sensible about this: the sheer amount of panic that this guy *who I'd known IRL for a whole year, who had never seemed anything other than reasonable and sensible and generally not MadAxeMurdererIsh* giving me a lift home caused - but I happily got into the car just yesterday with the lab tech from school who I've never exchanged more than two words with in the past when she offered me a lift.

A less rambly summation of the problem: now I've met

jaq and he doesn't seem particularly untrustworthy, why does it still not feel like it'd be sensible to go visit him without one of the ScaryFriends along, and why do I feel that they're any more trustworthy?

dr_vannacutt also seems like a rational human being, and a pretty nice one at that, so why do alarm bells start ringing in the 'you're *so* stupid if you even think about this' catagory when I think of meeting up with him and his friend in Chelmsford for lunch?

marble seems quite definately harmless and nice, but still the 'that would just be *dumb*' flags wave when I think about just randomly visiting him without backup of some description. And as I said, I'm just about plain out of backup over here, and I'm not quite sure what the procedure is for recruiting new backup, given that the criterea has either been 'same age and gender, been around them every day for months on end' or 'responsible Christian type person' (and mostly 'and has been cleared to be on a SU team too'), and neither of those seem to be likely to be good rules for the future, especially unless I want to be very limited socially.

That was quite rambly too, actually, but I think you've got the idea. I'm interested in your opinions - what's the line you'd draw between a stupid situation to put yourself into and a sensible, reasonable hardly-a-risk-at-all thing which people have to do if they're to make life work (like crossing the road)?

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About getting lifts from people, I'd guess part of the reason is that the lab tech is female, and the guy isn't.

As for my opinion of where I'd draw the line, that's probably going to be different from yours, and there are good reasons for that - I think I'm less likely to be randomly attacked than you are, for example. I'd be happy to meet

marble or

jaq, from what I've seen of them ivl they seem trustworthy enough.

If you are going to meet someone it's a good idea if someone knows what you're going to be doing, just in case. How much help that's likely to be as a preventative measure I don't know.

Anyway, enough of my ramblings. Hope you found some of that useful.

I'm probably the last person you want to be listening here as I'm possibly far too trusting. At the age of 18, I got on the train to Lancaster and spent the night at the house of someone I had only known for a week.

That said, the vast majority of people are trustworthy, at least to the extent that they aren't going to rape/murder/mug/kidnap you. If you're not sure about someone then meet in a public place. Nobody even vaguely sane is going to try anything like that when there are members of the general public pottering around.

Also bear in mind that you meet lots of new people all the time. Those who you've had no contact with whatsoever before are probably at least as likely to be dodgy.

The problem with 'meet them in a public place' is: how many times do you have to do that before you're allowed to trust them enough to not have that restriction? After all, meeting them in a public place doesn't prove anything, because as you say they're not going to try anything there.

Because even if they don't act on something rl should give you some insight to their nature and desires.

Neil

I can't really give you the responsible-person advice as I've been known to take off to London from Plymouth in order to go and *stay* with someone I'd only spoken to on the phone maybe twice, and online for about six months.

But I can say that what you really need to do is stop panicking. It seems more like a social anxiety thing than a geniune danger thing that you're facing here, and perhaps you need to go in at the deep end to solve it. If you're really that worried though, go and make sure you stay in a fairly public place where if any MadAxeMurderer stuff goes down, someone can get help.

I'd offer to go with you, but we've only actually met once, and I certainly don't fall into the "responsible Christian type person" category or even "remotely sane and trustworthy" category...although can fend off MadAxeMurderers by eating them. ;-)

Yes. I think I'd probably trust you enough to go meet one of my list of fairly-harmless-people-that-I-want-to-meet, but I wouldn't go anywhere near your own territory with you...

Probably for the best. It stinks of wine in here anyway. :p

have you ever considered that you might suffer from some mild version of angorphobia? (seriously, don't mean to bust your bum about it) I mean, (why do words suddenly disappear form my head while I'm trying to explain things. er, it starts with an a. generally smart anti-social people are said to be it..) anyway, yes, that a-thing.. as I said, people tend to be more towards anti-social if they're diagnosed as that, so I guess a certain amount of that is to be expected.

As far as trust and people online, perhaps I really am the last person to give advice..

And I honestly just go by how I feel. If flags waves for someone, then I take people with me, or don't go at all. (Although I can't imagine who'd be scared of

marble or

jaq.

hatter I could possibly understand.)
Maybe you could take

marnanel as he's fairly nonscarey himself, an su-member, and a responsible if somewhat forgetful Christian type?

Rar! (See? No? You must be very brave!)

Taking

marnanel places has two drawbacks - one, he's in Cambridge, which is a real pain to get to and from by public transport from here; two, he has a life of his own and I doubt he wants to trail around scaring people for me.

way back in the depths of time, i used compuserve's cb simulator online chat system regularly. one of my friends, we'll call him w, was really nice. after i'd known him for about three months, he told me that he'd lied about his age and he was really fortysomething, not 16.

i took this in my stride- remember, this was 1992, i was 15, and no one had ever heard of online paedophiles.

so, some time later, he offered to buy me borland c++ 3.1 after i expressed a desire to learn c++. i accepted. he sent copies of os/2 and windows 3.1 with it, plus a vhs pirate of startrek 6 which must have been copied straight from a laserdisc or something. it wasn't even in cinemas over here yet.

after a while he expressed a desire to come over and meet me. my parents agreed after talking to him on the phone a few times. so, he came over and stayed with us for a couple of weeks. went sightseeing, met up with a mutual friend plus her mum, in london. generally had fun. he brought gifts for my parents and sister, buy for me he brought a 386dx/40 with motherboard, 4 1meg simms to add to the 4 i already has, a proaudiospectrum plus sound card, a top of the line sony discman, the list goes on. about us$1500 worth of stuff in total.

he spent a day off somewhere by himself.

after he went home, he became less communicative and finally disappeared completely. a few days later one of his friends informed me that w was in jail but wouldn't say why.

one of my schoolfriends, gopi, was an american with family in sanfrancisco, where w lived, and he/hid mum somehow got hold of a newspaper clipping which explained what had happened to w: he'd been sentenced to 7 years for posession and distribution of child porn.

he sent me two letters from prison in the first few months. i haven't heard from him since.

i have my doubts about the charges though i know his behaviour- specifically the age thing and gifts are typical of the child abuser stereotype, specifically:

* why did he come over? did he intend to abuse me? if so, why didn't he? he had plenty of opportunities.

* he seemed really genuine and both my parents liked him.

* in all the time i knew him, we never talked about sex in any way.

* why did he write from jail? he explained the charges and claimed the porn was planted.

but on the other hand, what was he up to on his day out?

i guess the moral of the story is that you can never be sure of anyone. even if you have half a dozen people, including 3 parents, who think that a given person is great. but also, not all potential evildoers will target you, even given opportunities.

the best advice i can give you is: practice self defence techniques, and don't be afraid to use them to incapacitate or even kill an attacker if necessary.

OK. For the 'how much you suck' thing a) refer to your own answers to my question (see? told you I'd use them against you) and b) try to think of it this way: You are the sort of person people would want to have working for them or on their uni courses. The problem is making sure they find out about this in the interview. As with lots of stuff, it's all about appearance in the interview. Relax though, because the person interviewing you will have done enough of them to be able to see how good you are. If I was interviewing you, I'd hire/accept you. (They will usually be trying to get the best out of you, not the worst.)

As for the meeting people. I'm really not evil:) Meet with people somewhere busy & public like a town centre. (Someone said that already I think, but it's a good idea.)
You can also ask others who have met them what they thought.

And you sometimes think of popping over to visit me? Cool:) *beams* *looks about for a chess-size casserole dish* (just kidding)

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. Don't forget you might be an axe murderer too! If you do come to visit please at least make sure your axe is sharp. Blunt ones can really hurt.

Oh, but that 'asking other people' thing doesn't apply for me, because for some bizarre reason lots of people seem to think I'm evil. And I'm not. (Even if I do start sentences with 'And'.)

Marble is evil, but not scary!

I think you are being more worried about this than you need to be. Just take a few sensible precautions, like letting someone know what you're doing, and meeting in a public place in the daytime. Anyone remotely sensible will respect you for that.

Trust is a two-way thing - you can't just hold back and wait for the other person to 'prove' themselves (somehow), since it'll just make them hold back too, and you'll never get anywhere. Not that you should give away everything at once, but something.

You should learn to trust yourself more too - since you say you've met this person before (and I assume you've been reading his journal), you must have formed some perception of what he's like. Trust your perceptions

My perceptions aren't notably trustworthy, though.

I'm tempted to ask you to justify that opinion but the answer "experience" wouldn't be helpful, and to ask for an example is probably a little personal for a public entry.

Neil

The other comment that I was going to make was that with some people like, well, me, and

marble for example, you know a whole group of other people that you can ask about them, so maybe that makes a difference.

I would be forced to admit that my mock interview did not scare me. I'd ask what exactly you were getting stressed about, but I'm sure it would backfire at me as you stressed about what it was you were getting stressed about it infact being noting and this sentence being too long.

Everyone finds interviews a little nerve racking (although usually not the mock one because we realise that's done by the headmaster who hasn't a clue about our subject and wouldn't know if we were talking rubbish), at least at first. I should rephase that: I've not actually met everyone to ask but I certainly found them nerve racking at first.

In fact I made a complete fool of myself at the Southhampton interview ("Do you know what angular momentum is?" "N .... No. No, I don't think so." 5 minutes later "Hold on, yes I do. Whoops."[1]

(Fortunatly I liked them even less than they liked me, and then they decided my course would probably be cancelled).

And I'm glad I had those, because once I'd gotten over the nerves I was able to string together some intelligable maths in the Cambridge interview.

Marble's right: they do try and make you feel at ease and try to help you do your best. They are actually friendly and interviews (once you've remembered what angular momentum is) don't turn out to be all that bad.

And people do tend to do much better than they think they can in the interview. Most of the maths students in my year at my college can't work out on earth we did the induction for the eggs falling, but somehow in the interview we did. These people are trained to bring out the best in you.

Look at it this way: someone who knows lots about computer science wants to have a conversation with you, about computers, for 15 mins/half an hour. You'll be fine.

(I think I'll take another comment for the other whine).

Neil

[1] For those of you not priveleged enough to have done A level physics or maths, angular momentum is pretty basic and it's a testament to the friendliness of the interviewer that he responded by picking questions on a different topic instead of screaming "You don't know what angular momentum is? How can you possibly not know what angular momentum is? Are you actually *doing* a physics A level? Do you realise you've applied for a Physics course?!?!?!".

Our mock interviews are meant to be done by people who know about the subject; the Parents Association organise them. Also people who know / were at the relevant uni if at all possible. So they're a bit more organised than the Head doing them.

Oh, cool.

Well, they're nearly real then and you've had chance to get the nervousness out of your system. (Perhaps part of the reason I was able to stroll through the mock interview was that I knew the people interviewing me, I think that does make a difference in that it makes it more friendly.)

Btw: I'm a little confused: did you have the mock and get stressed in it, not yet have the mock and are still stressed by it, or got stressed before the mock that you have now had (and if the last case how did it go?).

Neil

I'm a ScaryFriend?[1] Is this good or bad? I'm not sure I want to be scary. Do I get a choice? Can I apply for ActuallyRatherNormalFriendReally?

Obviously the solution is that you're going to have to wait till I get back to Cambridge and then take me out a lot at weekends (I need regular exercise donchaknow) ;-) (I'd quite like to meet Marble too ... otoh he might suspect me of being a MadPickAxeMiner (but of course he'd have

ScaryChess there to protect him).

Anyhow: being more serious. I wouldn't go to place I don't know with people I don't know on my own.

i.e. I wouldn't get worried about meeting up with

dr_vannacutt for lunch in Chelmsford because it's a public place and you know Chelmsford. Even if he is a MadAxeMurderRapistGenerallyNotNicePerson[2] what's going to happen? Whipping out an axe in a public place is going to result in you suddenly having a lot of help and him suddenly having a lot of witnesses against him in any trial.

So, I think it would be silly worrying about that.

Otoh, I wouldn't go to his house for food before getting to know him a little (I think the same idea applies to cars: it is effectively a private space so a little more trust is required).

I guess I'm comparing it with starting as a student when you don't know anyone[3]: you get to know them at the public events, because the worse that can happen at the tutors party is that they whip out an axe and suddenly find 5 irate students pinning down each limb and porters running around crazily, then you hang around outside in a group of students discussing operating systems (where the worst that can happen is someone might favour windows[4]) and chat to them in hall over dinner (where the worst that can happen is burnt toast). And then, once you've built that trust up you start visiting on anothers[6] rooms.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough: in summary I'd rely on having one of the following: people I know (just one will do, goodness knows why just one more feels safe, but it does) or a public place that I know.[7]

What do your parents thing (because I'm not entirely sure what to say, but when I know that they think I can happily vermanetly disagree with them. That way you'll at least get a balenced opinion).

Neil, who wonders if this comment is going to turn out to be too long

[1] This is presumably a special subset of the group WikiWords (under goodness knows what operation, concatanation perhaps?)
[2] It could bec arugued that murdering rapists isn't so bad ...
[3] Escaping to Marn's house because I couldn't cope anymore aside ...
[4] Or in the case of Jonny be 25% compsci and not know what an array is ...[5]
[5] Or in the case of Neil keep ending footnoes with '...'. Hold on, how's that going to happen during an irl operating system discussion?
[6] I can't shake the feeling there should be an apostrophe somewhere around here ...
[7] You might form a special case for people known very well by people you know very well. For example you might decide that that was sufficient. e.g. suppose you hadn't met my parents and were comming to visit me and (for some reason) I was going to be later than you, you might feel safe with them on the grounds that I know their trustworthy and you trust my judgement[8]. Personally I'd not be comfortable unles sthe person I knew them through was at least vaugely 'around', but perhaps I'm just of a nervous disposition.
[8] If, indeed you do trust my judgement.

Parents *think*.

You knew there'd be some comic relief along sooner or later and you were right ...

Neil, and ...

You think I've asked my *parents* about this? They're still jumpy about having let me *go* to DWCon in the first place. At the very least we'd have a _serious discussion_ about it, and I'm just not up to one of those at the moment.

Oh, I thought your parents tended to be ... unconservative on this matter. Have they changed? (I'm remembering this from an email nearly 2 years ago).

Can you persuade them to change their opinion? 'Cos I said I was going to disagree with them and I'd be a lot more comfortable advising caution.

(And I don't understand .. were they jumpy before DWCon? You gave the impression that they weren't, what changed their attitude?).

Neil

They were until faced with the actual prospect of me going off to meet random people...

I wonder how they're going to take you going to uni.

Julia: "Hold on, you're actually going to be living with random people?!?!"

Neil

Different. I won't be going into their territory - we'll all be in new territory, and I'll have my patch (my room).

So how is this different from DWCon?

Not everyone will be completely crazy :).

Oh. You're not planning on comming to Cambridge after all then? ;-)

Neil

ScaryFriends = Friends who are capable of scaring other people if other people turn out to be NotNice (or even just OverEnthusiastic). (After all, you know how bad I am at confrontations.)

you trust *me*?????

oh well, that's life I guess... I'm not an *axe* murderer poison is more my style, or that katana...

yeah anyway.

The trick is to be confident in your ability to escape from whatever nasty situation you might get into, this might be anything from inventing a doctor's apointment to beating them up and jumping out a thrid story window onto a fire escape... the more public the situation, the less likely it is that violence will be required.

It's really easy to get out of situations where some one's being too 'friendly', it would be polite to invent a reason to leave, but if you can't just walk away...

This is where having to be an honest person (my status as which could take up a whole other post; let's just compare it to being a recovering alcoholic, except with lies instead of ethanol) doesn't help matters.

So be honest and tell that hey, you don't like being hit on by ppl you hardly know, and could they please *not*.

I'm basically here to agree with everyone else.

I think you're fairly safe meeting in a public place. If the person makes you feel unsafe, it's probably best to trust your instincts. I wouldn't go to stay at someone else's house/get in their car on your own, unless you know them well. If they are friends with people you know and trust, maybe have a quick word with them to see what they think.

A long term option might be something like learning self-defence so you can deal with MadAxeMurderers type peeps.

I was going to volunteer myself as a scary person and then realised I haven't actually met you. But if you want backup for visiting people, I can be quite scary - just ask Armadillo.

you said:

'same age and gender, been around them every day for months on end'

Is same gender (I presume you actually meant 'sex' as you listed Sath as an example[1]) merely a consequence of the requirment:
'been around them every day for months on end'
and going to a single sex school, or is it a seperate requirement?

If the former why is it listed, if the latter why is it a criterion?

Neil

[1] Unless of course your gender is also confused or you have reason to believe Sath's gender is female and she's just confusing the rest of us.

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