Blog stalking gone awry

Recently, I got set up by someone. (Due mostly to my own embarrassment, I will change some of the names involved in this story) The person who set me up, Rosarita, is an avid blogger. She gave me her friend, Jesse's, number about the same time I started getting into blogging. The day that I called Jesse to set up a date, two things happened.

First, being new to blogging I was excited to find any of my Friends who had blogs. I stumbled across my friend Amber's blog, and the post she had up at the time was called, "Blog Stalker." I read through it, and thought that surely if Amber was doing this most everyone was.

Second, later that day, I was having a conversation with my friend Laura who told me about a time she went out with this guy who had googled her. He found her blog and read a bunch of her posts so that he could find out things about her ahead of time. He asked a bunch of loaded questions, and then told her what he did. She found the whole thing very annoying.

After reviewing the two experiences, I thought "wow that's genius." If the delivery were a little less creepy and underhanded it would be a good way to be prepared for lulls in conversation. Knowing a little about your date always helps out regardless of where that information may have come from.
So I wondered if Jesse had a blog. I went to Rosarita's blog and one of the links off to the side was to a blog called "Sarah & Jesse" I clicked on the blog and scanned briefly for some pictures. I noted that there seemed to be only pictures of Sarah... I read through some of the blog posts. All of them were written by Jesse. A few times she had gone out of her way to make fun of Sarah for never posting on their joint blog.

After scanning through the posts on their blog, I surmised the following:
1. Sarah & Jesse were related, sister's I thought.
2. Jesse did all the posting and never saw fit to add any pictures of herself, just of her sister.
3. Jesse had recently applied to nursing or medical school at the U.
4. Sarah was pregnant, and wondering what to name her son.
5. Jesse had spent a lot of time over Christmas shopping for boots for Sarah.

I figured that was enough ammo to ensure smooth conversation during me and Jesse's up coming rendezvous.

On the date, I first noticed something was wrong when I asked Jesse about school. She said she was done and just working. I then asked her about work, thinking maybe she was a nurse and the specific post I was thinking about was old or something. She informed me she had a part time job, and didn't know now, nor had she ever had any idea what she wanted to do for a living. Let alone having the were-with-all or drive for medical school. Puzzled I didn't think much of it. Then we started talking about family. I asked her "So your sister is pregnant isn't she?" "No." she replied. "Oh, uh I uh thought Rosarita said something... I must be confusing something." I decided that I was a little confused, it was all a little weird and decided I would not reference my secret blog findings any more.

The date went well, aside from the awkward conversations had as a result of my blog staking earlier in the week. Over the next few days I checked the "Sarah & Jesse" blog. I was looking for a new post, something that would clear up why my questions didn't elicit any answers.

Finally the day of our second date, Jesse had published a new post. I began to read it eagerly... and slowly I began to get sick to my stomach. How could it have never occurred to me through all this that Jesse was in fact a man! Not the Jesse I had been out with, but another Jesse altogether that knew Rosarita. Not Sarah's sister, but her husband. She/He/It did have one of those names that goes both ways, and She/He/It was a link from the person who set me up, and there was the whole shopping for shoes thing. Granted I only scanned the posts, I mean they weren't very interesting. Perhaps had I been more earnest the mistake had not been made. However, it became pretty clear when the sentence written by Jesse said "My pregnant wife Sarah is..." followed shortly by a photograph of the two of them. The experience reminded me of a comic that my friend Cameron and I did a while ago called comic 18, check it out. Perhaps that will help express how I felt that day a little better. It was awful, I felt like a royal douche and vowed never to tell anybody about my silly mistake...

Well except for my blog.


John Maxim