Moments at 16...

 Was dropping my 16 year old granddaughter at her friend's house just now and she was telling me about how her day went yesterday. Then she said I wasn't to worry cause it was alright in the end but:

"Grandma - an old man came and sat next to me at the bus stop - but right next to me and started talking to me - he asked if I'd heard of 'virtual worlds' - I said yeah."

At this point I waded in with the usual response of telling her she shoud not have spoken to him or should have got up and moved away... she said she felt it was safer to pretend not to be scared as she was uncomfortable and not sure what he would do. She continued:

"He said I'd be great in a virtual world because I had a nice voice and most of the girls in there were really men. He said the people joined to have virtual sex. I was really scared inside and said I had to go to the shop for cheese for my mum."

That last line upset me so much - poor little thing trying to find a polite way to get away from what amounts to a sexual predator.

She also said she just kept hoping he was only "one of those old men who do this". Wow... at 16 she's already settled into that acceptance we get that about predators being a fact for a young girl's life. I wondered how many other 'oh it was nothing in the end' situations she'd encountered?

She said she got up and so did he... he walked alongside her as she went to the shop but didn't go in. Once inside she called her friends and waited till they got there so they could wait with her for the bus - thankfully they came.

...

The saddest part of this...  was that she just talked about it in a sort of matter-of-fact way and that broke me to think how acclimatised we are and how we have (by nature) made them ready for this INEVITABILITY!

There are 9 females over 3 generations in our family and there's never been a time I can recall when we didn't 'talk them home' when they were out alone in the world - it's so damned natural and it shouldn't be.