To Search or Not To Search
- Friday, December 28 2012 @ 10:32 am
- Contributed by: Jet
- Views: 946
Perhaps you’ve been talking to someone new that you’ve met through an online dating site. They seem great, but maybe you’re just feeling a little cautious because your mother keeps emailing you stories about dating scams. Or maybe they seem a little too good to be true. Or maybe you’re just plain curious. So you do what any logical person would do: you turn to your friendly neighborhood search engine.
What happens next is where things get dicey. How much searching should you actually do? Where’s the line between concerned citizen and near-stalker? And do you ever tell your date that you’ve been checking up on them?
There’s no set etiquette for this situation, and really you’re going to have to play it by ear and base it on the situation. However, following are a few factors to bear in mind.
First of all, you should ask yourself why you’re really searching. If you’re just verifying that your date is a real person with a real history, a quick skim should do the trick. Anything beyond that and you’re going to have to admit to yourself that you’re just being nosy. You might try to justify it to yourself, but there’s really no reason to go delving into, say, past relationship history on that blog from seven years ago. Poke around all you like, but be honest with yourself about it.
As for whether you should admit to your date that you’ve done some searching, well, that depends on what you’re going to admit to seeing. There’s nothing wrong with the quick-verification search; in today’s world of relative paranoia and easy information, it’s almost expected. Still, it doesn’t hurt to look a little sheepish, no matter how innocent and cursory your perusing was. Even if you have the best of intentions, you’re entering their personal space by trying to find out parts of their life that they haven’t explicitly shared; a little acknowledgement of that fact goes a long way.
If you really have gone delving into ancient social networking pages and forum posts, you might want to keep that to yourself. Your date will only distract themselves wondering exactly what you’ve seen, or get embarrassed, and you don’t want to be responsible for making them uncomfortable. If things progress into a serious relationship, maybe then you can confess that you listened to recordings from their old garage band.
Finally, remember that the door swings both ways: others might be searching for information about you, too. There’s not much you can do about what’s already out there, other than prepare yourself for the possibility that it’ll be seen, but keep potential searches in mind before you make any new information public. And if a date reveals that they’ve been looking you up, don’t take it personally! After all, we’ve all done it.
What happens next is where things get dicey. How much searching should you actually do? Where’s the line between concerned citizen and near-stalker? And do you ever tell your date that you’ve been checking up on them?
There’s no set etiquette for this situation, and really you’re going to have to play it by ear and base it on the situation. However, following are a few factors to bear in mind.
First of all, you should ask yourself why you’re really searching. If you’re just verifying that your date is a real person with a real history, a quick skim should do the trick. Anything beyond that and you’re going to have to admit to yourself that you’re just being nosy. You might try to justify it to yourself, but there’s really no reason to go delving into, say, past relationship history on that blog from seven years ago. Poke around all you like, but be honest with yourself about it.
As for whether you should admit to your date that you’ve done some searching, well, that depends on what you’re going to admit to seeing. There’s nothing wrong with the quick-verification search; in today’s world of relative paranoia and easy information, it’s almost expected. Still, it doesn’t hurt to look a little sheepish, no matter how innocent and cursory your perusing was. Even if you have the best of intentions, you’re entering their personal space by trying to find out parts of their life that they haven’t explicitly shared; a little acknowledgement of that fact goes a long way.
If you really have gone delving into ancient social networking pages and forum posts, you might want to keep that to yourself. Your date will only distract themselves wondering exactly what you’ve seen, or get embarrassed, and you don’t want to be responsible for making them uncomfortable. If things progress into a serious relationship, maybe then you can confess that you listened to recordings from their old garage band.
Finally, remember that the door swings both ways: others might be searching for information about you, too. There’s not much you can do about what’s already out there, other than prepare yourself for the possibility that it’ll be seen, but keep potential searches in mind before you make any new information public. And if a date reveals that they’ve been looking you up, don’t take it personally! After all, we’ve all done it.
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