What nobody today will believe is, 20+ years ago, it usually was a real person. Nobody had yet found a way to seperate the age groups and LEA's were slow to adapt with fake jailbait. It was all one big chaotic social, with all the perils that would naturally accompany it. I cannot be the only older one around with stories from those days which can never be told.

I'm actually surprised there haven't been any movies/films made about those times, say mid 90's to early 2000's live chatroom social media. Crazy risks were taken, and not just in the realm of disparate age groups attempting to hook up. Every possible marginalized and/or taboo interest suddenly found a way to explore it, for better or worse. Sometimes I wonder if we were all guinea pigs in some early mass social experiment.

As for you, be glad her gay friend saved you from having to sit through the creepiness of The Sixth Sense wih the simultaneous awkwardness of her sitting in silent fear, not of what was on the screen, but of what you might be secretly plotting to do to her on your first in-person date together. So hurtful, but to blame her was not fair. Younger looking photos, it turned out, were not the way to go. Honestly actually was the best policy. Who knew.

Tinder still doesn't know 25 years on, so I've heard. The beat goes on.