I put some pictures up and was my cute, coy alluring self. Needless to say, I received many MANY responses. And I know for guys, you get bots, spammers and whatever else, but rarely an actual girl. So guys were surprised to have a real girl write to them.
The thing is, if I'm writing you, yea I'm interested and something you have said or shown (AKA you're cute) has enticed me. But be warned, I'm going to google you. I'm going to see if you're a crazy, a weirdo, a murderer, etc. In one instance, I was writing this guy for a few days. He was cute and funny and we got along well. We talked on the phone and there seemed to be chemistry. But we were still both strangers to one another. In the time that I had talked to him and emailed him, I knew:
- His full name
- Where he went to school
- Where he lives
- His dogs name
- Where he works
_ And his very uniquely spelled last name
So when I ended up googling him, I find out he is either married or has a sister he is very close with. How did I find this? It turns out, he doesn't have a Facebook. But when I goggled his name, there was a site that listed all the home buyers and sellers of the particular neighborhood where he lived. So his name plus his wife's name was there as well as the latest buyers of the home.
So of course I search for her on Facebook. Again, really uncommon and unique last name. And there she is with a picture of him. There's the same state he grew up in. There's the same dog he told me about.
Dude, if you're going to lie and look for ladies on CL? At least make it less easy to find you online through a few clicks of the mouse. Not that I think cheating is right. I've done it and it kinda ruined things for me emotionally. But if you're going to play the online dating game, know the rules and know that people are going to search for you. It's a given.
Whether or not you have ill will, just be safe and don't be so transparent to the point where personal information about yourself can be easily displayed for any yahoo (myself included) can look you up. If you're going to do the online dating route:
- Create an email just for chatting/corresponding to potential dates
- Don't give out your last name
- Keep things vague till you know them well enough
These are words of advice from me a long time CL Dater.
it's amazing how few people have googled themselves, tried to see what someone else can find out about them with a few basic facts.
ReplyDeletewe should put up a joint list of safety/anonymity for bloggers as well.
god knows that's a whole different spectrum of being careful and such.