So this catfish discussion has me wondering just how common it is to try to find the "real" version of people you encounter online. I think we're all naturally curious, and want to know more about people. But how far do you go?
I met my H through an online dating site. We chatted online for a couple of weeks and then on our first "official" date, I became aware that he knew my last name and where I worked because of Google. I had told him my first name, and I had used my middle name (which is very unusual) as part of my dating profile username. This totally freaked me out at first because I had always been intensely private, but he just said "Oh, I Google all my dates". I guess he learned that I was legit and didn't have any associations with sketchy websites, and it all had a happy ending. (But to this day I still joke around with him and call him a "stalker").