Comments on: Comments on 6340

Post number 6340

prolific — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 13:25:34 -0800

Let him stay for a day. Dutch student and weblogger Ramon Stoppelenburg plans to hitchhike around the world... from one submitted place-to-stay to the next on a no-budget basis. We can vouch for his sanity and wish him safe trip. Why not offer him your sofa for a night?

By: paddbear

paddbear — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 14:04:09 -0800

Gee -- if I was about 20 years younger, I'd like to do something like this myself! What a great idea!

By: aaron

aaron — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 14:29:47 -0800

Why can't a heterosexual female ever try something like this?

"Creativity addict." I think I've found my calling.

By: th3ph17

th3ph17 — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 18:25:38 -0800

dan pirarro, creater of the Bizarro comic strip did this a few years ago and had quite an experience...

By: webmutant

webmutant — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:04:06 -0800

He did indeed. He wrote an entertaining book about it, too, called Bizarro Among The Savages.

By: kindall

kindall — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:37:24 -0800

I don't think I am capable of trusting virtual strangers enough to ever try something like this. I just hope Stoppelenburg doesn't end up as severed parts in someone's freezer.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:52:47 -0800

Kindall prettty much sums up the reasoning behind why more heterosexual females don't try this: It's not the risks -- though there are some -- it's answering all the damned questions from people about why you're sleepingunder the same roof with someone you don't know. I've couch surfed with weblogger strangers before, and hosted more than a few myself, but each time I've had to endure way too much interrogation and worry from well-meaning but paranoid friends.

By: kindall

kindall — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 22:56:14 -0800

So, you're saying women don't do this sort of thing not because they're actually worried themselves about being disassembled, but because their friends get so worked up about it? That is an angle I'd never considered before.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 23:21:47 -0800

Well, there's a sense in which sometimes folks don't do potentially harmful things because even though they'd accept the risks themselves, the downside of having made a bad choice is more of a big deal in their lives. [like you get a ticket for drunk driving BUT you can never borrow the car again b/c Mom thinks you have bad judgment -- no one got hurt but your reputation as a smart driver is ruined forever] I take in a lot of stray folks from time to time and get a lot of lectures. If one stranger turned out to be a wingnut, in many people's eyes that would prove I never should have trusted any of them. I disagree, but I still talk to these people all the time. And hitchhiking? I still won't hitchhike.

By: kindall

kindall — Mon, 12 Mar 2001 23:28:15 -0800

I guess I have a hard time thinking of someone whose respect matters enough to me to stop me from doing something.

By: prolific

prolific — Tue, 13 Mar 2001 00:15:18 -0800

I guess living in a relatively "safe" country, where axe murderers are rare, makes us Dutch a little too trusting sometimes. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Ramon.

By: dagnyscott

dagnyscott — Tue, 13 Mar 2001 06:53:01 -0800

Eh, the U.S. is pretty safe. Actually, it depends where in the US you are, we're a bit bigger than the Netherlands. Just paranoid. Whenever I've met people in "real life" that I first met online, people have been like "What are you doing? Don't you know everyone online is a pedophile?" "No, not everyone, just Jordan." "Still, you're meeting a 44-year-old guy." "So?" But it was ok. You know. We sat around in Borders and discussed Ionesco.

By: cCranium

cCranium — Tue, 13 Mar 2001 10:37:55 -0800

Hell, I drove to Indiana to meet up with someone I met online and had a pretty good time as a result. I met a bunch of wonderful people. If Internet attackers were as common as some media sources make them out to be, I don't think SXSW Interactive would be a terribly popular event. Besides, I imagine most of the people Ramon will be staying with are bloggers, and while we're not all sane, there aren't many of us willing to invest the time and effort into creating a blog history (so he can learn about us) just to take an ax to him.

By: kindall

kindall — Tue, 13 Mar 2001 20:25:38 -0800

Yeah, I drove across the fricken country to meet someone in person I first met online. Everyone thought I was nuts. What I actually was, of course, was a 21-year-old virgin.

By: cCranium

cCranium — Wed, 14 Mar 2001 05:26:13 -0800

kindall: Indiana's in a different country for me, but pretty much the same impetous. :-)