Stalking / Research...... finding out about everyone in the modern age!

Ok so lets say I went to a bar.... and lets say a gentleman starts up a random conversation with you and buys you a drink or four.... and you give him your phone number and he gives you his business card. Now what do you do with this information?? Of course, you either drunkenly that night.... or very hungover the night before (depending on whether or not you "accidentally" went home with said gentleman) online stalk him!!! This was brought to my attention by The Party Girl who made the very good point that Friendster was an excellent source of info...... Oh but that's just the tip of the iceberg........

1) Avenues like Friendster, MySpace, Connexion, The Facebook, all good places to go to see what a potential person likes....dislikes..... etc. etc. It also lets you know what type of people THEY hang out with, on more than one occasion I've had to write off a guy for having a HEINOUS HEINOUS coterie of friends *read* friends consisted of bitchy queens who have more collagen in their face than I do in my entire body and eyebrows that are thinner than kate moss on a diet! Or I've had to write them off for any of the reasons in my previous post on the thoughts of the politics of friendster

2) Zabasearch.com....... now here's a gem of a stalking search engine if ever I was directed to one. Yes yes, when I was involved with the more mature gentleman I was discussing said gentleman with my co-workers when one suggested I zabasearch him.... it gives addresses of properties lived at as well as phone numbers and apparently works better than the yellowpages. I tried it and SUCCESS... stalking 101 exam one had been passed!

3) In addendum to Zabasearch there is also a search engine on the washingtonpost real estate section, if the person in question that you are doing "research" on owns their own home, you can put in the address that you have garnered on zabasearch and the price that they paid for their property and/or the prices that people in the area are paying for property will come up. This doesn't stop at homes in the DC area....... the older gentleman definitely paid a pretty penny for the beach block house in Dewey.

4) Last but certainly not least is the wonderful standby of google.com Now where would we be if we couldn't type in a person's name, email, IM, what have you, into google to view the plethora of information that erupts like a zit on the face of a teenager.

Many a relationship has been started at a bar *read* (too drunk to productively flirt and had to excuse ones self and stumble home all the while stuffing Jumbo Slice or Falafel in my mouth) but has ended when it turns out that when they said they work in the FBI, they failed to mention it was in the mail room, they said they graduated from an IVY league school....note *just because your school is in the same STATE as an ivy league school does not make it ivy*...... or mentioned that they own a great place in Logan East that you just HAVE to come see..... yeah I'm gonna go ahead and say that Q and 3rd St. NW doesn't constitute logan east.

...... Maybe I'm a little obsessive.....OR maybe I like finding out a little bit about a fellow so I don't show up to a date unprepared.....

......Maybe I'm abusing the information super highway...... OR maybe I don't remember what you look like from the night before due to one too many 2 for 1 specials at Halo and need a refresher a la friendster before I meet you..........

So thumbs up internet... you've saved this gay boy embarassment from the awkward... ummm and I know you from.......... situation on more than one occasion