I was 10 years old when we first got a computer. I didn't know what to do with it, so I just played video games on it. My brother was six years older than me, so he would use the computer to go into chat rooms. After we had had the computer for around a year, I noticed my brother would always be in chat rooms. He would always have a private message open as well. It took me another year to realize that my brother was dating someone online.
I always knew my brother's girlfriend as SnowBunny85, because he never told us officially that she was his girlfriend. I later found out her name was Lily. My brother always tried to be careful not to leave any pictures Lily sent him on the desktop of the computer, but sometimes he would. She looked pretty. I didn't understand why my brother wanted, or felt that he needed to keep his relationship secret.
A few years later, my brother told me that he had broken up with a girlfriend he had. I asked why, but he didn't want to talk about it. I found out what really happened one day while I was using the computer. My brother had saved his last conversation with Lily. It seemed like Lily had lied to my brother. They had met a couple of times in real life, and they seemed to have had a real relationship. The only problem was that Lily already had a husband. My brother was crushed to find out that she was married. On that day I realized that an online relationship is risky. It's up to you to find someone that you can trust and hopefully isn't lying to you. I hope my brother realized that, too.