Look, it happens. You start off doing one harmless Google search of someone (you know, just to make sure they’re not a serial killer or something) and then suddenly you’ve blacked out and woken up in the matrix, surrounded by his social security number, blood type, mother’s maiden name, and other info you can never unsee!
Here, a non-exhaustive list of things every girl has done — so you can feel better about yourself the next time you wake up drowning in a Google-stalk.
1. Looking him up so much on Instagram that his ex-girlfriend’s handle auto populates in the search bar. “Um, no, I also know Caitlin … She was my roommate’s friend’s coworker who studied abroad together.” —a paper thin excuse you hope you never have to trot out.
2. Deleting your search history before you hang out because you just can’t risk it. Then you have to search a bunch of random dog accounts and memes to look up so it doesn’t look suspiciously empty.
3. Opening up a private browsing window just to stalk his LinkedIn. The time you save figuring out his major and honors activities on your own time is time you could spend asking the important questions later on, like: What is the ideal ratio of sons to daughters you would like to have? Where will you be spending the holidays? Classic colonial or midcentury modern for your starter home?
4. Going so far back in Google results that you find his high school sports rankings. Oooh, varsity track. Nice. Bonus points if you then look up his high school’s Wikipedia page to find out just how competitive that track program was.
5. Trying to view his profile from your friends’ accounts so it’s “not weird.” “I know you’re on the phone with your mom, but lemme just check out his Instagram story real quick! No, I can’t use my own phone. Because it looks desperate that’s why.”
6. Accidentally memorising his Grandpa’s obituary and thus his entire family tree. Whoa, how’d you end up on his maternal grandmother’s cousin’s sister’s uncle’s Ancestry.com page? Haha, weird.
7. Curating your conversation around things you noticed he likes. Extra points if you then try to downplay said new info to make it look … casual. “Oh you’re into The Cure? Crazy how *looks at hand* ‘that is a band,’ huh?”
8. Stalking his Facebook with the precision of a surgeon. As in, elbows locked at your sides, sitting upright, avoiding the trackpad like the plague (just in case you slip and 24 mouse clicks later, accidentally like profile picture no. 78 out of 140.)
9. Viewing his Instagram on private browsing so you won’t accidentally like anything. It’s too easy! Also videos: You obv wanna see them, but the risk of accidentally liking while trying to play or adding too many new loops would totally out you.
10. Looking at his Venmo. So precious how he and his roommate Jake split utilities on there! LOL. “What do you think this means?” you ask all your friends about what is clearly a straightforward food bill being split. You aren’t too sure though — guys can be so mysterious.
11. Looking up his parent’s mortgage on Zillow.
12. If you met on a dating app, looking them up after your initial matching to see if they’ve updated their profile since meeting you. Aka are they over you aka do they hate you now?
13. Creating a whole narrative of his past relationships based on two photos of him tagged with a girl, declaring her the enemy, etc. You know, reasonable conclusions.
14. Physically holding your phone up closer to your face to see as much of their Snapchat story from the tiny little preview icon without watching. You can only watch so much of someone’s story without sending a message, so you don’t want to waste one of your precious views on dumpster content.
15. Going through their likes tab on Twitter or monitoring your following feed on Instagram just to see what they’re up to. Cool how you also now follow this niche meme account now too, hahaha, damn, weird.
16. Saying their last name as yours in your head. Carina Gyllenha— whoops! If you’ve done this even once it counts!!! Sorry, I don’t make the rules.
