The Internet, a Stalker Makes

Ah, The Modern Age. Amazing isn't it? Or increasingly creepy - you decide.

You can order Pampers, Porn and Harry Potter with a few clicks of your mouse and put those goodies to use the very next day. You can have the entire third season of The Office sent to your doorstep the minute it's released on DVD all the while clogging the message boards with your side of the Pam and Jim love story arc and your passionate defense of the American version versus the BBC one while simultaneously waiting for the most adorable photo of John Krasinski to finally upload so you can have a new screen saver/virtual fantasy boyfriend. This is, of course, in between illegally downloading some embarrassing pop songs to your i-Pod (purely for the elliptical gym mix, of course) updating your MySpace page to add more friends than you actually have to appear super popular and finally settling a drunken bet you made the night before with a quick Google and IMDb search. Damn you, Lindsay Lohan. I refuse to come to your defense again. You always let me down, sister. With this never ending source of valuable (and invaluable) information, you can also become a stalker. Unknowingly. But a stalker, nonetheless.

I remember when you went out on a date with someone you didn't really know and actually found out about them through conversation, more dates and more conversation. Weird, I know. But now all you need to do is Google someones name and you can easily find out way more information than you should know about someone without their permission. And because it is available on the Internet they have granted their permission, right? Then there are the zillions of networking sites that seem to be growing daily - MySpace, Facebook, Friendster (yep, that one's still around, grandma). It's difficult NOT to find incriminating information about someone on the net. And now, some morons are even getting fired or never hired at all right out of fancy biz school due to their careless nipple shots on Flickr or declarations of love for pussy and beer on Twitter. I stopped dating a dude when I found his band's website with the most god awful improvisational "music" I ever forced my ears to listen to. Sorry ears. I'm still apologizing. The Internet is powerful.

Like that moment after we all got cell phones and couldn't remember what life was like before we all had one, now it's almost reckless NOT to find out more deets on a person before going out on an Internet date. I mean these are strangers after all. No matter how much you've bonded through e-mail over the latest Modest Mouse release or your similar 'vegan lifestyles' or the fact that you both like to have cocktails outside (duh), you are meeting with someone who could be a bona fide cuckoo pants. Best to see first if they are involved in some furry fetish or right wing social group or book club that looks suspiciously like a front for some furry fetish republican swingers organization before knocking back a couple Mojitos with that potential prospect, am I right??

But how far do you go before turning that stalker corner and heading straight into crazy town? It's hard to know. Your idea of stalking, could be my version of good, investigative research. But seriously, we've entered some creep out territory with this new feature of Google's map service called Street View. It allows for you to see the street (and all of the buildings, of which you can zoom in to get a better view) of the address you type in. Say, your favorite dog run or perhaps your local playground or maaaaybe outside that apartment of the pretty lady you've recently taken out on two (kinda expensive) dates who hasn't returned your phone calls or e-mails because maybe she moved or something and you just want to check out if she is still there....you know, to make sure she's all right. Because you had a...connection....and...what the? That Bitch! You know where this is heading....right? Somewhere bad. Somewhere not good. There needs to be a little mystery still. We didn't all sign up to be Paris Hilton.

Smarty Pants is out of town but knows that I went on a walking tour around Brooklyn over the weekend. I actually called him during the tour, knowing he would have appreciated the architecture. ok - don't fall asleep - we're not that geeky all the time. But the next day he sent me a link of Flickr photographs that someone had taken and posted of that day's tour and I actually saw one of the people I was with in a shot! It kinda creeped me out. And the title of his e-mail was 'keeping tabs'. It wasn't his e-mail necessarily but the fact that you can get that kind of immediate information on such an intimate level clearly from across the country by just typing in a few words in a search engine. In no way do I think that he's a stalker but I know from personal experience how an innocent gets sucked into this kind of technology purely out of curiosity. Normal people get obsessive. And already obsessive people get on the verge of manic. Sometimes it's good just to turn off and keep that mystery going. I know that's not very modern of me but I think it's clear by now that sometimes I can be an old fashioned kind of gal....

who just figured out what a widget is to add music to her blog. What do you think?