On the Rocks(39)

“Great point! Let’s see what comes up when we Google you, Abby.” Bobby grabbed my iPad off the counter. “Is it weird that I’m excited to do this?”

“Yes,” Grace and I replied simultaneously.

I watched as Bobby entered my name into the search engine and felt the color drain from my face when he began laughing uncontrollably.

“What?” I asked as I lunged for the iPad. “What are you laughing at?”

“You were on the debate team in junior high?” he asked as he scrolled through the article he was reading. “Oh, this is amazing. It explains so much, now that I think about it. You are unusually good at verbal sparring.”

“So what? I was trying to broaden my résumé so that I could get into a good college. I don’t apologize for that!”

“Not only were you on the debate team, you were the captain of the debate team! This is bad enough, because it screams geek squad, but this picture—Abby, this picture is just fantastic,” Bobby said sarcastically.

I finally managed to snatch the iPad away from him and froze in horror at the image staring back at me. There I was, front and center in the picture of our debate team, right after we won the district championship. I was smiling broadly with the gold medal hanging around my neck, which in and of itself would’ve been okay. The real problem was that eighth grade wasn’t exactly kind to me. I had full-blown acne, braces, and frizzy hair that resulted from a misguided attempt to home-perm my hair one afternoon when I decided I wanted to look like Bernadette Peters for reasons that still escape me. It was awful. It was the reason I avoided mirrors for a solid six months that year and the reason my mother canceled our charge account at the local drugstore. And now this picture was on the Internet, for all eternity. It was official: I was going to die alone.

“That is so not fair, I’m twelve years old in that picture! I’d love to see what you looked like at that age. No normal guy would ever use that picture as a reason to not contact a grown woman!” I cried, hoping that what I was saying was true.

“I agree with you, but here’s what we learned from this little Internet search: one, you’re smart and not afraid to argue with people, and two, you were probably tormented in junior high and in all likelihood have deep-seated insecurities as a result. See? Now I have a better idea of who I’m dealing with.”

“Well what do you suggest I do? Petition Google to remove any pictures of me taken before high school? I cannot stand that this is what the world has been reduced to. This type of information should only be revealed to someone once you’re in a serious relationship. It shouldn’t be common knowledge for any shallow moron to see.”

“That’s why Facebook is the single best thing to happen to the dating world. You can control what pictures you put up there. You can control what information you release for all the shallow morons to see. If you know one person in common, you can weed out all the randoms and find the exact person you’re looking for, so you’re positive before you email that you’re not writing a muppet with a unibrow or adult acne. You see what I’m saying? Facebook shall set you free,” he said flatly.

“I’m not on Facebook anymore. In fact, Mark Zuckerberg is lucky I don’t sue him for aiding and abetting an *.” I now hated Facebook the way most people hated telemarketers. The day I deactivated my account I swore I would never visit the site again. Now, once again, Facebook was biting me in the ass like it was mad at me. Which is odd, because I swear I never did anything to it.

“Which is why you won’t hear from him. He’s assuming that any girl who’s not on Facebook, or worse, who’s on it but won’t post any pictures, is ugly. He thinks you look like Shrek. Unless you get back on there and post a hot picture of yourself, never plan on hearing from any prospective blind dates, ever,” he replied.

“It’s not blind. I met him at the bar, remember? You were there!”

“That’s a technicality. The bar was dark, he was drunk, and he had probably hit on twenty girls throughout the course of the night, and the only things he remembers seeing—at best—are your ass and your profile. Trust me, he has no clue what you look like. He was just tossing a wide net, well aware he’d be throwing back the bottom-feeders. He probably didn’t even put you in his phone under your real name.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? How else would he have programmed me in there?” I asked.

“He looked up your real name on Facebook and then reprogrammed your number in his phone under any number of useful mnemonic devices to help keep the chick catalog straight in his head. I mean, Grace has been calling him The Guy from the Bird Bar. Maybe you’re in there as Bird Bitch. Who knows? Guys who are actively dating will rarely use real names. It’s way too hard to keep all the girls straight, and if you accidentally mix up stories or names you look like a womanizer, and there’s no coming back from that. It’s just easier this way. I met a girl named Tara Crosby once, or was it Tina? Anyway, I put her in my phone as Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I wonder what happened to her now that I think about it,” he said.

“And that was how you remembered who she was?” I asked, shocked that guys in their thirties adopted such immature tactics.

“Yup. If she drunk-dialed me a month later, I wouldn’t have remembered who Tara was. But Crosby, Stills, and Nash, that would’ve rung a bell. I once put a girl in my phone who was only visiting for a weekend as LN, which stood for Last Night. I doubt Blondie came up with anything that clever, but you get the gist.”