Should I spend a night alone with a guy that I’ve known for 5 years online on the second day he’s visiting?

[Anonymous]

Me and his guy have been on and off talking online for 5 years. I’m 19 and he’s 20. He’s planning on driving up to my area next year as we live far from each other. He suggested getting a hotel for the weekend and me staying with him and I said I didn’t feel comfortable with it. I told my mom and she suggested that we can spend the weekend but not stay overnight with him and now he’s staying he’ll only come up for the day because it’s not fair him driving. He stays he wants to cook me dinner the next day and wants me to stay with him.

I’m unsure on what to do?

[Carlston]

Plan on not staying with him you can always change your mind depending on how things go.

People are often quite different in real life than they appear to be online and you don't want to commit to spending the night with someone you haven't even met in person. 

I'm surprised your mom is being so passive about this but then again from my experience kids don't listen anyway they just get more hostile and argumentative when you question their sense of reason and common sense.

I always find it interesting that people post these sorts of questions when they've already got great advice from people who know them and care about them in real life and choose to ignore it in favor of what a complete stranger might say. 

 

[Sanch62]

I wouldn't meet a stranger in a private setting at all. I'd meet in a public restaurant, and I'd inform a parent or friend where I'm going, who I'll be with (you have researched his background, correct?) and I'd have a tracking device on my phone.

Read up on meeting strangers. Learn about teams that steal identities to pose as that person and groom people online, even for years, for the right opportunity to scam or otherwise harm them. It all sounds far-fetched until you read or listen to some of the hundreds of stories and wonder how these victims could have been so naive and unguarded with a total stranger?

Edited October 31 by Sanch62