The Risotto was Innocent: How a Hinge Date Lost to Google.

 This week's readings got me thinking about privacy online, but honestly, they mainly reminded me of one story. 


[A BIG THANK TO MY FRIEND WHO CONSENTED MY SHARING THIS STORY]


A few months ago, one of my friends finally matched with an incredibly attractive guy on Hinge. After months of disappointing matches, she was genuinely excited. While she happily texted him, she unknowingly activated her two unpaid private investigators: me and another friend.

Naturally, we Googled him. Come on, it's a random guy!

About thirty minutes later, we found an arrest record from two years earlier.

At the exact moment we discovered this, their conversation looked like this:

Him: I'm having risotto tonight.
Her: Wow! Did you make the sauce yourself?
Him: No, I bought it at Publix yesterday.

We immediately sent our findings. 

My friend blocked him. Instantly.

The funniest part was realizing what this must have looked like from his perspective:

I'm having risotto.
Did you make the sauce yourself?
No, I bought it at Publix.
Blocked.

He might think he had been blocked because he used store-blocked sauce because the arrest was years ago. To this day, we wonder whether he thought he got rejected because of the arrest record or because the sauce.

The experience permanently changed my friend. She now Googles every dating-app match and reads at least the first three pages of search results before agreeing to meet anyone.

As for me, it reinforced a different lesson: if two mildly curious women can discover all of that information in thirty minutes, what could a determined stranger find about me?

The internet is amazing 

The internet is terrifying.

And that's why I keep my social media private. 😌

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