Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
On a hot July afternoon, two months after I graduated from college, I sent my boss and long time friend an email with the subject line, “Just in case.”
Within the email was the name, address, and phone number of the man I would be meeting for dinner, dessert, and delightful banter that evening. My date was someone who I had met before, who worked at the university I had just graduated from, and who—in all respects—was someone to be trusted. But, should I have failed to appear in my boss’ office the next morning with a date recap, I just wanted to him to know where to send the CSI investigators. I like to plan ahead like that.
Although I was only 22 at the time, I was no fool. To obtain said date’s contact information, I had initiated what I like to call, the “Google stalk.” Had he been lying about the ivy league college he attended, been dating another woman, or had a criminal record, I would have found out. I mean, Google tells no lies! In fact, it gives you pictures. Lots of pictures.
I looked at his graduation photos, post-graduate educational review, and the newspaper article written about his sister that he was quoted in. I also obtained his work address, home address, home phone number, pager number, and cell phone number. I mean, for someone with my mediocre computer skills (I routinely call my IT friends screaming into their ears about error messages and ‘Why do I have to update my virus software? Am I supposed to click yes? I’m afraid to click yes!’), just think about what the average ten year old prodigy could have found out.
I guess it’s a good thing that people in the single adult’s dating pool aren’t ten.
After all, online background research is no longer considered sketchy or weird before a date. In fact, browsing a potential date’s LinkedIn or Facebook page is as good pre-date hygiene as ironing your clothes or brushing your teeth.
Simply the choice of networking site can say a lot about a person. Professional, private, and serious adults are usually interested in networking sites that emphasize work contacts and employment history. On social networking sites, they limit public information and typically don’t brandish personal photos. In contrast, younger, less mature singles often have their AIM (or other) screen name, cell phone number, and address, scrawled next to intentionally misspelled slang on spam-heavy sites like Myspace.
To be fair, not all young adults plaster documentation on the internet of their potential red dating flags. That’s what their friends are for. Public networking sites are becoming so pervasive that users now have to discriminately sieve the contents of their friends’ and family’s pages too. Sometimes, the information posted about them is even covert. For example, sites like dontdatehimgirl.com help women make “empowered” and “informed” decisions about potential mates through discussions with other members.
Luke 12:2-4 reminds us that everything we do is constantly being watched by God. Before browser cookies, security cameras, and Google Earth, there was already a heavenly record being made of our actions. As Christians, we should be striving to be the very “aroma of Christ” (2 Corin. 2:15) in everything that we say and do because we never know who is taking note of our behavior or searching our lives for a source of truth. Because of our love for Him, we should always be doing our best to represent Him. Besides, that Blackberry your date is wielding across the table? It doesn’t just check email.
- Shayna Bailey's blog
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 | Shayna Bailey | Shayna Bailey is best known for her weekly relationship advice column, "Unplugged," published in Insight magazine. She also provides a young adult voice for Christian dating and relationships in several other venues including print magazines, blogs, and Christian seminars—which she frequently hosts. Shayna's first joint book, The GODencounters Devotional: Pursing a 24/7 Relationship with Jesus was released this spring and is available at your local ABC. She holds a B.A. in Psychology from the Johns Hopkins University and is a full time medical student in Washington, DC. |
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Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
You know it is really too bad that dating has come down to this "investigative judgement" practice. A few years ago (well, a couple decades ago I admit) you met someone, asked maybe a friend, fellow worker, etc., about that someone, then if still interested asked that someone out for a date. Then, how it went was how it went. Now, after background and credit checks are completed - let's try dinner and a movie. Just too bad...
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Here in St. Louis, they have something called "It's just lunch". Where in the middle of the day, two matched individuals can meet for lunch and be safe knowing they can say, they are expecting me at work at 1:00 PM.
Shayna, you have indictated that you are not in Adventist circles for the most part, but whatever happened to initially meeting with a group of friends, safety in numbers???. I met my wife at a party at a mutual friends house.
Recently my daughter went on a date with a guy she had met on the internet.. On the second date he wanted it at his place. Her big sister, and her mother said, no way. You don't know enough about this guy. After going to a movie and feeling creeped out by his stares during the movie, she called off any further contact, and there was no situation alone in his apartment where she could have been overpowered.
Some of the dating today, I am 57 years old and happily married, I feel is common sense, and not putting yourself in a weakened , vulnerable position. Is that crazy???
Regards, Douglas
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
I will be interested to see if in this age of computerized match making and background searching, we end up with any better relationships. Will reams of extra data about someone eliminate the need for skill in recognizing relationship warning signs? "After all the computer said we were completely compatible."
With all the hoax digitally enhanced photos being spread virally on the world wide web, can we really trust something simply because a computer chewed on it and regurgitated it?
One of the most fundamental principles of computing is "GIGO," and it still applies just as much as it ever did. "Garbage In - Garbage Out" is a warning about all information fed to us by computers. The source of the information ultimately controls what we receive.
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Douglas,
I have garnered from your past responses that your daughter is probably a decade younger than I am. For this reason, I think the caution advised by your wife and older daughter were well intentioned. However, most young adults, at some point or another, will date solo--often with people they have only superficial knowledge of. I meant to highlight the prevalence of one's name and credentials on the internet and only by extension, the saavy caution exercised by many young daters. Contrary to your suggestion, the ability to research individuals does the very opposite of "putting yourself in a weakened, vulnerable position." That is precisely the reason for the popularity of the "Google stalk" in the dating culture.
Shayna Bailey
Staff Blogger, Adventist Today
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Hank,
With a decline in societal morals and an increasing acceptance of deviant behavior, the exercise of caution is not just prudent--it is a requirement for dating. Several decades ago, the dating pool was much smaller and most people relied personal connections to find potential mates. Dating websites, social networking sites, and chat rooms now make it possible to find love thousands of miles away--without mutual friends to do the background checking for you. Background checking might seem excessive to some, but it can also show a red flag before you're in danger.
Shayna Bailey
Staff Blogger, Adventist Today
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Dear arxadelphia,
You are completely right in suggesting that we must be prudent in our dating choices. Nothing can be a substitute for sound reasoning and seeking the Holy Spirit's directive in our choices. A computer algorithm is not a substitute for what we know to be true or have been praying about. Similarly, in images posted online, we have to choose our interpretation of what we see.
Shayna Bailey
Staff Blogger, Adventist Today
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Shayna,
I suppose it is being prudent to do the background checks on those perspective "significant others" if they are thousands of miles away. However, instead of sitting in front of a computer trying to connect with that special someone a millon miles away, why not get out there via volunteering, playing in coed athletic leagues, join weekly book clubs, etc., and maybe that meeting of a future soulmate might just happen. It used to work, and I think it still will.
Hank
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Hank,
Although your solution is ideal, it is also overly simplistic. Some young adults do find love in the ways you have suggested, but many do not. Traditional methods did not always work, as you suggest, which is the reason for the overwhelming popularity of online dating sites today. Also, just because a person chooses to use a dating website does not mean that they are not still putting themselves out there in their communities. After all, just because you are reading and commenting on this online blog doesn't mean that you don't still "get out there" in your community...right?
Shayna Bailey
Staff Blogger, Adventist Today
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Shayna,
When you say "Some young adults..." and "Many do not..." , you need to put some numbers in there to give those statements any credibility. Come on now, is it 20%? 67%? What are we talking here? As a dating expert, you should have these stats. I might be overly simplistic on this issue, but using 'some' and 'many' doesn't make your case any stronger than my overly simplistics notions about online dating services/sites.
Hank
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Hank,
Shayna's original blog is quite credible enough without her having to dig through empirical data (not a blogging practice) to support a loose comment in an open discussion thread. Otherwise, I might have to task you with giving us some hard data to show that "volunteering, playing in coed athletic leagues, join weekly book clubs, etc." to meet a future soulmate will work now as it did in the 1960's, 1970's or 1980's. Quite simply, "it works for some, but not for many" is good enough for me. I'm part of the "not for many." I met my wife on an Adventist dating site.
Interestingly enough, I was background checked by my wife right before we met. After her discovery of my profile on said dating site, she googled my name and found my spiritual musings on my personal blog, in which I declared my love of God.
Stalker/pedophile "test" passed. We dated and recently got married.
Marcel Schwantes
Online Editor, Adventist Today
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
I have done a lot of personnel interviews in my lifetime. I find the sense I get from that interview is better than a resume or application they filled out, thus probably an internet questionnaire also.
How often have we heard about registered pedophiles showing up next door to trusting neighbors, only to find out their daughter was stolen from her bed and buried alive in the neighbor's backyard.
For me "Just Lunch" sounds like a better way to see that the person is a weirdo, in the middle of the day. Resume, application, curriculum vitae, and internet match site can all help, but eye ball to eye ball, there is nothing that replaces it, in my opinion.
Regards, Douglas
Re: Excuse Me While I Confirm that You’re Not a Pedophile
Pedophile?
Nice tag. How about rapist as it is a slightly more significant crime? Shayna unfortunately the searches I would want to do won't come up on google or any INTERNET data base for that matter.
Did you know young adults have 25% of all relationships contain intimate partner violence? Guess what, that women perpetrate 70% of all non-reciprocal partner violence. Reciprocal violence is almost 50-50.