Love at first Google

Martha Rhodes is a self-described "one search engine woman." She swore by Google to find details on men she dated or was about to date right up to her current boyfriend. She found out things she already knew such as his residence (in Birmingham) and any appearances in the media. Then the devout Democrat discovered her future boyfriend ran for office as a Republican.

"I thought oh my gosh, I already know I don't like him,' " said Rhodes, a 32-year-old lawyer from Charleston, S.C.

She decided to go on her blind date anyway, playing it cool, acting innocent of any digging on the Web.

"I just nodded and smiled and luckily he didn't call me out on the next date," she said.

On their next date, both parties came clean about Googling each other.

More teens and young adults are turning to a different kind of net to weed through incompatible fish in the dating sea - the Internet. Social networking sites such as the former college student-exclusive Facebook and all-inclusive MySpace feed curious minds more information than they perhaps ever wanted to know about a crush, down to what brand of shoes he or she prefers to whether the object of affection watched "Salute Your Shorts" on Nickelodeon growing up. Search engines such as Google or Yahoo! can go beyond the oft-created surface images people present in their online profiles revealing arrests and secret jobs - a layman's guide to background searching.

Dr. Bill Huddleston, chair of the communications and theater department at the University of North Alabama, said one advantage of meeting and researching romantic mates online is that blind dates like Rhodes' aren't completely blind.

"I think one of the advantages is it reduces some of the blindness out of a blind date," he said.

He said females use the Internet more than males and Internet usage rises along with education. A recent article in Newsweek suggested more college-educated social networkers lean towards Facebook, while the larger MySpace demographic is endless. He said women tend to post according to the Exchange Theory of communication - they want information from or about the person or subject of the post whereas "males aren't necessarily interested in a reply."

Rhodes wasn't the only one curious about her future date's past.

"I think everyone in my family Googled him too," she said.

Her mother, Sarah Gaede of Florence, made a sort of past time out of looking up her daughter's dates. Gaede jokingly refers to her sister as her "research assistant."

Gaede takes Googling cues from her 82-year-old father. He's the one who told her to start putting quotation marks around her the subject of her search for a more precise outcome.

"I've never seen anything particularly alarming - she has good taste," Gaede said of her daughter's past dates. "I've never found out anything about any of her boyfriends she wouldn't have told me anyway."

Still, she abides by the motto of what you don't know won't hurt you when it comes to discovering skeletons in online of closets.

"My mom philosophy is don't ask don't tell," Gaede said. "There are some things I don't want to know."

Rhodes takes her family's date digging in stride.

"It's funny. At this point it's been going on for five years," she said.

A lawyer, Rhodes sometimes uses her access to personal records to background her dates like a certain "sketchy" guy. His criminal background check turned out clear.

Rhodes admits excess Googling can lead to jumping to conclusions.

Pictures of a Googled subject, for instance the one she found of her future boyfriend, can be misleading and dated.

"The one picture I saw of him I didn't think he was very cute. When he showed up for the date I was pleasantly surprised," Rhodes said.

As for looking up the ex-flames of a current flame? Forget about it. That can get you in trouble, Rhodes said, and can lead to discovering things you really don't want to know.

Huddleston says information on the Internet is fair game.

"If the information is on the Internet it's public record," he said.

Dr. Rosanna Guadagno, an assistant professor of social psychology at the University of Alabama, pointed out that online profiles and search engines can prompt premature judgment of a date.

"You form a pretty distinct impression of that person before you get to know them," she said.

On the flip side, Guadagno said people who meet online tend to form stronger relationships than couples attracted to each other based on looks alone.

"Research shows that with people who are honest (meeting on the Internet) is a good thing," Guadagno said.

Honesty worked for Tammy Hollis, who recently moved to Florence after marrying a man she met through Yahoo! personals. He urged her to join MySpace where she discovered their mutual love for Alabama football and online quizzes.

She describes the bond she and her husband made on MySpace as "basically the same thing as Yahoo! personals." She said one advantage of MySpace was that she could verify that her then-boyfriend was the soldier he claimed to be - she saw a picture of him in uniform.

But the snooping ran both ways.

When she referred her boyfriend to the Web site of the school where she teaches, he had already taken a look.

"He said 'I already saw your school thing,' " she laughed.

She's satisfied with using the Internet as a dating and research tool.

"I had a very successful experience and I'm very happy," she said. "Despite all the information we learned, we've stuck together so far."

Dishonesty, however, can backfire especially when the writing is literally on online walls for all to see.

Guadagno recalled the story of a soldier in Iraq who discovered his wife was cheating on him by visiting her MySpace profile. He traced his wife's boyfriend through her friends network.

Social networks have added more intimate features such as the controversial Facebook mini feed, that displays recent user activity, including wall postings, to friends.

"The personal social networks are a lot more transparent than they used to be," Guadagno said.

From college classes, jobs and media appearances "sometimes information you post online will last for years," Guadagno said.

Guadagno advises social networkers who fish for dates online to refrain from literally and figuratively putting it all out there through photos and words.

"If you're looking to find a mate, use some discretion in what you post," she said.

Jennifer Crossley can be reached at jennifer.crossley@timesdaily.com or 740-5743.