Probably the best thing about the internet is that it allows you to KNOW EVERYTHING IMMEDIATELY. Is a moose bigger than a horse? What’s a “Kylie Jenner”? Does zucchini bread count as a vegetable? Could I beat a deer in a fight? What the fuck is the Huffington Post? It’s a beautiful thing, this internet, though not without its pitfalls. Nowhere are the internet’s beauty and its pitfalls so apparent as in the realm of romance.
For the first time in human history, huge swaths of the dating pool have voluntarily cataloged their own intimate details and drunken photos for the ready, instant browsing of any creepy goober with internet access. Your crushes, your exes, your potential OKCupid dates—pretty much all of them are going to have some sort of online presence, if you know where to look (which, come on, you obviously do). This can be great, if you want to vet tomorrow night’s date for pick-up artist tendencies, Republicanism, or wintertime flip-flops. Or, it can be terrible, if you get so caught up in the virtual life of the guy you lost your virginity to that you knit a set of dog-socks when his beagle gets sick and mail them to him even though you two haven’t spoken since 1998. That is BAD. DO NOT DO THAT. For all its boons, the internet is basically an automated crossing-the-line machine.
Arwa Mahdawi at the Guardian has an excellent roundup of guidelines for how to investigate a potential mate without getting caught and spending the rest of your life in shame-prison (or, worst case scenario, actual prison). My personal favorites:
Don’t compile a dating dossier
There’s
a point at which a little light stalking goes from “research” into
“psychopathic behaviour”. The point at which this line is crossed is up
for debate. Nevertheless if manila folders are ever involved you can be
pretty certain you’re in weirdo territory. My friend Britta, for
example, went back to the apartment of a guy she’d been dating for a
couple of weeks to discover he had a folder labelled “Britta” in plain
view on his desk. “I was sitting on his lap at the time so I asked him
about it,” said Britta. “And he pulled out a bunch of random photos from
my Facebook page. It was awkward for both of us.”
Do destroy the evidence
While
you may not have a binder full of women on your desk, a little online
research can leave a very large trace. Getting out your phone to show
your date a hilarious YouTube video of prancing pygmy goats (everyone
does this, right?) only to realise that their LinkedIn profile is still
open on your screen is a serious first-world problem. My normal advice
in situations like this would be to drink copiously. However, I’m a
little worried that someone I’m semi-interested in would think less of
me for suggesting this. So, in case she’s stalking my digital footprint,
let’s, errr, move swiftly on. In short, cookies are never your friend,
and clear your history if you want any chance of a future.
Do know how much stalking is too much stalking
Seven pages into Google is too much.
Seconded, all of it. But this is a juicy topic, and I think we can come up with plenty more (leave yours in the comments!). Here are a few that came to mind for me: