Stalking

One great use of the internet are the “where are they now?” queries. It helps if you remember their names and there are times when trying to remember someone from jr high school is a bit of a stretch. If I'm lucky, I'll find that one person and then I can hit up their Facebook page. 99% of the time the person really hasn't changed too much from what I recall them to be.

Ex girlfriends, ex-coworkers and anyone I'm curious about I generally can find. Some others seem not even to be on the internet at all and I begin to wonder what happened. Even if you're dead there's usually a record of that somewhere.

This morning I was reminded of “the ones that got away” and used that as my category to search.

I once worked in the social services area and met a co-worker who was fall on the earth pretty. Not only that, she seemed to have a good heart as well, which is better than superficial beauty. So she was excellent in both ways. She had been broken up with a long time boyfriend and seemed ready.

She was coy about my rooting around her den and I really didn't come on too hard, but it was obvious I was interested. I finally asked her out one day and was shot down in the nicest of ways. There are some people who are great at the “kiss off” and can deliver bad news and make you feel great about it, for about thirty minutes, that's until you think about what happened and you come to your senses finally.

“Wait a minute...everything she said was a cunning lie...and you bought it for just the right amount of time!”

After a while, I asked others just what she was about and why I was shot down. You see, no one ever keeps a secret and the gossip network can't help but spread information. I was told that she thought I was “nice enough” but not her type.

“What's her type? I ask. I figured it had to do with physical looks, as it usually does.

I get a really circuitous answer that really isn't meant to tell me the truth. I hate that. In fact, if you try that with me, I'll psychologically torture you by incessant questioning till you do spill the beans. Thank Jesuit training for that skill.

The girl I'm talking to finally says it in the nicest of ways. “She doesn't think your ugly or anything, it's just that she's looking for someone in a field who will be successful one day.

When I heard the word “successful,” I translated that to mean “rich.” The field I was in at the time does not lead one to affording homes in the Hamptons.

Not too long after, she had found her boyfriend. A couple of years later they were married and I was out of that field anyway, starting a new career. I never saw her again.

This morning out of curiosity I use Intelius to locate her. She's there and I find the husband's name. So I “Intelius” him and I find out she scored herself a fat prize. She found her “successful” man.

I never knew anyone who ever worked for Aramco. Aramco is Saudi Arabia's state/private oil company that has more money than Allah. It's massive. I find her husband is this pipeline engineer who designs the actual pipeline, valves and software to run it all. His resume spoke of someone that spent their entire life inside the oil business and had a degree from CalTech. This guy is a rocket scientist who turned that into heaps of money.

“Wow, she certainly knew where to look and bag the big one” I thought to myself.

When I Facebooked her, I find that her likes, movies and such were paltry. Her comments were flat and hollow and her largest interest was in JoAnn's fabrics. If not that, then links to various high end clothing and jewelry stores.

There are people you've met where “there's less there than meets the eye” actually is true. When I meet someone new, I dig, I investigate and learn who this person is. It's out of genuine curiosity and to me, it's fun to swim in the depths of another personality. The key here is depth. There are people who, if you try to dive into them, you smack your head on the bottom of their pool as it's only a foot deep. I find that surprising that how anyone can have lived something of a life and NOT manage to deepen and grow from it. How can you not? I guess there are some who succeed at not evolving.

Why I didn't know this then when I actually knew her? I hadn't packed on the years of experience yet.

I continue to read her Facebook and a thought dawns on me...”you're a Trophy Wife!” I imagined a conversation at the dinner table.

“Honey...I found a new bauble from Sax Fifith Avenue today. What did you do?”

“Well, I laid another 20 miles of gas pipeline...rewrote the pressure gauge software using the C programming language and C#. We'll have to get the Saudi attorneys into this as well as the Bedouins are complaining about their treaty rights now and how this pipeline runs on their territory. How much was that Sax thing again?”

Perhaps my lack of that kind of success was a good thing?