Ok, show of hands:
Who here thinks of me as “a good girl”?
Yeah, that’s about what I thought. So you can imagine my surprise to actually have someone refer to me as such. But let me back up… recently, a chain of unimportant-in-100-years events got me to wondering what happened to some people from my past. Now, the girls I have kept up with, as I have with Russ McCutcheon. But by and large I haven’t kept up with guys I have known, either because one of us ended up in a relationship where our partner didn’t understand why we needed friends of the opposite sex (insert When Harry Met Sally rhetoric here) or because we had dated and it seemed kinda weird. Either way, I started wondering where a couple of people had found themselves, so I made an effort to find a few of them, namely David Bernstein from St. Pete Junior College, Grant Lennon (another SPJC alumnus of sorts, and while I’m not certain I think that was his name), and David Ewing (also from St. Pete Junior College). Don’t ask me why, of all the people I have known, I wondered about these three. The two Daves were kind of a precursor to Ross Geller and Chandler Bing, at least in my mind and my memories; Grant sort of dated Linda Spalding and I thought he was hot, but since he was pseudo-involved with Linda and I had started dating Satan’s son, it never came to pass. We all, being people, stopped talking, but as I had no hard feelings, I thought it couldn’t hurt to Google them.
Anyway, I found no one. I did find Bernstein’s brother and called him and asked him to pass my number along, but we’ll see- I don’t believe he and I ever met and he seemed kind of wary (as I would be), so I wouldn’t be shocked never to hear from that Dave. The other David and I dated a little bit and it ended with my typical dramatic whatever, so I’d bet good money HE won’t be beating a path to find out where I am (50 bucks, right here, Ewing- you took the last bet, remember?). Probably best that I never found his phone number or e-mail; not sure what I would say to assure him that I wasn’t a freaky, hide-your-white-rabbit, Janice-from-Friends type of person. Regardless, I would LOVE to hear from any of them; they were all sigificant in my life and I wish I still knew them.
What I just did, as I have learned, is called “reverse ego Googling”, or something like it. Let’s back up again (let’s take a step forward, then take a step back, then a step forward… now we’re cha-cha-ing). Ego-Googling is, apparently, when you Google oneself to see where oneself presents oneself. Reverse ego-Googling is when you include someone’s name in your blog or on your web site so that when they ego-Google themselves, they find themselves on your site and, hopefully, get in touch. Pretty clever, I think. That’s why I just did it.
So last night, after a fruitless attempt to find any of what I may start calling “The Big Three”, I Googled myself. I don’t do this often, maybe only three times since you COULD Google yourself, mainly because I don’t think much about my impact on others. Anyway, I found three- count ’em- THREE pages all about me. Mostly my web site, this blog and others, a few random genealogy hits, and a few pages I don’t find significant. But then I found this one, and I didn’t recognize the name (I’m about a third down the page, as of this posting). Anyway, if you read the post, I’d like to point out a few inaccuracies. Jay was 23, not 21. I don’t think I was ever his girlfriend, or that he thought so, either. We liked each other. Yes, my dad freaked out, and in retrospect, I can understand, even though I don’t think it was warranted. My dad’s Italian; Italian men don’t want ANYONE touching their daughters, and the eight year age difference just gave him a good excuse, I think.
But I clicked over to Jay’s web site and found HIS blog entry about Googling me. I think what I take exception to the most is his description of me as a “Good Girl” (capitalization his). I can assure him as I will you, faithful readers (all four), that my life SINCE he knew me has given my parents a whole HOST of things to fret over, leaving an eight-year age difference the LEAST of what they care about. I think if I were 15 again they might actually encourage me to date him in hopes that I would have chosen several different roads. As my mom loves to say, I don’t suffer from stress; I’m a carrier, and I have taken years off her life with my decisions (NOT intentional).
To summarize: I ego-Googled, was reverse ego-Googled, and reverse ego-Googled a few people. I feel like such a computer nerd. Really, I just use the net for porn and gaming like the rest of you, I swear!
Oh, and it was cool to catch up with someone from the past, especially someone who has such a pristine opinion of me. He may be the last one in the known universe; please don’t anyone tell him otherwise. I’d like at least ONE friend or acquaintance who doesn’t get all snarky at the idea or me as a “Good Girl”.
It could happen, you know.
