How to Stay Safer When Meeting New People Online
Published · MyLOL
Meeting new people online is normal, and it's how a lot of good friendships start. This is the routine that keeps it that way — applied to every new person, not just the ones who seem suspicious.
Related on MyLOL: Safe social network for teens
Use a routine, not your instincts
Instincts are excellent at spotting someone who is being creepy and terrible at spotting someone who is being charming on purpose.
People who target teenagers online are practised at seeming safe. They're friendly, complimentary, interested in your hobbies, and patient. Relying on "I'd know" is exactly the gap they work in. A routine you apply to everyone doesn't rely on you correctly guessing who is dangerous.
The routine has four parts: check the profile, run a slow first week, know the pressure tactics by name, and know what you'll do if something goes wrong before it does.
Step 1: Read the profile before you read the message
Two minutes here saves a lot of time later.
Depth over polish
A page with specific, slightly boring detail — a bad drawing, an opinion about a band — is a person. A page with one perfect photo and nothing else is a question mark.
Photo consistency
Do the photos look like the same person in the same life? A single professional-looking image is worth a pause.
Do they behave publicly?
People who post in groups and reply to others under their own name have a visible track record. Someone who only appears in your DMs doesn't.
Age-appropriate everything
Teen MyLOL is 13–17 and separate from the adult community. Anyone whose life details sound adult — job, tenancy, bar nights — is worth reporting, not befriending.
Immediate off-platform links
A brand-new profile whose main purpose is pushing you to another app is not here to make friends.
Step 2: Run a deliberately slow first week
Speed is the single most reliable warning sign there is.
- 1Keep the first conversations about shared interests, not about you personally.
- 2Answer nothing about location beyond a country or a broad region.
- 3Notice whether they ask you things or only tell you things — and whether they remember your answers.
- 4Say no to one small thing on purpose and watch how they take it. That reaction tells you almost everything.
- 5Stay in MyLOL for the first weeks. Report and block only exist where the platform does.
- 6Talk about them to someone in your actual life. Secrecy is where problems grow.
Step 3: Know the pressure tactics by name
Naming a tactic while it's happening takes most of its power away.
Love-bombing
Overwhelming praise and attention early, so that pulling back later feels like losing something huge.
Isolation
"Your friends don't get you", "don't tell your parents". Anything designed to make you rely only on them.
Testing the boundary
A small inappropriate joke to see if you object. If you don't, the next one is bigger.
Reciprocity guilt
Gifts, game credits, favours — then a request, framed as fair because they did something for you first.
Manufactured urgency
"Answer now", "I'll be gone tomorrow", "prove you trust me". Urgency exists to stop you thinking.
Threats after a mistake
If someone has something of yours and starts making demands, that is a crime being committed against you. Stop, save nothing new, tell an adult, and report it.
Meeting up in person: the one non-negotiable
Someone you only know online is a stranger, whatever the conversation has felt like.
Do not arrange to meet anyone from online by yourself, and don't let anyone talk you into keeping a planned meeting secret. If it ever gets to that conversation, the only version worth considering is one your parent or guardian knows about in full and is part of arranging. Anyone who reacts badly to "my parents would need to know" has just told you what they were hoping for.
Pressure to meet, especially pressure to meet quietly, is a reason to report the account rather than a compliment.
Step 4: Decide now what you'll do if it goes wrong
Having a plan means you act instead of freezing.
- 1Stop replying. You don't need a closing message and you don't owe an explanation.
- 2Block the account so they can't contact you or interact with your page.
- 3Report it, so our moderation team can review it against the Community Guidelines.
- 4Tell a parent, carer or another trusted adult what happened — the same day if you can.
- 5If someone is threatening you or anyone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.
- 6Don't delete the conversation before you've reported it — but don't spend hours re-reading it either.
The honest part
Anyone promising a risk-free internet is lying to you.
No platform, including this one, can promise that nobody will ever lie to get in. What a teen-only community does is reduce who you're exposed to, give you tools to act, and take reports seriously. What your routine does is make you a hard target and give you an exit at any point.
You're allowed to enjoy meeting new people. Do it with the routine running in the background, and tell someone when it stops feeling right.