Google Is A Single Girl’s Best Friend – Part 1

This post is a guest post written by Amy Halleran, who I met online awhile back through twitter. I asked who might be interested in writing a little guest post and she was one of the first to respond and provide me her article. I think you’ll enjoy it. Let us know what you think in the comments. Perhaps we can convince Amy to write again for us in the future.

Pre Date Screening 1990s:

Lisa phones her best friend Julie (on a land line)

Julie: Hello

Lisa: Guess what?

Julie: I don’t know, what?

Lisa: That guy from the 4th floor asked me out.

Julie: What did you say?

Lisa: Well, I said yes. But I’m a little nervous. I don’t really know anything about him.

Julie: Well he seems like a nice guy from what you’ve said.

Lisa: Yeah I know, but Ted Bundy was a charmer too!

Julie: Ya know I think my friend Brad has a friend that works on the 4th floor. I’ll call him to see if he knows anything about him, then I’ll call you back.

Lisa: OK, thanks!

Pre Date Screening 2000s:

Lisa IM’s her BFF Julie

Lisa: U there?

Julie: yeah, sup?

Lisa: 4th flr guy askd me out

Julie: And?

Lisa: I googled, he’s cool, said yes.

Julie: That Rawks!

Before the dawn of search engines and vast data stores on the world wide web, if a girl wanted to know something about a potential date, the information came from word of mouth. A friend. A friend of a friend. A friend of your step aunt’s, second cousin, twice removed. At that point it was iffy at best if you found out anything at all before dinner.

Now the rules have changed. We are in the age of digital transparency. Privacy is a thinly veiled idea on the interweb. We Press Words, Tweet, Feed Friends, Facebook & Link In our lives as a chronicled proof of our being. Thus creating gushing data streams of personal tidbits ripe for fishing. Please join me in welcoming to the postmodern world of dating, our latest chaperone, Google.

There is an ongoing debate if one should Google a date before dating them. I agree there are pros and cons to this, as with any debate. Single Mom Seeking blogged about it as a negative choice. The NYT, CNN and ABC have all had their own articles written over the last few years.

Be sure and come back to read Part 2, where we find out about the two protocols you should probably observe before Googling that guy from the 4th floor.