Thanks, Facebook.

A little late, but facebook seems to have wised to the ability to stalk someone within your own network, if they have flexible settings, which I'm surprised at how many people actually do (have flexible settings - not stalking, that's no surprise to me!). I tried seeing what my profile looks like to someone who is in my network but not my friend, but there's no way to check that. That's stupid. I can see what my page looks like for any one of my given friends, I should be able to see what my page looks like within the network.

Anyway, this was the problem with that guy I webstalked over the summer. If I hadn't had access to his facebook page, I would have NEVER sent that crazy email. Because I wouldn't have known nearly as much about him as I was able to uncover. Seriously. I've always said no one should have an open facebook page. It makes you think you know someone way better than you actually do. Actually, most online identities are false advertisements for what a person truly is like. I'm sure I'm nothing like what people who read this, and don't know me, think I'm like. I'd be interested to know what people think though, based on this blog alone.

While I think it's a good thing theoretically, I have mixed feelings about Facebook's new privacy settings because this will put a damper on my dating preconceived notions. (Not always a bad thing!) For example, I have this date coming up with this guy (not sure when... it's been in the works since mid November! Damn you, work schedule!) and I could check out his facebook page. Once I did, I was immediately less attracted to him than his match profile alone. I actually held pretty high hopes for this one, and then I was diasppointed by his facebook pictures. This isn't fair, and yes, I know everyone puts their best pictures on Match, but I felt like his pictures on match weren't really a fair representation on what this guy will look like on a day to day basis. Because I could see which pictures on his facebook page were on his Match profile, I could also check the dates they were posted on Facebook. The one he's using as his main picture was from 2007. That's at least 2 years old, and probably not what he looks like AT ALL. His most recent pictures were fairly disappointing, sad to say. But that should not be a reason to false advertise on match, it's not like the other person won't find out eventually anyway! I think I'm pretty good about my pictures, and I keep them very up to date, changing them at least within every season so there are none that are out of date. I recently just took down any that were taken more than 6 months ago, because that's not a fair likeness of me. Except for my one picture from Peru, because it's a good conversation piece, and it's not close enough of me that you can actually make out discernable features that show it was taken 3 years ago! Although, when I dated the bad kisser, we were never friends on facebook, which allowed me to post about the blog all the time. Now that I'm friends with the guy who lives with his ex, his roommates and who knows who else have been able to find this, so maybe privacy isn't such a bad thing after all!

So, I applaud facebook for protecting our privacy. I will actually have to request to see people's pages if I want to stalk them... that defeats the purpose! But it will protect me from doing horrifically stupid things, like webstalking to the extent where I feel the need to confess. I can't believe that was almost 6 months ago. When I think about it, I'm still rather horrified at my own behavior. I was watching the pilot of "How I Met Your Mother" (which I love, by the way), and there was this scene when one of the guys was leaving a date gone awry, and he says, "So when you tell this story to your friends, could you avoid the word “psycho”? I prefer…eccentric." That's something I know I've thought on at least a few occasions, and probably how many people think of me. But now, with the help of Facebook, I have less opportunities to be crazy.