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Kingghidorah123
Bloo… Dy… HELL!
I met a rather hot guy when I was in the London for a conference on Monday, and as you do, we swapped MSM IDs. I casually mentioned, as you do, that he shouldn’t type my hotmail address prefix into google as I use the same ID everywhere online. He, of course, joked that he would. This made me think: what if he actually did?!
So I typed kingghidorah123 into google, and I was absolutely stunned. There is a hell of a lot of results, and not all of them things that I want to be immediately apparent. You really can find out a hell of a lot out about me with very few clicks.
The search leads you to this blog, an old blog that isn’t a particularly flattering depiction of me (even less so than this one), my gaydar profile, links on websites/ forums that I’ve not used for years (and some current ones), a truly awful youtube video of a 20 year old me (with Jesus style hair and facial fur) behaving like an drunken idiot, my myspace profile, lots of links to stuff I sell on ebay, and quite shockingly a link to something I wasn’t aware of: an unprovoked, homophobic comment about me (well, this blog) on a blog of someone I don’t know.
Now none of these things are too worrying in themselves: there is nothing there that I’m particularly ashamed of or that I mind people knowing. It’s just that it is so very, very simple to find out a lot about me with one google search and an hour to spare. I am also worried that too much of eccentric, peculiar me in one go will put of any potential suitor. I get the argument that someone should fall for you for who you are, but I’d prefer potential suitors to learn that through interaction with me and spending time with me rather than the weirdiness that there is on me on the net. I’m an honest guy, and there isn’t anything on the net that I wouldn’t show someone that I was seeing, but the idea of someone being able to see it all in one go before they’ve properly interacted with me seems a little worrying.
Not that I think that looking someone up on google is wrong! Far from it! I know damned well that if I were given a free pass to get to know stuff about someone I was interested in with one easy google search, I’d definitely take it. Who wouldn’t?! It’s human nature to want, for want of a better phrase, a ‘head start’ when it comes to these things. I guess to some extent that I’m a little paranoid that too much information too soon will put people off as I really am quite, quite peculiar. I hate the idea of this happening before I get a chance to interact properly with someone I’m interested in. I'm also a bit unsure of the idea that someone that I’m meeting for a date knows loads about me compared to me knowing very little about them: I know that it’s not a competition, but it does seem a little unfair. Although saying that, I guess I generally give people that advantage anyway as I’m generally a deliberately transparent person.
However, the more I think about it, I’m not actually that upset with my own foolishness/ lack of internet savvyness re: privacy. After all, I am the guy who has been blogging and including very silly pictures of myself and my real name on said blog for 5+ years. It’s not like I’m an introvert! ;)
But if you’ve done the same thing as me and care about what silliness might have been put on the net by either you or other people, you might want to google yourself!
Have fun,
M x
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