[filoleg]

I agree with your overall point that what the parent comment is suggesting might be not a nice way to treat your friends.

However, if someone feels an equivalent amount of distress from having a convo with a fake person on a dating app as they would from thinking that some terrible accident happened to their kid at school, I believe they might have some larger personal problems to address first.

[neolog]

It's easy to forget how rare it is for some people to get any romantic validation in their lives. You finally meet someone who appreciates you, and then it turns out to be some asshole messing with you and mocking you publicly -- that's deeply horrible.