Hello, I'm your creepy stalker!

[Galloism]

If the ex wanted you to know information about the new girl he would have given it to you directly, going around his back to run a damn background check on her is both a breach of trust and sketch as hell.

pffft

would it have been a violation of trust to ask around about her? thats what she would have done 20 years ago. today you google her. the problem is that there is so much info on the net these days that you can find with a bare minimum of effort.

You wouldn't find shit on me. I don't put anything about myself on the internet.

Best you could possibly hope for it age, current address, and possibly phone number, and even the phone number ain't bloody likely.

Curiously, if you *couldn't* find someone on the internet, would that concern you?

[Parthenon]

If the ex wanted you to know information about the new girl he would have given it to you directly, going around his back to run a damn background check on her is both a breach of trust and sketch as hell.

pffft

would it have been a violation of trust to ask around about her? thats what she would have done 20 years ago. today you google her. the problem is that there is so much info on the net these days that you can find with a bare minimum of effort.

Asking other people about her is still a breach of trust and sketchy as hell when dealing with the new fling of an ex.

[BunnySaurus Bugsii]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." -- Clarke's Third Law, revised.

If they find it creepy, they're lamers.

Yeah, but magic has no inherent (non)creepiness factor, you see.

For example, if I had the magic ability to make clothes see-through.. using it overtly for everyone to see on the hot chick doing a presentation up front, it'd be a great thing, and not creepy. Using it on the fat professor and so that it'd be just for my own eyes, it'd be way creepy.

... I think I got lost in my unintended non-analogy.

I think I followed it.

Fat and unhealthy professors out!
We want hot lecturers!
Fat and *mumble* professors out!
We want hot lectures!
Fat professors out!
Hot lectures!
Fat 'fessers out!

"Oh, fuck it. Another bum protest. Let's get beer and pizza!"

[Waterlow]

Hmm. It's easy to start along that path and go a bit too far. At what point you've gone 'too far' is regrettably tricky to determine, mind.

I think I'd be slightly unsettled by someone 'stalking' me in the manner you've described but if I don't find out and nothing is used against me by the stalker then I guess no harm is done. I quite appreciate my privacy, however, and feel quite odd when I discover I've been the sibject of discussion by others (particularly the dreaded comparing of notes).

What dating website...? I know people who are on sites that charge and I can't understand why as there's at least one free site that caters reasonably well for all one's friend with benefits / polyamorous needs.

[Starblaydia]

I know people who are on sites that charge and I can't understand why as there's at least one free site that caters reasonably well for all one's friend with benefits / polyamorous needs.

Yeah, but they're closing NS2 down. You'll need to find another one.

[Waterlow]

I know people who are on sites that charge and I can't understand why as there's at least one free site that caters reasonably well for all one's friend with benefits / polyamorous needs.

Yeah, but they're closing NS2 down. You'll need to find another one.

This game appears to have changed rather a lot in my long absence.

[Ashmoria]

If the ex wanted you to know information about the new girl he would have given it to you directly, going around his back to run a damn background check on her is both a breach of trust and sketch as hell.

pffft

would it have been a violation of trust to ask around about her? thats what she would have done 20 years ago. today you google her. the problem is that there is so much info on the net these days that you can find with a bare minimum of effort.

You wouldn't find shit on me. I don't put anything about myself on the internet.

Best you could possibly hope for it age, current address, and possibly phone number, and even the phone number ain't bloody likely.

Curiously, if you *couldn't* find someone on the internet, would that concern you?

at this point, no, its not suspicious to not be on the net. there are some few of us who arent on myspace/facebook with a minute by minute update to what we are doing.

its more of a problem that you might find out info on another person of the same name.

[Arizona Nova]

I just know that, some day in the future, I'll be reading topics like this on SomethingAwful's front page via Weekend Web.

Edit: Hint: If you have to ask the internet "is this creepy?" it probably is.

[Ashmoria]

pffft

would it have been a violation of trust to ask around about her? thats what she would have done 20 years ago. today you google her. the problem is that there is so much info on the net these days that you can find with a bare minimum of effort.

Asking other people about her is still a breach of trust and sketchy as hell when dealing with the new fling of an ex.

i beg to differ.

it is only human to want to find out something about the friend of a friend. talking about each other is what we DO as people.

if you expect to never be talked about or to never have your new girlfriend asked about ....you are going to be sorely disappointed. it is neither fair nor realisitic to expect.

[BunnySaurus Bugsii]

To be sincere, I considered the privacy implications of everything, from deep in my childhood.

It's "don't tell a lie." That's the basis of it.

If you never tell anyone what you consider truly private ... and after having told, you adjust to the idea that everyone could know ... then gossip can't hurt you.

And walking down the street, I'm fine with the idea that someone (or everyone) might be wearing x-ray contact lenses, and be able to see that I'm wearing a cockring. In my bed, or what I mutter to myself, someone could see and hear.

It's "God is watching always" but I put "someone" in the place of God.

I think it is almost certain, btw, that future people examine anything they want to from the past ... ie, me and my cockring. It's the price you pay for access to information. Privacy is dead.

When I get the opportunity, I will go back and examine in the detail of all the senses, whatever I am curious about. Why not? How can we harm people in the past?

[Ashmoria]

To be sincere, I considered the privacy implications of everything, from deep in my childhood.

It's "don't tell a lie." That's the basis of it.

If you never tell anyone what you consider truly private ... and after having told, you adjust to the idea that everyone could know ... then gossip can't hurt you.

And walking down the street, I'm fine with the idea that someone (or everyone) might be wearing x-ray contact lenses, and be able to see that I'm wearing a cockring. In my bed, or what I mutter to myself, someone could see and hear.

It's "God is watching always" but I put "someone" in the place of God.

I think it is almost certain, btw, that future people examine anything they want to from the past ... ie, me and my cockring. It's the price you pay for access to information. Privacy is dead.

When I get the opportunity, I will go back and examine in the detail of all the senses, whatever I am curious about. Why not? How can we harm people in the past?

our relationships with others would be so different if we could google "the truth" about them and find all the icky things that we all do now and then. no more pretense of being better people than we really are.

[Treznor]

Curiosity is never a bad thing, but there's a reason I post under a pseudonym wherever I go. Doing an ego search on my proper name doesn't return much useful information, because I never know who wants to misuse it. The folks who claim that "if you've done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide" apparently never paid attention to the McCarthy-era communist witch hunts.

Anyway, I say go for it. If she freely posts information about herself on the internet, then she has no right to complain when someone looks it up when they get curious. Same with folk who try to scold you for doing the research: what's wrong with being curious?

[Buffett and Colbert]

If you listen to the old geezers, you'll hear that with the arrival of any new technology, the world is certain to end.

If you listen to me, you'll now be informed that I think that with the arrival of any new technology, a whole world of etiquette and norms is certain to end, and the search for a new such world begins.

For now, take the internet, and the vast array of information about people it provides. Where's the line between "fair game / normal curiosity", and where does "creepy stalker / violation of privacy" begin?

Here's the bloggy part: My best friend, ex-boyfriend, and ex-fuckbuddy has recently acquired a new woman, and has provided me with her first name and the fact that she sings in a choir with another person whose first name I know. Now I'm no stranger to the internet, and curious to boot, so that knowledge has easily combined to a smart search that quickly led me to her full name and age, and from then on of course it was just another click to see her current occupation/workplace, her myspace, lots of photos, her activities in various clubs.. Now I thought this was all normal curiosity about your best friend's new love, and so when I mentioned in passing to my friend some days later that I thought it was cool she played volleyball as well and we should organize a beach match soon, I never expected his rather shocked reaction ("How the fuck do you know she plays volleyball? ZOMG that's creepy!!"), and was in turn shocked that it was deemed very strange that I had done that.

So, NSG, what sayeth you: Is googling another person (and browsing through the links that come up) fair game, or is it an unfair exploit of the new possibilities? When does such info-gathering become creepy?

You don't tell people these things! I've done this myself a couple of times but there's no way in Hell I'll tellanybody about!

[Neu Leonstein]

*sings*

[SoWiBi]

If the ex wanted you to know information about the new girl he would have given it to you directly, going around his back to run a damn background check on her is both a breach of trust and sketch as hell.

I don't see myself as having done a background check, I see myself as having collected information about someone who interests me because she newly entered my life, but whom I have barely any information about.
My ex is perfectly fine with me knowing all there is to know about her, and he tells me as much as he can - but there's loads he doesn't know (but that interests me), and lots he can't really tell me (when I asked him what she looked like he wasn't able to say anything that'd help me, so I looked for a pic).
I'm sorry to hear that some of you appear to have very bad experiences when it comes to ex-SOs, but let it be said that my ex and I have a very good relationship and absolutely zero trust issues.

[SoWiBi]

Curiously, if you *couldn't* find someone on the internet, would that concern you?

No. Actually, I'd be curiously intrigued whether it's because they've been lucky, or because they are as conscious about privacy and data protection as I am, and use that as a welcome conversation topic.

.. and yes, I *have* started conversations with people I've just newly met with "Hey, I'm glad we finally get to know each other more than just in passing - there's virtually no info on you on the web; I'm curious to learn more about you now!", and it's gone just fine.

[SoWiBi]

What dating website...? I know people who are on sites that charge and I can't understand why as there's at least one free site that caters reasonably well for all one's friend with benefits / polyamorous needs. ;)

Yeah, same here. I'm on a local, free website, and it suits me just dandy. I'm not going to pay so that some robot/script, however sophisticated, tells me who is a "good match" and who isn't.

[SoWiBi]

Edit: Hint: If you have to ask the internet "is this creepy?" it probably is.

*checks for guns to her head*

No, actually, I didn't *have to* ask the internet whether it's creepy or not.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not seeking "validation" or "absolution" for my action here. I've posted this driven by curiosity about how "the general public" perceives this thing that I hadn't even thought of as possibly creepy, and now that I got a slightly different reaction IRL from one person, wanted to see whether my creep-o-meter was off or his.

I'm fine with what I did, it goes absoutely okay with my norms/standards, and if The Internet decides it was creepy, that won't change my personal assessment.

[Aelosia]

What dating website...? I know people who are on sites that charge and I can't understand why as there's at least one free site that caters reasonably well for all one's friend with benefits / polyamorous needs.

Yeah, same here. I'm on a local, free website, and it suits me just dandy. I'm not going to pay so that some robot/script, however sophisticated, tells me who is a "good match" and who isn't.

Wow, pay dating sites actually work in America? My dating site is Facebook

[SoWiBi]

Wow, pay dating sites actually work in America? My dating site is Facebook

Ah, but with "actual" dating websites, the intent is so much clearer, which makes it easier to get a "chat-up" to go into the right direction.

[Aelosia]

Wow, pay dating sites actually work in America? My dating site is Facebook

Ah, but with "actual" dating websites, the intent is so much clearer, which makes it easier to get a "chat-up" to go into the right direction.

Uhmmm, with my life, I might need one of those, I feel so many times I am losing precious hours playing around...

[Treznor]

Wow, pay dating sites actually work in America? My dating site is Facebook

Ah, but with "actual" dating websites, the intent is so much clearer, which makes it easier to get a "chat-up" to go into the right direction.

Uhmmm, with my life, I might need one of those, I feel so many times I am losing precious hours playing around...

You could always come visit! I could get Kaenei to do the same.

[Galloism]

I want a stalker.

[Treznor]

I want a stalker.

I'm sure I can accommodate you.

[Galloism]

I want a stalker.

I'm sure I can accommodate you.

A female stalker.