A good friend of mine has a very nifty catch phrase: Google is your friend. Now, she generally uses this when she’s answering what she perceives to be a stupid question. In fact, the more I think about it, it’s kind of rude. But Google is in fact, your friend. Especially when it comes to dating somebody new.

Websites like Google, MySpace, Facebook, and Dontdatehimgirl.com are indispensable when it comes to doing your research before you get seriously involved with somebody. A quick search can help you find out rather quickly if he’s actually single, if he’s a convicted felon, been married before, or given an ex-girlfriend an STD. The information age is here, folks, and we should be taking full advantage.

Google: Google is great for general info, but will give you just that: General info. You might find out that he was a football star in High School, or an honor student, or if he leaves lots of comments using his real name on online discussion boards. You can also use it to search public records, if you’re concerned about something more serious, like say, is he married?

MySpace and Facebook are very handy tools, if the guy’s profile isn’t private. If it is private, you can always request to be his friend. You can see how he interacts with his friends, pictures of him, his interests, and whether or not he has a girlfriend. Is country music a deal breaker for you? You can find out his music tastes on here as well.

I met my fiancé Shane on Match.com. I had never tried online dating before and I was incredibly nervous before we met in person, despite having emailed him for weeks and having several phone conversations. By looking him up on MySpace before we met, I was able to get a clearer picture of what he was like, and see lots more pictures of him, comforting my fears that he was actually a balding, middle aged man or something.

And I can’t forget my very favorite of all—Don’t Date Him Girl. I saw this site on Oprah, and I *love* it. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s like a dating report card, mostly scorned women who can leave warnings for other women about why they shouldn’t date their ex-boyfriends. The stories range from the usual warnings: “Don’t date this guy, he’s a cheater, liar, married, dog, etc.” to things like “This guy gave me herpes.” Or “This guy is a con-artist and robbed me blind.” Now, this site only tells one side of the story, so I take the info on this website with a grain of salt, but you’d better believe that they guy who cheated on me and left me two weeks after we got married has a page dedicated to him on this site!

A co-worker of mine looked up a guy she had been on a few dates with on Facebook. His profile was private , so she requested to be his friend. When he didn’t accept her, she became suspicious and created a fake facebook, with a guy’s picture, and requested him again. This time, he accepted. Imagine her shock and surprise when his relationship status said he was in a relationship, and his page was covered with pictures of him and his girlfriend. Sure, it hurt to find out, but think how much worse it would have been if she had fallen in love with him. A friend of one of my good friends found out that the guy she had been seeing was heavy into drugs, like cocaine, from checking out pictures on his social networking sites. It’s an incredibly useful tool.

Lastly, I feel like I should stipulate: I am not promoting stalking, by any means. I’m just saying we should use resources we have available to us to make an informed decision when it comes to who we will and will not date and be left alone with. Because it’s such an advantage, before you fall in love with somebody yucky, to be able to go online and check him out before you take that plunge. So do your research, Nancy Drew!

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