Parents might find out about online friends

[LightLili]

Hi, sorry if this isn't much of a problem.
I've been talking to people online for over 3 years now. I've made some of my closest friends online, and actually at the moment I have no friends in real life, only online. This has all been completely against my parents' wishes because they forbade me from ever talking to anybody online (I guess because of pedophiles etc.). Sometimes they'll get suspicious and come right out and ask me if I have online friends and I'll actually just lie and say no because I'm afraid of what they'd do.

Anyway, I have this calendar on my phone where I put my friends' birthdays, and I always make sure I turn the alarm off for them so my parents can't see it. But I guess I wasn't careful enough this time because this morning I saw that an alarm had gone off on my phone for my friend's birthday. It'd been like that since midnight. It said "[Friend's name]'s Birthday" on it. I KNOW my parents saw it because my mom confiscates my phone before I go to bed (it's a whole thing) and checks if it's charged every morning. I panicked because my parents get suspicious at small things like this all the time. They know I have no friends in real life. They know nobody with that friend's name. They'll probably immediately go to secret online friends and I can't come up with a proper excuse.
I don't want to lie to them but I absolutely cannot tell them that I have online friends because I know they'll get extremely upset and take them from me. These are the only friends I have. I have major trouble socializing in real life (I have pretty bad social anxiety [yes, diagnosed]), and I don't know what the hell I'll do if I can't talk to these people anymore. I won't be able to convince my parents that I'm fine talking to these people online and to just let me - my father in particular is impossible to convince like that. I'm worrying that my only option is to come up with some sort of excuse but I'm a terrible at fibbing and frankly, I'm getting sick of it.

Sometimes, in an attempt to protect their children, parents don't always consider everything. It sounds like your parents worry a lot about you using the internet and making friend, which they have every right too, but in doing so they are not taking into account that sometimes online friendships can be really helpful.

Right now, it doesn't sound as though your parents have talked to you about this particular incident so you might be okay. I suppose that if they approach you about it, then it is up to you, to figure out what the best course of action is. I do not encourage lying and I hope that you will be able to come up with some type of answer that won't make you feel dishonest. I am not certain what the best solution is because losing the friend's that you have could impact you negatively but lying to your parents might make you feel crappy (I still struggle with lying to my dad).

If you do not feel like you can be 100% honest with them then maybe you could find an answer that is somewhere in the middle?

I hope that someone else will be able to come along with a better answer.

Best regards.

[Autismscreams]

Tor is a great tool that can help you. Download torbot, orbit, and an icon managing tool. You can disguise your internet use and icons. I wouldn't normally encourage this but sounds like they're going way too far. You can find all the apps you need on the app store. It won't log your history, disguises your ip, provides military grade encryption(takes the NSA to crack it) and can still be used to access surface web nodes like Facebook.

[LightLili]

Thank you very much (: I'll try to figure out the best answer if my parents end up confronting me.. And thanks for the suggestions ^ (:

Hey there,

You have been given some good suggestions but I want to advise that you look into some of the suggestions, carefully, to determine that they are the right options to you. I know that there are times when being open with our parents can do more harm than good. I just want to make sure that you do what is best and safest for you.

Best regards.