Ask any "expert" and they’ll tell you that internet stalking your prospective dates is a bad idea.
Why do we Google our dates? To make sure his or her career is successful? To check their criminal records? To make sure he or she hasn't had relations with any of our friends? Maybe, but most of the time we Google to make sure that person doesn't have any traces of what we consider lame.
There's this Louis CK skit where he talks about bullying. Louis fears the internet is creating this generation of demon spawn, completely void of empathy. When a kid calls another kid a "faggot" to his face, the bully sees the reaction and the consequence of his torment. If the kid isn't a total sociopath, this moment will affect him.
When a kid calls another kid a "faggot" on social media, there's this giant disconnect. No facial reaction. No feelings. No real life, just a screen to turn off and walk away from. Nothing resonates.
Maybe Googling the person you are seeing has a similar effect? You can so easily write someone off for "liking" Katy Perry on their Facebook page or retweeting a Stephen Harper quote and never explore any further. Plus, if we consider the fact that any personal profile is created by the individual themselves than this is how that person chooses to represent themselves: the best version of what they think they are. If you can't deal with that, they must be lame. Deal breakers are realized with the click of a button.
If my husband-to-be (how gross I sound saying that, but "fiancé" is worse) and I had Googled one another before we really got to know one another, there is no way we would be together. On the surface, he's a Southern-born, knife-loving, hesher who fronts a heavy metal band and religiously listens to Skynyrd.
I, on the other hand, front a punk band made up of 3/4 women, write about feminism as a career and would (and have in the past) written off a man like him with the flip of my middle finger. On paper, he's the man people assume women like myself are trying to obliterate.
The truth was at first I did keep my husband-to-be at arm's length. I referred to him as "The Pig" and thought of him as my California "slam piece": a man I could have awesome, carefree sex with when we found ourselves in the same city and leave just as easily when the sun came up.
For a while, that's how it was, and it was great. Then, we got to know one another and I realized he was not a sexist metal head. He is actually an extremely talented, careful, curious and loving human being who makes everything into a really hilarious joke. He's had a full life, so far away from the life I grew up knowing, and we teach one another how to be less idiotic every day. I opened myself up to him because despite our surface differences (which, in the end, only account for as much as you let them) I realized that this person had been an intrigue in my life for a year.
There was something there and I wasn't going to let a culture obsessed with the damaging idea that men and women are so drastically different we barely speak the same language make me back down from opening myself up to this person.
"You can't determine if somebody is a potential mate by any means other than being together and looking into [their] eyes," said Brian Alexander, coauthor of The Chemistry Between Us: Love, Sex, and The Science of Attraction. Barf, Shakespeare, but it's true. Without the release of hormones, the smell of someone, the sound of their voice, the whole damn package, we won't really give anyone a chance.
And what about the reverse? How often have you trolled someone online and created a massive crush based entirely on witty tweets and photogenic profile pictures? It sucks when IRL is a devastating let down.
So, I say don't troll too hard before you've even gone on a date. Maybe some of us are okay with masturbating while having relationships with operating systems, but for those who aren't, I suggest the boring, old idea of face-to-face contact and drunken, first-time sex. Sometimes, that stuff can turn into a totally fulfilling relationship.
