I had a recent encounter that made me uncomfortable. I realized how my boundaries have been a bit more relaxed because I’m not out meeting people or doing things. But I recently met someone in town who was visiting his family. I was not into him but we chatted for awhile as he seemed like a nice person. I kept getting some major red flags though and did not give him my number even as a business contact.

Ironically, I had grabbed a book from my shelf the other day called “The Gift of Fear” (every woman should read this!) and I really honored this discomfort I felt when I was in this position.

I’ve been thinking about this and realized how easy it is to be stalked or harassed and how careless I’ve been over the years.

From an online perspective, all someone has to do is look up your name and usually it will have info such as:

Your first, middle, and last name

Birthday

Your phone number

Your home address and past ones

Your social media profiles

Your voting party

Your family members and ex partners names

How much you earn a year

Businesses and LLCs

Check yourself out and see what comes up!

Today I did the various things:

1.) went through my FB and IG and carefully deleted people, made everything private, changed my name to an alias

2.) opted out of every single online page that had my info on it

3.) looked at my business accounts and noticed one on google has my home address so I’m working that out.

I’m basically going anonymous and I feel really good about it.

Next up I am getting an alarm, a dog, figuring out how to use my pepper spray properly, and going to look into some more safety tips. I go biking, hiking, and walking pretty often so need to figure out how to stay even safer.

I already have a motion detector camera but I’ve been lax on that, too.

Just wanted to share. Any other tips?

Stay safe, ladies.