AIBU to ask if you google people you used to know, what ‘types’ do you search for?!

[Clytemnestra2]

I think that everyone has done it... when you have a few minutes free, and so randomly google a few people you used to know to find out what they’re doing now. There’s the obvious ones, like searching for an ex boyfriend or a close friend who you’ve lost touch with. But I’ve realised that my nosiness goes beyond this and that I sometimes search for people I’ve not seen for ages, or wasn’t even that close to in the first place. And that weirdly the types of people I search for fall into ‘categories’ such as:

• The coolest most popular girls from school and university
  
• People who I’ve worked with who have gone on to have really successful careers (not in a jealous way, I’m quite happy bumbling along at my level, I’m just intrigued that my ex-colleagues are now Director of x or Global Head of y)
  
• People I have met and really really disliked
  
• Weirdest of all, people I’ve never met but have stumbled across on social media and have become oddly fascinated by. I’m thinking of a friend of a friend who I saw tagged in a few fb posts, idly looked at a few photos of, and then fell into a wormhole of looking at her friendship group on fb/Instagram. They’re all extremely well-off, have posh names, are all size 8 blondes, and are all small-scale ‘influencers’.
  

Does anyone else do similar, or have I completely lost the plot? I have got an actual life I promise!

[Thingsdogetbetter]

Nope. Never googled anyone, unless in a work context. Don't care about what people I used to know or never knew were/are doing.

[Cattenberg]

The ones with unusual names! I probably wouldn’t bother googling say, “Claire Jones” or “James Smith”, because I’m not prepared to spend long on this.

I don’t actually want to reconnect with most of the people I went to school with, but I do occasionally wonder what happened to them. One schoolmate went into the TV industry and won a prestigious award (think along the lines of a BAFTA). A bossy PITA became a police officer. A boy who was nice, but a bit of a gobshite, became an estate agent. A few schoolmates have sadly died. One of my exs’ got prosecuted for criminal damage. He always was a bit dodgy.

[AnneTwacky]

Nope.

I wouldn't like it if I found out someone from my past had been googling me, so am not going to do it to someone else.

[Nackajory]

No, never done this. CBA

[Ponoka7]

I've done it with people who bullied me.
Other than that they've been relatives of relatives. One very much doesn't deserve the success she has had, think children in care etc.

[NC4Now]

I don’t google them either. If they crop up on my ‘people you might know’ on Facebook I might have a quick nosey. That’s as far as it goes.

[Fruitbowlflowers]

Nope never randomly thought ooh I’ll google
such and such.

[Braipea]

People from school quite often, in a group chat with some friends from school and we often say I wonder what so and so did/does and I will often have a mooch on LinkedIn to see

[ForeverBubblegum]

I've looked up old school friends I've lost touch with, but that's about it.

[AranciaRosso]

I do this sometimes and I think most people do on the quiet. I lose interest pretty quickly though

[TheWildOnesNeverDie]

I am the same as you OP - I randomly stalk people I find fascinating - usually women who have the type of style I wish I had, or nice hair !

I also have handful of females my age that were very pretty and popular/rich (or seemed that way to my quite lonely and poor younger self) that I regularly have a casual stalk of to see how they are doing.

Most have put on lots of weight, lost their parents wealth and aren’t popular at all anymore. So I find myself going through their old photos to relive the ‘good’ times 😆

I also base a lot of my current fashion on what they were all wearing 10 years ago. I liked it 😃

[StCharlotte]

Funnily enough I looked up an old boss today. We'd got on brilliantly but then he left for a completely different sector where he did very well and would occasionally pop up on the news.

I probably haven't thought about him for a decade and today I discovered he reached very giddy heights in his profession and then there was a press release about five years ago saying he was leaving all of a sudden and no one knew why. I'm very intrigued!

[dontdressme]

I’ve done this lots of times in the past (and then later on think why on earth was I interested? ). Just idle curiosity and it’s generally lovely to see that they’re doing well.

I can’t get worked up about other people googling me. I mean, my info’s stored on an international retrieval system that’s accessible worldwide, it’s not like they’re trying to peek through my front blinds

[Villanemme]

If I ever randomly think of schoolfriends I might look on FB but it's difficult with women as most have changed their names. I love seeing what they look like now after 50 years, if they've retired to the Caribbean, if their grandchildren look like they did, whether they stayed in academia etc. I tend to forget straight away afterwards though! Recently doing some family history I've tried to look up friends of my parents and their children that my mum has remembered. No luck so far though. Although I looked for a long-lost cousin and we've hooked up and exchanged photos of grandparents so that was good. No interest in randoms or friends of friends though!

[Villanemme]

Sorry about using the word 'though' a million times....

[Chicchicchicchiclana]

I do a bit of online stalking sometimes when I can't sleep at night.

Mainly all the ultra privileged public schoolboys I was friends with at University and in my 20s before we all gradually got married and had families.

They are all ultra succesful in their various careers, some very well known, a couple of household names. It doesn't make me feel mundane and ordinary, no siree.

[Aloethere]

I don't usually do it but I googled an old friend for college a while ago after I saw someone in the street that reminded me of her. We were really close for a few years then we fell out over her drinking and risky behaviour. Turns out she died a few years ago after taking someones car when drunk and crashing. She always ascribed to the live fast, die young motto but I never and I would imagine she never thought it would actually happen.

[Rocaille]

I've never done this. I hate the thought that people could be Googling me. It's creepy.

[Clytemnestra2]

Really interesting that some people find it creepy. I think as google, internet etc is such an integral part of life I think of it as quite an ‘everyday’ thing.

@Chicchicchicchiclana I know what you mean. I went to a uni with a lot of ‘yahs’ - very posh privately-educated, often titled, people, and it’s fascinating to see how their lives after uni have turned out. (Spoiler - they married other rich people and now have their own kids going to private schools...)

[ConnellWaldronsChain]

I do this too OP

Usually it's just when someone from the past pops into my head who I haven't thought about for years so could be someone from school or uni, an old colleague, an old flame or just someone fairly random who's paths I crossed with a long time ago

[BombyliusMajor]

I do this all the time! I look for:

-Children I babysat for when I was a teenager 30 years ago, to see how they grew up

• the family I stayed with on a French exchange when I was 15
  

• my old teachers
  

• random people from primary school who I just happen to think of and wonder about
  

Not many people from my adult life.

[cleanseTone]

I often do this for people i went to uni with. I feel sick with jealousy that they're all so successful and I've achieved nothing.

[ComtesseDeSpair]

I Facebook snoop on an entire extended family who live in Cleveland, Ohio, none of whom I have ever met and who I only alighted on because of a comment one of the adult daughters made on a post in an international group I happened to be looking at. The comment was so beautifully bonkers I felt compelled to find out more about its maker, and thus began my trip down the rabbit hole of this family.

“Snoop” is the wrong word, really - they and most of their friends all have wide open profiles with no privacy settings and they happily post and share all kinds of too much information about their lives and have Facebook arguments and it passes some of my idler moments.

Other than that I only really google or FB search old colleagues out of interest to see what they’re doing with themselves nowadays. There are often some surprises.

[Icelandholiday]

I googled a boy I snogged a few times when I was 17. I found out committed suicide after being diagnosed with a horrible illness :(

[DoAsYouWouldBeMumBy]

Oh I do this quite often! The most ridiculous one is the best friend of a girl I knew vaguely for a year. I never met the friend but she has an amazingly glamorous life online 😂