PSYCHO REVIEW! PSYCHO REVIEW!

This is Normal, Right?

Last week I was surfing a social networking site when a photo caught my eye. I clicked on it and realized that I was in the photo, my back to the camera, and I was talking to this cute baby-faced guy. Who the hell was he? It suddenly dawned on me: I dated this guy back in 2002. It was a quick and torrid affair. Well, not really…that just sounded like the right thing to say. But our dating history was brief—lasted 6 months, and it was a bit complicated.

Seeing his face launched me into a (certifiable?) two hour, cyber-“investigation”. (I hesitate to use the word “stalking.” But drop me a note and let me know if the following actions qualify as an “obsessive pursuit.”).

First I Googled him. I wasn’t sure about the spelling of his last name, mainly because his country of origin has like 42 letters of the alphabet, most with squiggly marks on them.

I then tried MySpace which requires less knowledge of correct spelling and relies more on location and age. Nothing.

But wait—My Guy had a Best Friend…tall, bald, googly-eyed. I knew his first name and approximate age. I MySpaced him. Sure enough, third person down…The Best Friend. I clicked on his photo—yep, it was My Guy’s Best Friend for sure. Still living in New York City.

I proceeded to search The Best Friend’s friends. My Guy wasn’t among them – not even in his Top Twenty! So much for best buds. I scoured The Best Friend’s photos – and a third of the way through, I found the picture I was looking for. (I really wasn’t looking for any specific photo, just evidence that My Guy’s still alive). It was posted in November 2007. My Guy looks older, scruffier—not the fresh-faced Glenn Quinn* look-alike from 6 years ago. He looks almost sick. Like he has some disease or potentially grave illness. But it’s working for him. He’s still hot and now looks like Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas.

My sleuthing didn’t end there. Once I figured out The Best Friend’s last name, I Facebooked him. Luckily he has a public profile so I could search fairly easily. The Best Friend has over 300 friends so after a few pages of profiles, I had to draw the line. I delved into his photo gallery and came across the same photo I saw on MySpace. But The Best Friend did something different with this photo – he tagged My Guy. I had a last name.

Commence rabid and rapid Googling. The results: My Guy helped, in some capacity, a band back in 2006 (which means he was still in the states a few years after I dumped him). And he has a Facebook account (with a gorgeous photo of him playing guitar on stage)—but it’s set to private. However, my eagle-eyes noticed that the public can view his friends. Obviously he wants people to see who he’s linked to…and to speculate as to why and how they are linked, right? Of course, I clicked on it.

My Guy has one page of friends, which strikes me as a little odd. His (formerly) soft-spoken and shy Best Friend has blossomed and knows over 300 people. My Guy was/is a doppelganger for a Hugo Boss model and should have hundreds of friends, music fans, and smitten girls connected to him on Facebook and MySpace. But he doesn’t.

I’ve toiled over this for a few days now (yes, I originally said I spent two hours investigating. That is true. But the fallout from this sudden bit of information has taken longer to digest). I’ve come to the conclusion (through inconclusive evidence) that…My Guy is married (obviously not to me, but he wanted to be…and that’s a story for another post). Why else would he: drop The Best Friend, not have a MySpace page, or a public Facebook account? The answer: a jealous warden… I mean, wife.

So that’s that. I feel that I got what I wanted, though I’m not entirely sure what exactly I was looking for. Was I hoping he’d be single? That he let himself go? Did I want to know that he was ok and life carried on without me? I think it’s a mixture of all three, but more that life moved forward for him and I didn’t totally destroy his hopes and dreams (again, a story for a later post).

Oh, and I’ve concluded a few things about myself as well: I’m relentless and driven when I am passionate about something; that I have mad cyber-investigative skills; and that my need to know everything about My Guy from the moment I said goodbye through present day…is completely normal. And not an obsessive pursuit. Right?

*Glenn Quinn was an actor on the hit tv show "Roseanne" who tragically died of an overdose in 2002. He was hot and that’s why it’s so tragic.