The Accidental Stalker

A few years ago I heard that my ex-boyfriend had gotten married. The funny thing was, I was living in Brooklyn and he was living in Austin, but I ran into an old friend of his on the subway. That sort of thing happens to me a lot. Anyway, I heard he had gotten married and as I had just moved in with Yan and was quite gushy about that, I was genuinely happy for the ex--and curious about who this amazingly forgiving and patient girl could be. So curious in fact that I spent several hours over the next several months Googling, checking online newspaper archives, and the UT student directory (I know, I know). But he has a common name and I was never able to locate him.

Until...

A few months later during a slow period at work I started up my stalk-- I mean Googling again and this time had the bright idea of typing in some of his friends who have less common names than he. And this time I got a hit! A techie friend's blog came up, which I fervently mined for mentions of the ex. I soon became bored with the techie-related archives, so I resorted to the search engine. I typed in things like, "'Ex' and 'fiance'", "'Ex' and 'band'" (he lives in Austin, of course he's in a band), "'Ex' and 'married'", "'Ex' and 'Kate,'" (OK, so I'm narcissistic). At the end of it all I found was one reference to their guitarist pouring a drink on Ex's fiance. Typical.

A few weeks later, Techie mentioned that a lot of people were finding his blog by way of particular search terms, like "Microsoft" or "Movable Type," which was NEWS TO ME. I had NO IDEA you could access such information. I sat at my desk red faced as I thought about Techie saying to Ex, "So, your guess is as good as mine but somebody--and I think you know who that is--has been searching my blog for your name plus 'Kate' and 'fiance'... ." My face still gets hot at the thought of it.

Fast forward to last Friday. I was waiting on a friend to get out of work when I got an invitation to join C's network on Friendster. So I logged in, dutifully updated my profile from "in a relationship" to "married" and added my her to my network. My network of one, that is. Uno. So, feeling like a huge Friendster reject, I decided to troll the landscape for friends to invite to my little party. Not only did I find several friends past and present, I found Ex (who, surprise, surprise, has since divorced). I believe I clicked on Ex's profile not once but two or three times after surfing away and coming back again (I wanted to, you know, see who else he had in his network. Twice). I also clicked several times on an old high school friend's profile that was blocked to prevent people like me from sending her messages. (I did not attempt to send a message to Ex, who I was content to anonymously stalk.)

Except...

After searching practically everybody I'd ever laid eyes on (and even unearthing some interesting pseudonyms) I noticed that little link on the bottom left of the Friendster Home page: "Who's Viewed Me." Busted.

Again.