> Of all the people I've gotten random chat requests from, they've all been from the area near me, so I suspect that when you go to find a "random chat" person it automatically finds someone from nearby as your details suggest - because I know that for others this has been the case too, so if not then the probability of those cases I've heard of occurring coincidentally would be astronomically low!
>
> So don't worry, I don't think it's a conspiracy against you!

Well, I have since come to some conclusions about what could have happened if we eliminate the conspiracy theory.

The first girl to contact me was truly random. Geographical location was the guiding factor.

After this first contact, I had noticed that my ICQ profile did not say very much about me, so I went and filled in more details, partly so that people who ICQ'd me at random would have a better idea of what they were getting into. :-)

Subsequent contacts were made by people whose profiles showed similar interests to the ones I had entered in my profile. I even asked one of them what her reasons were for choosing me to chat with, and she said "Honestly? It said you were a Christian". That was one of the things that I added to my profile after the first girl contacted me. So now I'm thinking that the pace picked up all of a sudden because I had just changed my profile information and now people who would have passed me by are chatting with me because of common interests... My paranoia is almost completely dispelled. :-)

Don "The Monkey'That's my story and I'm stickin' to it'man" Jackson