When You Google Yourself

Phantasy Star 2 Wanted

To the right: Phantasy Star 2 (Sega Genesis).

When you Google yourself, you expect to find yourself in at least a few places that you didn’t expect to be found.

What no one expects is for some idiot to treat their blog like it’s some pre-teen’s live journal and talk about you unkindly as if no one would ever know it was you. If someone were to do that, you’d at least expect them to try and hide who you are. Like say “this guy” or “someone I know…” or “…we’ll call him Bobalicious…”. If they still used, not just your first name, but your whole legal, given name, you’d figure they’d at least have a reason to… like some kind of vendetta. Maybe you keyed their car or slept with their sister. Maybe you kicked their dog.

What if all you did was try to be polite?

A friend of mine ran into someone she used to know. During the conversation, another old mutual friend came up. She asked how this friend was doing, what they were up to, and even took down their number. She did it just to be polite, never called the number, and didn’t even think about it again until much later.

Much later, she was playing everyone’s favorite internet game: Google myself!!

When she Googles herself, she gets a lot of results from people who are spell check impaired since her name is close enough to real words. There are other people with the same name. Nothing too noteworthy…

Then she found this (all misspellings, bad grammar, etc. I kept, but the names are ***ed out):

 
“So I wonder what’s gonna happen when ********** calls my cell-phone. Will I answe it? What would we ever have to talk about. Apparently we’ve been living in the same town for quite awhile- I wonder why she doesn’t ever come downtown. ***** said she looked the same, acted the same. It would be a shame if she’d never blossomed. Maybe she just still shy. I’m terrified of talking to her”

 
She was satisfied with telling her friends about it and us all saying ‘what an ass’, but I was a bit more pissed. I wanted to call that number and give this guy something to be terrified about.

Another friend did some reconnaissance and found the blog. I left a comment. I even left a link to my blog…

 
“So I wonder what’s gonna happen when ********** calls my cell-phone. Will I answe it?”

When? Don’t you mean if? Just because she was polite enough to ask for your number doesn’t mean she’ll call it, especially if you’re posting this.

“What would we ever have to talk about.”

Life? Is there really so little that has happened to you since you last spoke that you’d have nothing interesting to tell an old friend about?

“***** said she looked the same, acted the same. It would be a shame if she’d never blossomed.”

She still looks and acts like ****. Yeah, I know, too bad she didn’t conform to the way she should look or act.

“Maybe she just still shy. I’m terrified of talking to her.”

She’s shy but you’re terrified of talking? She’s like barely five feet tall and an openminded individual. Whatever she had to say, I bet it would have been nicer than what you had to say on the internet.

Well, no need to be afraid. I’m sure she won’t be calling you now.

 
I hope he reads it. I hope it makes him blush. I hope he then links to here and sees that I talked about it in my blog. I hope he then writes a follow up post either bad mouthing me or trying to defend himself.

Never blossomed? I’m sorry that we’re not all flowers or bloomin’ onions. We’re women who come into our own, but not exclusively in ways designed specifically to appeal to your own individual male sensibilities.

Look the same? Did he expect her to have a problem with not being a six foot blonde with a paper thin tummy and mushy melons? Did he expect plastic surgery on his behalf?


Sound the same? She’s always had interesting things to say and an amazing singing voice. Who should she sound like…

Him?

And all these conclusions are jumped to because he talked to someone who talked to her.

Is the terrifying thing that he may hear about how great she’s doing? She’ll tell him all the places she’s been and things she’s done, and he’ll feel small and empty and write about it on his blog. So instead of calling her, and judging for himself how this friend is doing, make a preemptive strike online. He belittles her so he can feel better about it when she calls. If she calls. She isn’t going to call him. Why would she?

He apparently has nothing much to say anyways.

  • The Cowboy

    Turns out I’m the number one google result for “Tao Cowboy”. Go figure.

    I googled my real name, and it turns out I’m a folk singer in Alabama. Go figure.

    I’m guessing this guy isn’t very old?

  • The Cowboy

    The irony! I’m also the number one result for “Taco Cowboy”

    LOL!

  • He’s older than I am, so old enough to know better.

    There is one other Cindy Chiuchiolo out there, but I’m most of the results for my name.

    The Taco Cowboy should be your official criminal alias. It won’t throw anyone off any trails, but it does sound cool.

  • So if your friend never had any intentions of calling the number, why bother asking for it at all? That’s not called “being polite”, it’s called “being disingenuous”. I’m not entirely surprised that this other person reacted scoffingly, as in “What in the world would we talk about?” Why wouldn’t he or she?

    Sounds like you are angry (or just annoyed) about it for little reason. Maybe your friend should just ask for phone numbers the next time she is legitimately planning to talk to someone?

  • “So if your friend never had any intentions of calling the number, why bother asking for it at all?”

    This needs some clarification.

    She may or may not have intended to call it at some point (I’m not going to put thoughts into her head since I don’t know. I’m sorry if I made it sound otherwise.). She may have not even asked for the number, it might have been offered to her. I just know she hadn’t got around to it when she found the comment online. She decided not to *when she found the comment online*. Wouldn’t you?

    “I’m not entirely surprised that this other person reacted scoffingly”

    Why would/should an old friend act ‘scoffingly’ when they find out an old friend might be calling? I’ve caught up with a lot of old friends lately, and I would have been pretty taken aback if they’d reacted that way. (and vice versa I’m pretty sure)

    “Sounds like you are angry (or just annoyed) about it for little reason.”

    I don’t like it when people publish unfounded negative comments about my friends online for all the world to see. I think that’s a pretty good reason.

    I also think it makes me a pretty good friend.

    People shouldn’t go around asking for old friends numbers if they aren’t going to call them. Sure. I’ll go with that. But I’m not understanding why you think it was cool for this guy to go post the full name of his old friend coupled with some unfounded mean things about her? Do you really think she should have called him when she found the post online? I probably would have, but that would probably not been a very pleasant conversation, or a very good idea… then again, he said in the post he might not even answer.

    But you do have a right to thinking she should call, I just disagree and I don’t think she will anyways.

  • SteveJ

    I’m not even in the first couple thousand results. Turns out there’s another guy who owns a pretty famous game company that’s got me thoroughly trounced. Not to mention the football player. I think I’m beating my dad (also same name) in net presence though. Oh well, at least I’m notorious in my own mind.

  • “I’m not even in the first couple thousand results.”

    It’s a trade off. I have grown up with a horribly complicated name, but I have been able to reap the rewards of Google. I still sometimes wish my last name had been Smith.

  • Kathryn

    I have the advantage of having unique spellings of both my first and last names. I am the first five Google results, then some British doctor with whom I apparently share my uncommonly spelled name, and then some more me. ME! ME! ME! :D

  • “ME! ME! ME! :D”

    Capricorns…

  • My name “Rob Abdul” for the last 3 years has been my brand name.

    Google has 3,360,000 results for my name Rob Abdul.

    I was so proud when my name appeared in Google suggest.

    I’m Number 1 for my name on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask, AOL and many more!

    It may not sound like much but at least 60 to 80 people Google me a month.

    It is nice for the Ego, I must admit!