Love Lessons"Before doing my story, I had
never even thought about many
of the things in the story
template, and they’re important."
V.B.
Get the scoop to get a guy for a lifetime.
but THE GUY you want to spend the rest of your life with. Welcome to the information age! You can do your own sleuthing and learn just about anything you want to know on the Internet. Now since you’re reading this blog post, I’m assuming you have a modicum of technical ability online.
So you have a first date set up and you don’t know too much about the man in question. Lots of women know to simply type his name and city into Google and see what comes up—but do you really know what to look for and how to find more info? This tactic requires that you can differentiate your date from others with the same name. If he has a common name, you may be out of luck until you know him better and can discern who’s who. No sense in setting off alarm bells where none should be ringing.
• If you’re getting mixed results, add any disqualifiers (for example, names of nearby suburbs where other Daniel Dreamguys live)
• Select 100 results per page
• If you want recent items, add a date qualifier from the bottom of the advanced search page
• Do a search for him at Google Images (this works best if you already know what he looks like so you can dismiss the results for others with the same name)
• Ditto, search for him on Flickr, YouTube and similar sites—if he’s on there, you may hit paydirt, finding all sorts of interesting images
What can be really useful is to wade through someone’s entire online trail of activity. Basically, every time you post anything online, it can eventually be found again by anyone who knows how to look for it. If your guy has been a busy bee online, there will be lots to evaluate, and you’ll be able to learn things about him even he’s forgotten about. Don’t ignore these sorts of search results:
• Product testimonials. You’d be surprised what things people divulge when they don’t realize their comment will live forever online.
• Forum postings. Where does he hang out online and what does he need help with? Or is he an expert who volunteers his time to selflessly help others with their problems?
• Fan sites. What are his interests and loves?
• Gaming sites. Does he devote a lot of time to Internet gaming? If so, what sort of games does he play?
• Blog comments. These can be enormously revealing, because he’s responding to a post by someone else (be sure and read that, too).
• Social media sites. If he’s a regular on Twitter, you’ll probably learn a LOT about this guy. Just be sure you understand his motivation for tweeting before you judge him from his tweets. If he tweets in support of a business or cause, it may give a skewed view of who he is.
• Letters to the editor or other media responses. Anytime someone makes the effort to write a reply to something he’s read or seen, you can be sure it’s a subject he feels strongly about.
So you’ve spent a few hours checking up on this guy—now what? Should you tell him you did that? Only you can answer that one, and it’s probably best to take it on a case by case basis. If the guy is very open about having a blog or Twitter account, then he won’t be surprised if you’ve checked those out, so by all means let him know you read his latest posts or tweets. That’s a surefire conversation starter and it won’t hurt his ego either.
On the other hand, if all you found were older, obscure tidbits, commenting on those may come off as stalkerish. However, if anything you come across causes you concern, before too many dates go by, it can’t hurt to bring them up for clarification. It could be something from his past that turns out to be a deal breaker, so wouldn’t you rather know sooner rather than later? Keep your tone light, as in: “Hey, just for fun, I Googled you last night…and guess what came up?”
Don’t forget to Google yourself, too. Especially if you’re going to discuss what you found out about him, be prepared to talk about whatever he’ll find out about you. If you find things you wish you hadn’t said or done, take action in advance to try and remove them. If there are old photos of you online that could now prove embarrassing, try asking whoever posted them if they’d remove yours—or at least remove your name from the caption. Be ready to explain anything curious about you that may be unearthed.
If a guy you’re interested in is active online, then you’ll have a built-in way to follow his interests and lots of ways to stay in touch—and even flirt with him. You’d be surprised how much fun you can have with 140 characters on Twitter—just be sure you send personal messages as Direct Messages (for his eyes only). Otherwise, your tweets may come back to haunt you.
Do you have any stories about flirting online? We’d love to hear them.
