Do you Google your dates?

Welcome to the rabbit hole.

I don’t consider myself over-the-hill just yet (my Twitter feed might conclude otherwise), but I could definitely relate to Amanda Blum’s aptly-titled post on xoJane: Are We All Just Jaded Hags? Whether To Google Your Date Or Not.

My vote goes to "Not," or to at least proceed with extreme caution. I consider myself a reformed Googler. In a previous life (or, um, as of three years ago), the only thing that could top the delicious feeling of mingling and exchanging contact information with a sexy stranger was the heady inclination to rush home after said meeting, where I’d plop down in front of my trusty MacBook and begin excavating his life online, starting with Facebook and working my way through LinkedIn. It’s not something I’m particularly proud of—and in fact, I cringe at the thought of someone doing the same to me—but it’s a habit that was easy to kick after realizing that by digging for dirt, I prematurely popped the bubble and let all of that mysterious air deflate, leaving behind one sad looking balloon (and a guy confused as to how I knew where he went to school when he hadn’t yet told me in real life, cough). As Blum points out, it’s behavior that’s highly unromantic, and it robs us of the chance to “discover” what our potential love interests are all about. Yet according to this eHarmony survey, half of all singles are guilty (my word, not theirs) of relying upon Google or Facebook to do just that. (I also think "friending" significant others via Facebook is a bad idea, whether you're just getting to know someone or about to say "I do," but that's another post in itself.)

So what gives? Have we let curiosity get the best of us by putting the cart before the technological horse, or has Googling our dates become standard operating procedure? Sure, we live in a data-driven society and there's ample opportunity to find out just about anything, about anyone, at anytime. But just because we can, should we? Think about it the next time you meet a sexy stranger of your own, lest hanging out in a bar restroom, feverishly tapping his name into an iPhone keyboard, is your "thing."

Continue the conversation: follow Karyn on Twitter at @KarynPolewaczyk