Okay I don't think I'm doing well with the caffeine withdrawl because I'm feeling on edge and a little bitchy. That and when I was at the grocery store there was a cooking demostration with salmon. It was at the front of the store and you could smell it in the back of the store and on the other side. And I can still smell it.

Hil, think of the department secretary as your mutual friend. And think of the mutual friend as the department secretary. It works both ways!

Stalking = prey. If you don't intend to devour him for dinner, it's just another way of vetting.

Signed,

Had a real stalker and take the term seriously

Signed, Had a real stalker and take the term seriously

Sorry. I'll be more careful with how I use that term.

Oh, sorry, Hil, it's not you. It's the whole world's casual use of it! Sorry that I singled you out, I was actually trying to let you know I think your Google-use is completely normal and NOT stalkerish!

Unless you plan to devour him for dinner, but I doubt it since you're vegan!

Quite a way to give up being vegan.

Googlestalking =/= Stalking. It's just asking around about somebody. One of the most valuable things you can learn is just how fast and lose they run with their information on the internet.

It's just asking around about somebody.

Yep.

I facebook friended him.

Our mutual friend seems to know everybody at this conference. I have no idea how she does it. She'll see someone and go rushing up to them and tell them how great their last paper was and what they've changed about their appearance since the last time she saw them and that she saw that they're giving a talk at this conference and it looks really interesting. Meanwhile, I see someone who I met at a conference a few months ago, and we look at each other awkwardly until one of us asks, "Do I know you? You look familiar," and then we compare math histories until we figure out that we met in Kentucky last March.

Sounds like your friend is very good at networking. Though it helps if you're social to begin with, it's a skill that can definitely be developed.

Sorry, java! Understandable that stalking is perhaps a term that shouldn't be used jokingly, even in an "internetstalking" sort of way, because even in that, one can SO take it over the line, obviously!! Goodness knows, we all being very webby people know that having someone All Up In Your Internet would be Creepy and Upsetting, just to start with, even before it got really bad...I wouldn't want someone following me HERE, say, and one person who went on a date with me and told me they'd found my LJ (note: we had no mutual LJ friends) and read the whole thing (all the un-locked entries) was....lucky she was awesome, cause damn that sounded creepy!