When I think about myself, I click myself.

It might be taboo. I heard that if you do it too often, you might go blind. Sometimes, we don’t go to sleep because we’re too busy doing it. You don’t like to do it in front of other people because it’s all about you. Your private time where you get to experience how much you like yourself. It’s satisfying. It’s pleasurable. It’s awkward when you get caught. It’s embarrassing but everyone does it. I actually do it every day at work. Sometimes a couple of times when I get home. It feels good. No, I’m not talking about masturbation. I’m talking about searching for yourself online.

Penny is famous on ShitMyPetsRuined.com

We’re all guilty. I even once was a member of a group on Facebook entitled “Uh oh, I think I’m stalking myself”. We are all fabulous people who want to feel better about themselves to see how popular we are on the Internet. On a recent Google search for myself, I’ve found various articles I’ve been featured in, my slow road race times, some shout-outs to me in synagogue bulletins and those creepy people search sites that tell me where I’ve lived and how old my sisters are. 

I like finding out what other Sharon Rosenblatts are up to. It seems a lot of us have typically taught Hebrew school somewhere. I even found an obituary for a Sharon Rosenblatt. It’s chilling, really. It also sucks when other Sharon Rosenblatts are cooler than your or prettier than you. Yeah, there is a cuter Sharon Rosenblatt if you Google image search my name. Fuck her.

Truthfully, the search is bigger than self-glorification. We also want to guard what people find out about us before they actually meet us. Admit it, how many times have you agreed to go on a date with someone and Googled them first? See if they have a Facebook profile and judge them if they are with bikini babes or have a douchebag muscle shot as a picture? Maybe make sure they’re employed by looking for them on LinkedIn? It’s human nature. I even went on a date with a guy who extensively read my LinkedIn and admitted it on the first date. He said he thought my business development skills needed improvement. Well, his relationship skills needed work too. 

The most frustrating thing is when you can’t find them on Google or Facebook. I recently met someone by pure chance of shared Connecticut geography (it’s a long story) and we agreed to meet in person to catch up. Naturally, I wanted to Google him to make sure he wasn’t a murderer or worse, had an eHarmony video like that cat woman. I literally could not find him on the Facebook, and the only results that came up were his LinkedIn (sans picture), and his race times (definitely better than mine). He even brought that up while we met, that you purposely couldn’t find anything. Still, I found it alarming he must have known what I looked like before I did. Not alarming, just unfair. I still haven’t found him on Facebook, either. And it did end up being bad—he’s a Red Sox fan. Oy. 

I’ve Googled people applying for jobs with my company. I’ve Googled people I buy stuff from Craigslist on. Still, I search for no one nearly as often as I search for myself. My recent adventure was seeing what happened when I searched for myself on Wikipedia. Here are some interesting things about Sharons:

-Sharon is one of many names that could formerly be applied to males (as in the 19th-century historian Sharon Turner), but is now nearly always used of females. Well, there goes my dream of meeting a guy with the same name as me :-(

-In the United Kingdom its popularity peaked during the 1960s. It was the 10th most popular female name by 1964 and was still as high as 17th in 1974, but a sharp decline in popularity followed and since the 1980s it has not even featured in the top 100. Again, my unpopularity is reaffirmed. 

- There are towns called Sharon in a bunch of states in the US: California, Connecticut, Georgia, Kansas, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Maine, Kansas, and a Sharonville in Ohio. 

Here’s my personal favorite: SHARON (Single reactor system for High activity Ammonium Removal Over Nitrite) is a sewage treatment process.

Look at all the fun things I find out with some self-indulgence! I think, as they taught me in public school health class, that it is perfectly normal and healthy to indulge in this small act of hedonism. As long as you don’t forget about other people, you’re okay. And don’t make a mess.