Could have happened to me, glad it didn't

I've wondered if I should write this post for awhile now. It's been a few days since I've stumbled upon an article in the rolling stone (online) about a girl who almost had her life ruined by the internet. Now I know I made this blog to promote my writing, but no one's going to care about my writing if they don't know me as a person. The reason I cared so much about this article is because I could have gone down the same road if I hadn't had good parents who loved me. The girl in the article turned to myspace for companionship because she was home schooled and didn't have many friends. I can relate. I've been a nerd my whole life, and didn't really fit in with anyone in high school. I had friends, but they were the ones who called themselves goth/emo/punk/whatever other alt label there was. Although I listened to the same music, I have never considered myself any of those things. Some of my friends had a falling out with me, so I turned to myspace. I didn't know much about computers, so I suppose that's why I got so addicted to the little social networking site. I remember going to the library during my lunch breaks to check what was going on. I got excited when cute guys added me. I would spend hours and hours online not doing anything productive. My friend list grew to over 500, and with all those friends came a lot of drama. People started picking fights with me, guys started flirting and demanding that I meet them. The idea of meeting someone from online scares me, even now that I'm an adult. I told myself that it was worth it, but it never is. I got death threats, sent disgusting pictures, and had some idiot edit a picture of me into a clown. It bothered me, but I thought it was worth it for the friends I'd made. I felt like myspace was my connection to the world. My parents found out about everything that was going on and made me delete everything. They were scared for me to go anywhere in public because they thought someone would recognize me from online and hurt me. At first I was upset. I even gave up writing because of what happened, but now I'm glad. Things could have gotten so much worse for me. I don't know why that girl's parents didn't pull the plug, but they should have. Now I only add people that I know on facebook, and I only made a twitter to promote my upcoming ebook.