Anyone remember that show? Where they would bring people on and then have them guess the voice of the person from their past? That's all I remember about it, I don't know what the actual purpose was other than to surprise the person with old friends.

Not too long ago Tessie who is Messing with Texas was writing about googling ex's and I remember thinking that I don't have many to google. Now that doesn't stop me from trying, or from googling everyone I've EVER met. But, I only had one boy, other than Brian, that I ever even entertained (okay so maybe in my earlyish college years I was pretty damned sure) the idea of marrying. Sure I dated lots of boys and kissed even more. In fact, I have one friend who may or may not have used this as her first question when I would excitedly call her to guess who I ran into, "Did you kiss him or not?" too narrow down the playing field. I'll leave it to you to decide which segment of the male Gator population was smaller, those I did or did not kiss.

Believe it or not this tangent ties into another that actually relates to the topic. The person who penned the above first question, of our very special version of "20 Questions-Guess Who", has a younger brother. And last night hubby was channel surfing and paused on Jeopardy. I don't recall that we have ever in 14 years together watched Jeopardy. But for some reason he stopped and there on the screen they were introducing the contestants and my college roommate's little brother was on my TV! Sadly she and I aren't as close these days, but I instantly shot her an email saying I saw her brother on TV. And my little one was excitedly pointing to an old photo on our wall and yelling, "He's on our TV!" Just obscure as the guests on This is Your Life.

Anyway, today I googled myself, shut up EVERYONE does it, because I wanted to see how easy I am to find. Everyone knows women are much harder to track down than men because of that pesky name change. Well, I saw all the reunion sites I am registered on, seeing as my 20th Reunion is this summer, it kinda moves me up in google visibility. I also found a search for me under my maiden name brings up this blog, but my married name does not. I think because my married name is much more common, lots of Karen's come up on my search.

Then of course being such a good procrastinator (see previous post) I remembered Tessie's ex googling and thought what the hell. Now in the past I have stalked, um tracked him from Miami, to Minnesota (when I thought Thank Pete I didn't marry him cause it's COLD there!) to Dallas. Other than knowing he was a pretty big wig at Blockbuster Corporate I didn't find out much more. Today I found he has moved on up to the East Side (of the country) and is in VA and pretty high up at Circuit City. Okay, so he's done pretty good for himself. That same old college roommate worked with him in Miami so I knew he got married to a woman who also worked for the same company way back when. Thanks to the links I got through google I found out he is still married to her and she has an even higher ranking at Circuit City than he does. Hmm, who knew? I pegged them for divorce. Now before you say I'm horrible, I say that because he was one messed up guy when it came to relationships. His parents fought the whole time he was growing up, but didn't divorce until he was in high school because they wanted to "stay together for the kids" so his perception of marriage was justifiably skewed. The fact that when said old roommate told him I was getting married (long before he did) the first words out of his mouth were "why is she pregnant?" as if that would a) be the only way I would ever have moved on from loving him and b) the only reason someone would want to get married, has nothing to do with my premonition of his marriage ending prematurely. Keep in mind we were 24 and 2 years out of college, not exactly shot-gun wedding material. Plus, seeing as he was my first and I managed to not get pregnant any of the times we were dating (oh yes it was a long and drawn out relationship) or on the random occasions we may or may not have hooked up, one could assume I had that little issue covered. So here's where it gets surreal. I clicked a phone listing link and up came a handy map, which Ah HELL, of course I clicked on and there was a link for a street view of that address! OMG! I could see the street he lives on, his driveway and by the looks of it, his neighbor's house. FREAKY! Oh yeah, he has done very well career wise. That's the MOST information I've ever gotten with a random google search. Maybe I should re-title this Google = Stalker 101.

Anyway, I have another boy I kissed a lot in college, from NY who shares his name with a very prominent MD so that search ends up a dud every time. He was a friend I would actually like to find (as in I could introduce him to my hubby and not feel awkward). I think (common name strikes again) my only serious high school boyfriend is a cop in KY. Not much of a shock there. I think he wanted to go to law school, but I'm doubting the undergrad grades if you know what I mean. He was a football player, a year older than me, drove a sports car and was probably the best first boyfriend a girl could ask for. And NO he doesn't read this blog. HELL I don't think he does. I do know my perfect first college boyfriend (noting a trend here?) is a partner in a law firm in south Florida. I hunted him down through the alumni association 9 years ago. I was trying to find him to see if he was single because my friend at work was looking for a nice Jewish boy. Turns out he wasn't so nice anymore, and I didn't find out until half an hour into the conversation that he was married with kids. The hell? I told him right off I was married and pregnant and he was talking all about how we should meet up on one of his many trips to my city.

Okay, I have Bunko tonight and I have to go pick up pizza so I'm leaving you with this. My trend of picking out perfect 1st boys was completed when I picked the perfect 1st and only husband! And trust me this is MY life and I wouldn't trade for any of the other could've beens.

7 comments:

My googling would be sad indeed. I met my husband at 16, our first date was my senior prom, we married at 23. I still wouldn't change a thing.

April 16, 2008 at 8:55 PM  

ah speaking of google...there is a handy definition.

Egosurfing (also called vanity searching, egosearching, egogoogling, autogoogling, self-googling, or simply Googling yourself) is the practice of searching for one's own given name, surname, full name, pseudonym, or screen name on a popular search engine, to see what results appear. It has become increasingly popular with the rise of popular search engines such as Google, as well as free blogging and web-hosting services. It is sometimes combined with third-party tools such as Googlefight when several people egosurf together.

Similarly, an egosurfer is one who surfs the Internet for his own name, to see what, if any, articles appear about himself.

I think it's hard for men to understand the googling, searching etc for people. It must be a girl thing and NO it does not mean we want to hook up with them. I, like you, have a great life and wouldn't trade it for anything. I am sure I will have to repeat that at least 50 times to hubby.

April 16, 2008 at 11:10 PM  

It's not stalking if we're all doing it. When I google my name (fairly common) I come up with a dozen people who are far more accomplished than I.

April 17, 2008 at 7:31 AM  

having been looked up a couple of times (I have a unique name) it is rather fun and amusing to catch up with people, and I am grateful for the web making it so easy

April 17, 2008 at 7:55 AM  

Yes, we all do it, curiousity is part of human nature! Sadly learned my lesson going down the "looking up old boyfriends" road....it really does suck when you realize the boy you kissed in high school is an identical twin to you dead father, you may just never be right again!

April 17, 2008 at 9:05 AM  

I puffy heart google! He has reconnected me with lots of old friends! So my time googling everyone I ever met has paid off.

April 17, 2008 at 11:33 AM  

Your private investigator work cracks me up. Mainly because I do it too. I've went so far as to look up my husband's ex. I know, curiousity killed the cat. I didn't think she was cute at ALL by the way. It was many years ago so I'm thinking that she must've had some big poofy hair or something. ahem. Most of my exes aren't googlable so they're no fun.

April 17, 2008 at 9:30 PM  

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