Can You Google Your Way to Love?
Google can tell us a lot but not everything about dates & potential mates.
Perhaps, I reasoned, my friend Matt Ray was onto something. He's the only person I know who never googles in the name of love—all the more fascinating because, as a network architect and security expert in Seattle, he googles hackers for a living. "The dating process moves fast enough already,"he says. "Emails, instant messages, and cell-phone calls truncate what used to be a longer process. By the time I started dating my last girlfriend we had exchanged 15 emails, and who knows how many lines of IM. Come the second or third date, we had covered at least 50 percent of the significant gettingto-know-you data. And knowing everything up front takes away the allure of start-up dates."He had a point.
So, when I received a flirtatious email from a friend of a friend, I thought twice before calling up my favorite search engine. Maybe it was time to live and let live. Let fate takes its course. Stop allowing a technology that gets hit on a trillion times a day determine who gets to hit on me. Sadly, this line of thinking lasted about 15 minutes. (See chocolate cake rationale.) I typed his name.
As it turns out, the guy was extraordinarily good on screen: exceptional job, history of charitable giving, obviously athletic, good-looking. (Yes, I image search. But I draw the line at Google Earth. When you know what his apartment building looks like, you have to cop to stalking.) So, I took a chance and responded with a flirty email, which led to more, flirtier emails and, eventually, brunch. In person, he was just as intelligent, kind-hearted, athletic, and handsome as my research indicated. He was funny, personable, interesting, and ... gay.
The good Google had failed to mention that. I walked away from the restaurant convinced that this was my final, cosmic punishment—what I deserved for taking an illegal shortcut on the road to Mr. Right.
Google is good for finding many things: the winning word for a knock-down, dragout game of Scrabble; the tax break that'll buy you a new couch; perfect shoes. But when it comes to finding The One, no one gets to click a mouse and discover a New Yorker-reading, pastry-baking, compliment-smothering husband. Whether you like it or not, the only way to discover the good stuff—common values, unbelievable chemistry, unstoppable laughter—is to engage in the endless cycle of expectation and disappointment known as dating.
Google may seem all-powerful, but it's simply no match for the oldest search of all.
Marnie Hanel is a former YourTango senior editor.
Do not google her.
Discussion
I don't think that google is the be all end all. There is no way of knowing if the person who comes up in your searches is really the person you are looking for. I googled my name one time for fun and it came up with a film actress. I have never acted on film in my life. I tried looking up my dance teacher once and only found people with the same name as her except on the dance studio website--despite the fact that she has been in movies with famous actors.
A few years ago, while watching the news, I heard an unusual but familiar name, going back about 30 years in history. The name was that of my brother's ex-girlfriend when they were in college. Why was she being mentioned in the news? Because she and her current boyfriend had been indicted & convicted of luring and kidnapping a young teenage girl on the Internet, and holding her as a sex slave for several weeks in their basement. And to think that this age 40+ woman had been a sweet teenager who used to share our bedroom when she stayed over on weekends. Scary.....
I would never have considered googling anyone. I didn't google my husband, but in my defense I have known him since we were kids. It is just not somethign that would have ever crossed my mind. Though now that I think about it...its not a bad idea.
First, anyone who doesn't try to find out as much as possible about a stranger they're considering to date is a fool.
Second, and much bigger, is our contractor. During the time he was working on our house he was jailed in May, '06. I googled him, repeatedly, and nothing came up until July, '06 when I heard he was jailed again. I started googling again and finally found the article, only written in July, that both arrests involved him holding his wife and her child at knife point and a SWAT team that had to close off blocks around his house. These were not his first domestic violence issues. I had been home alone with him as were my children. Bottom line - definitely google strangers (or even not strangers) you're considering getting involved in but don't take it as the "be all end all."
Google made me feel more confident that he was who he said he was. My online dating service encouraged a little detective work. I am just starting back into dating. I think a little is good, just confirm the esentials. This last time I checked on too much and sure enough, it did deflate the fun of finding out in person about the guy. And the one important thing..the deal breaker for me, I couldn't have found that out through Google anyway.
