Quick! Click "I'm Feeling Lucky"!

College students--and now everyone else--look people up on Facebook. Fourteen year olds with too much time on their hands do it on Myspace. And even if you have neither of these particular habits, readers, you know you do it. Good news: you're not alone.

Yes, Houston, every one else googles their dates too.
Back in the day, of course, you actually had to take on faith such important facts as job, marital status (hey, don't ask, we've been on some bad dates), and whether or not he lives with his mom (really, see what we mean?) But in today's enlightened age, typing a name into Google and seeing what pops up has become commonplace.

The article even gives tips on how to do it effectively, pointing out that knowing an email address could turn up an online nickname, which could lead, in the case of one unfortunate interviewee, to finding out your new honey has a fascination with vampires or "bizarre fetishes". No wonder Houston-based web savvy citizen Katie Laird tells people "don't Google what you can't handle".

Of course, one can also google oneself. Beware, though! It could turn out you share the name of a porn star. Of course, if your dates are googling you, too, maybe that'll help....