IDB

[personal information removed at OP's request]

I'm from across the pond I'm afraid (Belgium). You seem quite an interesting person from the posts that i read! I know there's quite a few other Canadian fans here... some are bound to be from Ontario.
With regards to the "sketchy strangers from the internet" thing, in my personal experience the online friends i've met "in real life" all turned out to be awesome. I've even had a Finnish friend stay over a couple of days and it was really fun. I did know everyone i met from online rather well in the sense that we've always had chatted many months beforehand. I feel that does take out a lot of the random "what to expect" factor, especially if you tend to have rather personal and direct conversations. I'd say give it a shot !

Stakhanov wrote: ↑Thu Jan 25, 2018 3:06 pm I'm from across the pond I'm afraid (Belgium). You seem quite an interesting person from the posts that i read! I know there's quite a few other Canadian fans here... some are bound to be from Ontario.
With regards to the "sketchy strangers from the internet" thing, in my personal experience the online friends i've met "in real life" all turned out to be awesome. I've even had a Finnish friend stay over a couple of days and it was really fun. I did know everyone i met from online rather well in the sense that we've always had chatted many months beforehand. I feel that does take out a lot of the random "what to expect" factor, especially if you tend to have rather personal and direct conversations. I'd say give it a shot !

Thanks, so do you!

Yeah, most people who meet online friends offline tend to have good experiences, but the 'sketchy' part is still always in the back of my head haha. I'm glad all your experiences turned out to be great! And yeah I agree that it would be better to know the other person/people really well before first, but I just thought I'd throw the idea out there anyway (especially with the tours coming up, people might be thinking of the whole meetup thing anyway before the shows).

Just throwing my two cents in here:

I've met a few people that I talked to online and concur, they've been awesome! Just a shame distances and schedules make it harder to meet up. However, caution should always be advised such as meeting up in a public place for example and making sure you've been speaking for a while, etc.

Ashley.S. wrote: ↑Fri Jan 26, 2018 11:30 am Just throwing my two cents in here:

I've met a few people that I talked to online and concur, they've been awesome! Just a shame distances and schedules make it harder to meet up. However, caution should always be advised such as meeting up in a public place for example and making sure you've been speaking for a while, etc.

resurrecting to say I agree with the above! always skype with the person first so you know they are who they say they are. and meeting and hanging out in public places while you get to know the person is always a good idea, especially if you're under 18. (let a friend or family member know you're meeting them so that if you get into strife and stop texting them back, for example, someone knows your location and can help)

meeting up at the upcoming tour is a great opportunity for this i think, just make sure you swap seat numbers and plans in the PMs and not on the forum threads where anyone can see it. you don't want the entire world to know where you are at a specific point in time, especially if you've shared other personal details during your posting history (or even across multiple platforms online, if you have consistent usernames). we want you guys to stay safe

My first IRL meeting involved myself, the person in question (they were under 18) and their mother. We had a nice day looking around Pendennis Castle. The following years, enough trust was allowed for us to hang out without supervision. Alas, these days he's too busy to meet up now