Googled...

Has anyone else out there been Googled? Did you get that combination feeling of being slightly flattered and slightly creeped out?

I got an email a couple of years ago from a guy I dated in college. Seriously dated. As in talked about getting married. Which was not a topic to be taken lightly, since it involved my converting to Judaism and all.

He found my school email address through the college alumni directory, which I have no recollection of submitting my personal information to, but apparently I did because it's there. I gave him my personal email address because I felt guilty about conducting personal business via county-provided email resources. I have since abandoned such scruples, but whatever.

He sang in the Men's Glee Club in college, and I sang in the Women's Glee Club. There were three couples from the two groups, and I swear I am not making this up: Joni and Tony; Cheryl and Ferrell; and............ Michael and Dena. Whatever. Neither of us majored in music, but we both enjoyed singing and performing with our respective groups. The two glee clubs went on an out-of-town trip to sing Verdi's Requiem with the Savannah Symphony Orchestra. We had sung the same two-hour piece (all in Latin) at a concert at our university, but with an intermission, and we were allowed to sit down during the lengthy solo section in the middle. Not so in Savannah. The conductor there was........ shall we say....... temperamental, and he refused both luxuries during that performance. I thought I would die from standing in heels for the entire performance. And because I'm short, I was always on the front row. I couldn't even afford to pass out. But I digress.

Michael and I started dating after that trip, and we were pretty much in each other's hip pocket all the time. I hung out at his fraternity house (NOT one of the cool ones), he made the trek out to where I still lived at home. Until I got an apartment in town, when he pretty much stayed at my place all the time. Much to the chagrin of his roommate, who was also his younger brother, who felt obligated to tattle about how many nights Michael didn't come home. But we were THIS CLOSE to getting married, for Pete's sake. Surely that made it slightly less sinful. I did have enough morals to be slightly embarrassed when we waited together at the bus stop right outside my apartment building in the mornings. Not enough morals not to spend the night together; just enough to be embarrassed that everyone else at the bus stop knew we had done so.

We went to football games together, home and away. He and I were at the famous game when Georgia beat Florida with about a minute left to maintain a perfect record and eventually go on to win the National Championship. The winning play was an 86-yard touchdown pass from Buck Belue to Lindsay Scott. Michael and I had on matching UGA jerseys; he wore Belue's #8 and I wore Scott's #24. Please just shoot me now.

Michael took me to my first Braves game, too. That was back before the dynasty years, when you could go to the stadium and sit pretty much anywhere you wanted to. They were just happy for all seventeen of us fans to show up before first pitch.

His family also had tickets to the Masters (he was from Augusta), and that is pretty much unheard of. The only way even to get on the WAITING LIST for Masters tickets is for someone to die. We went to the Saturday round in 1980 (I think), and we followed Jack Nicklaus around Augusta National. He was playing with a relatively unknown golfer from Australia whom I thought kind of cute. His name was Greg Norman. Word.

I'm sure Michael had some outstanding qualities. Other than the Masters tickets, I mean. But we eventually went our separate ways, and it was painful because although I knew it was for the best, I wanted it to be MY idea. Not his mother's.

When he Googled me, I felt slightly flattered and slightly creeped out, as I mentioned before. I sent him a picture of me and Sweet Girl at her graduation from basic training, because I thought it was an excellent picture for showing how much we look alike. He sent pictures of his four (four!) children, ranging in age from 6 to 20, or something like that. I hoped that I had aged better than he had. Okay, I also chose the picture from basic training because I thought it showed a youthful portrait of me. Full disclosure here.

We exchanged a few more emails. I sent him an ecard on his birthday, and he was impressed that I remembered. But I specialize in random dates and pieces of useless numerical information, remember? It was also part of his email address. Big old bag of duh.

After a couple of weeks of trading emails, he suddenly said we had to stop communicating because his wife of 20 years wouldn't like it. [You looked ME up, you dolt, do you not remember that?] He was always prone to melodrama and mushiness, and he closed his final email with something along the lines of, "Like an old Barry Manilow song says, 'some day our paths may cross again.'" Now I'm no Barry Manilow expert, regardless of how many of his albums I still have on my shelf, but I don't remember that line from any of his songs. Feel free to correct me if you know otherwise. Who the hell quotes Barry Manilow anyway?