How the Internet killed her....

The world is made of two parts- the bright places where the sun is always shining of happiness, laughter, well-being and prosperity where most of us always want to live. The world is also made up of dark places where the demons are always there to catch you alive and beat you to despair and miseries making you pay to be at the wrong places at the wrong times. Apparently, it so happens that despite the bright places there are more dark corners in our world which are always lurking around the corner when we are not looking.

Amanda Todd, a teenage girl from Canada never supposed that a topless picture of her when shared with a man who claimed that she was pretty and beautiful on the other end of the world would stalk her making her life miserable. She was 12 when she first got introduced to the massive world of chatting where strangers open up easily without having to share the truth. When the man asked for a flash of her, she posed for him without a second thought.

A year later, the man hunted down all her details and stalked her threatening to make the picture public if she didn’t flash again. When she didn't budge, he posed as a classmate on Facebook and shared the picture with all her friends who began to bully her by sending insensitive messages and calling her names. Amanda’s life turned miserable when she switched schools and cities to wipe away the past and yet it came following her like an eternal curse.

After a suicide attempt, she tried hard to live on anti-depressants to move on with her life despite the past hunting her down each time she decided to take a fresh start. Towards the end, unable to take it any longer she hanged herself to death in October 2012 at the age of 15. Before her death, she left a video on YouTube letting the world know about her misery. The video

Everybody makes mistakes. Some are admissible and some are corrected and some are hidden in the deepest corners of our heart. Yet, we often pay for our mistakes, sometimes heavily. Amanda Todd made a grave mistake for which she paid with her life at the age of 15 after seeing that world wanted her to die.

You can either blame Amanda Todd for being stupid enough to send a bare picture of herself to some stranger and then taking it too seriously to kill herself. You can also blame all those people out there who poked fun and enjoyed tormenting her by creating hate pages all over the internet and drove her to death. You can also blame the parents who don’t monitor what their children are doing in the virtual world on the internet as they are turning into evil and sinful monsters.

A death had occurred which will be forgotten with time and people will move on after being tired of the blame game. But let this incident be a warning to all those people out there making friends with strangers over the internet sharing intimate details. The internet is filled with darker places where people with malicious intentions are prowling all over waiting for their next victim. Let’s not allow the technology to kill us instead of serving us.

Unfamiliarity breeds conversations

Have you ever found yourself straying in a crowd or a party where you knew absolutely nobody? Have you ever ended up being in a place where there are a dozen faces around you have never seen before? This happens to most of us, let’s admit it. And most of the times, it’s really not a nice feeling to be in the company of strangers who have no idea about who you are. And if you’re lucky, really lucky, you might actually make new friends by getting to know the strangers.

Let me brief you about my recent experience at a birthday party where I knew nobody except my husband who was supposedly busy with his group of familiar people abandoning me like a lost animal. (Lol! Not that he didn’t care but he simply couldn’t stick around with all his friends pulling his side). Anyway, it so happened that twenty minutes passed after my arrival and I had found not a single soul to talk with. I stared, gaped, gawked, ogled, watched, scrutinized and examined at everything I could; the kids running around, the food being displayed, the ladies watching over the kids, the men cracking jokes and a few more ladies sitting like clueless aliens (Like me!)

Forty minutes passed. My vocal chords seemed to scream, I have to talk with somebody pleaseeeee. I noticed a young girl of twenty something to the right of me and an aunty (I’ll call her aunty cos she had a kid and she looked forty something) to my left. I didn’t know either of them; I had never seen either of them. In fact, I didn’t even know why they were there (for the cake of course). The point is, even though I didn’t know them, I did strike a conversation with them to pass the rest of the time until my husband gave the relief signal of leaving the place. I chattered, I ranted and I listened to them to the same.
It was a forgettable party which taught me a lesson about striking a conversation with strangers just to pass the time. Sometimes, you just can’t sit doing nothing when there is a frenzy going on around you. You just can’t walk away from the party even though you are bored to death. What should you do if you find yourself stuck in a place with strangers for a long time when you simply can’t stare into their faces forever?

a. Just find someone who is equally unoccupied and bored like you.
b. Talk and chatter all the while. If you are a talker, then talk about anything that comes up – the climate, the movies, the latest car, etc.
c. Remember, you don’t have to see them again. So go ahead and share your darkest secret if you want to and if it will help you pass the time.
d. Age no bar, don’t look for people of your age which will only minimize your chances of being around a chatty person.

If you can think of any more ideas to kill time at a place with unknown people, do write below..