# Doing web searches on people of the opposite sex **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 12, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290 "2005-09-12T18:08:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/1 "2005-09-12T18:08:18Z")
Today, a friend and I were talking about our reasons for Googling the names of people we know – especially people of the opposite sex. We said that when we do this, it’s generally (a) because we have business-related reasons for doing so, or (b) because we’re somehow interested in them, esp. in a romantic way. So I was wondering… What about the rest of you? If a guy/gal Googles your name, would you suspect that he or she is into you? ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/2 "2005-09-12T18:43:18Z")
Unless you have a website and it shows your search hits, how would you ever find out? I’ve occasionally searched on the names of women I’ve dated or would like to date, but I wouldn’t necesarily want them to know about it, even if they could. (Of course, if someone _told_ you they googled you, you could just ask, “Hey, are you into me?”) ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/3 "2005-09-12T18:54:55Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > Unless you have a website and it shows your search hits, how would you ever find out? Welll, let’s say that somebody told you, “Hey, I came across your website last week…” ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/4 "2005-09-12T18:56:55Z")
Or perhaps more specifically, “So, I found your website last week. Y’see, I was playing around, entering your name into Google…” ---
**Author:** ![lavenderviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cdc98d/32.png) [@lavenderviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lavenderviolet)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/5 "2005-09-12T19:18:57Z")
Might just mean they were bored. I have certainly done web searches to check out romantic interests, but also on regular friends/enemies/colleagues just out of idle curiosity. Maybe if you give us more background info on how you know this person, we’ll be able to speculate more accurately on what it means? ---
**Author:** ![Asimovian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asimovian/32/172_2.png) [@Asimovian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asimovian)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/6 "2005-09-12T19:20:43Z")
I tend to Google people out of habit whenever I meet someone new that I expect to see on a regular basis. Has nothing to do with romantic interest in my case; just a desire to know where the person has been – er, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/7 "2005-09-12T19:36:20Z")
“So, I was googling your name last night, looking for nekkid pictures of you…” ---
**Author:** ![rinni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2005, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/8 "2005-09-12T23:42:24Z")
This post inspired me to Google my ex-boyfriend (who is still my best friend). Found a message board he posts on. Saw his picture. Am now all shaky at work. Don’t know why it affects me, but it does. I Google him a lot, really. I love everything he writes and I want to see it all. ---
**Author:** ![CynicalGabe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@CynicalGabe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CynicalGabe)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/9 "2005-09-13T01:23:15Z")
> [@rinni](#): > > This post inspired me to Google my ex-boyfriend (who is still my best friend). Found a message board he posts on. Saw his picture. > > Am now all shaky at work. > > Don’t know why it affects me, but it does. > > I Google him a lot, really. I love everything he writes and I want to see it all. What exactly did you see on that message board he posted on? 😕 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 8:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/10 "2005-09-13T08:54:34Z")
Well, I googled the screenname of a coworker that I had something of a crush on recently. And found out she post at a support board for bipolar people. :eek: Not that I should say anything, I am short a couple cards in my tool shed as well. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/11 "2005-09-13T20:40:56Z")
Well, in the grand scheme of things, being bipolar’s not all that bad. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/12 "2005-09-13T22:41:12Z")
I don’t google people’s names all that much but on occasion I will. It’s almost always something that just occurs to me when I am online already. The inspiration varies, but a romantic interest _is_ probably the most common one. Having said that, the level of romantic interest doesn’t seem to be that closely connected with whether I’ll google a person. Certainly if I’m extremely infatuated with a person I will be more likely to think of them when I’m online and so I might be somewhat more likely to google them, but I’ve googled people who only piqued my curiosity slightly and I’ve not googled people who I had a major crush on. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2005, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/13 "2005-09-13T23:57:35Z")
> [@rinni](#): > > This post inspired me to Google my ex-boyfriend (who is still my best friend). Found a message board he posts on. Saw his picture. > . I just googled the same of a former gf and found out where she lived and what her job was. And that she was single. No picture, though… ---
**Author:** ![rinni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f6c823/32.png) [@rinni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rinni)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/14 "2005-09-14T01:02:39Z")
> [@CynicalGabe](#): > > What exactly did you see on that message board he posted on? 😕 > > 🙂 Ehh, not much. Twas just a local anime board. It was just sort of weird to see him being nice to people. He used to make fun of EVERYONE. Didn’t even seem like the same guy. He still makes fun of people to me, though, so I won’t be too upset. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/15 "2005-09-14T16:55:58Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Well, in the grand scheme of things, being bipolar’s not all that bad. Then again, it can be. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/16 "2005-09-14T18:31:03Z")
Yeah, I’ve doen it when I’m bored. Mostly old friends I’ve lost touch with but I still think about. I’m sure people have Googled me but my name’s fairly common so I don’t know what they’d find. (probably mostly guys since I have a unisex name) The one thing I did have happen that I thought was kinda creepy: I was corresponding with a guy I met through a personal ad and we’d moved to email. He mentioned to me he had looked up my [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) wish list. That bothered me a little as I have the wishlist just for stuff that I’m thinking about getting and specifically because I had just added a book about a woman who had placed an ad in the NYT Review of Books and hooked up with numerous guys at the age of 50. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/17 "2005-09-14T18:38:25Z")
Do you ever actually find anything? Because usually I get info on 100 completely people with the same exact name. ---
**Author:** ![taxi78cab](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47c2d/32.png) [@taxi78cab](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taxi78cab)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2005, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/doing-web-searches-on-people-of-the-opposite-sex/321290/18 "2005-09-14T19:00:49Z")
I used to google an ex’s name occasionally but then I realized that the results someday could show that he’d gotten married or had died or something and I got freaked out and haven’t done it since.