Innocents, Beware
The World Wide Web has proven to be a wonderful tool for information-gathering and communications between far-flung people seeking new friends and acquaintances. There are countless dating services offering their sites as meeting places of like minds for unattached men and women. People seeking the comfort of human contact, however removed, turn to the Internet increasingly to reach out to others.And, just like any other social endeavour, there are successes and failures. People meeting others with whom they establish a rapport and the on-line meetings and discussions and personal revelations gradually evolve into a deep personal relationship persuading people to meet in person and consolidate that relationship. Or, as the case may be, abandon it.
There is always hope within any population of single, unattached, and lonely people that there exists somewhere out there in the great wide world, another person like themselves, anxious for the salve of shared intimacy and commitment. There are documented cases of marriages resulting from on-line acquaintanceships. As well as documented occasions of less celebratory instances of hopes gone awry.
And then, off in a corner where incidents distinguished by the vile nature of exploitation and much, much worse, there are those instances where predators lurk within the confines of a communications device that enables people to pose as that which they are not. One such of which has recently surfaced as having taken place in Germany.
Where a 27-year-old man, a construction labourer living in Hamburg, made the acquaintances of three hundred women, on Internet chat rooms. The man, Christian Grotheer, is now standing trial for serial murder, in Essen, Germany. He entertained himself by dedicating thousands of hours on dating sites where he presented himself as a normal man with a wholesome outlook on life.
One who tenderly took to writing poetry. That description is enough to melt any woman's heart - or, at the very least, remove suspicion that she is in conversation with a pervert, or a psychopath. During this process Mr. Grotheer dated about a hundred willing women. Two of which were gruesomely murdered. After sex he stabbed two young women to death.
"I felt remote-controlled" he testified. "I can only say that if Regina hadn't said things like that to me, and especially if she hadn't called me a rapist, she would definitely be alive today", he claimed. Something was obviously very wrong with the two women. They demonstrated to this poor man that they mistrusted him, that they comprehended that there was something wrong about him.
They earned their premature and grisly deaths. After all, other than the two whom the man murdered, the other 98 whom he dated came to no harm.
Labels: Societal Failures, Technology, World News
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, January 15, 2009
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