Google me this

Friend: So, how many dates before I'm supposed to know the guy's last name?
Me: You don't know his last name yet?!?
Friend: No... Is that weird? Why does it matter at this point?
Me: How the heck are you going to Google him if you don't know his last name?

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I've recently come to the conclusion that there are two types of people in this world: those who think nothing of Googling someone's name just out of harmless curiosity, and those who think doing so is tantamount to parking your car outside said person's house and keeping an eye on them through a pair of dark glasses and a set of binoculars.* I am, of course, in the former school of thought.

I know I'm not alone, because Nabbalicious has mentioned recreational Google-sleuthing more than once as well. But surely it can't be just us.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't something I spend hours a week doing (not even in particularly unmotivated and procrastination-prone weeks). Often the name I choose to Google is someone I haven't even thought about in years and have no intention of actually contacting, but typing in the name is just the electronic-age equivalent of wondering out loud, "I wonder whatever happened to..."

Rarely does the search even turn up anything helpful. Google knows, for example, that my old friend Craig's grandmother died, but it can't tell me anything about Craig himself. I already knew my first maybe-boyfriend was an EMT and volunteer firefighter; can't Google find me a picture as well? Oh. Skinny Joe has his own business now. Don't you have any more information on that, Big G?

I don't typically Google strangers, of course. Unless that stranger (or near stranger) is a prospective date. I'll admit it--since I started meeting people online, the first thing I do upon receiving an email that contains the guy's full real name is Google it to see what turns up.

I don't even know what I'm looking for, really. I could take the paranoid and pessimistic high-ground and say I'm weeding out thieves and rapists before they know where I live, but surely only the most well-documented criminals will ever turn up in such a search anyway. If I were trying to figure out the more realistic and relevant dirt (Does he have terrible taste in music and movies? An embarrassingly awful laugh? Does he yell at waitresses and store clerks?), I'm not going to find it on Google. If there were a national blacklist for ex-boyfriend data (now there's an idea I should pursue further at some point...), perhaps personality flaws and relationship sins would be documented by first and last name for prospective future girlfriends to research. Until that's developed, however, I have to find these things out the old-fashioned way: by actually getting to know the guy myself.

Pre-date Googling, then, isn't so much about finding anything useful, but just the fun and the challenge of finding anything at all. The Internet has become so far-reaching that even seemingly uncommon names can yield numerous red herring results. Is my date the "stable isotope laboratory" guy, or the one by the same name who shows up under "Shop for hardcore gay XXX movies"?** I was pretty certain it wasn't the latter (I'd seen the guy's picture, after all), but found it hilarious and shocking nonetheless.

I have a few friends who think this Googling habit is some unforgivable invasion of privacy. This comes mostly from married friends who haven't had a need to research prospective dates since well before the turn of the century. Just to make sure I'm not alone, however, I've brought the topic up on a date more than once. So far I've yet to find anyone particularly thrown by the news that he's been Googled. When I told this guy that I'd found a picture of him with his high school soccer team, he just nodded, "Yes, yes; I Googled you, too of course." Another guy, when I told him I found very little in my search, sent me a tinyURL to all hits for his name. We're all equally curious and vain; we've all Googled our own names and know what turns up (or if we haven't, we certainly should... If I were the XXX movies guy, for instance, I'd probably want to know about that hit myself before a prospective girlfriend pointed it out).

Lucky for me, the only hits for my full name are entirely benign and uninteresting work-related items. If some guy should choose to conduct his search with slightly less specific information, however, I may have more cause for concern.


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* Incidentally, you might also say that there are two types of people in this world: those who use the phrase "there are two types of people in this world" as a way to polarize everyone into black-and-white categories and those who don't. I really am usually in the latter group.

** I can't wait to see the Sitemeter referrals I get after boldly typing this right out with no masking or filtering whatsoever.