IT SEEMS INNOCENT enough: a website that allows you to leave the burdens of adult life behind for a few hours every week and go back to your years as a carefree student, joking with the school friends you left behind.
Millions of people in Britain, Australia and the US have been doing it through a variety of reunion websites and now one of the biggest players in the market, Britain-based Friends Reunited, has launched in Hong Kong.
But beneath the innocence of the sites lie hidden dangers. Many internet users overseas have found that rolling back the years and contacting people from school can sometimes be hugely embarrassing or even devastating.
'One guy went out and caught up with an old flame from 19 years ago after signing up for one of the websites, and left his wife of 13 years,' says Toby Jones, who runs the Hong Kong online dating service wheresmydate.com.hk.
'A friend of mine in London joined Friends Reunited and she had some guy she hadn't seen since school contact her. She may have been naive, but he was married and she didn't think there was any harm in catching up, so she agreed to go to dinner with him when he was staying in a hotel nearby.
'It was really nice to see him and they got on really well, she told me. At the end of the meal, they settled up. He took off his wedding ring and said, 'Let's go back to my room'.'