Apparently, I'm a stalker

A young woman of my acquaintance has recently entered into a relationship with a young man, not of my acquaintance. Or so I am to believe, based on the comments recently posted on Facebook, then confirmed in conversation with the young woman.

Naturally, I’d like to know more about the young man in question. So I clicked on a link and checked him out on Facebook.   The young woman would be happiest if I would accept her assessment of the young man and just stay away from his FB page. She even accused me of being a stalker.

Call me what you must but keep in mind my primary identity: I. AM. A. DAD!!!!

Note to daughters everywhere: When you find a universe where dads don’t care to know all they can about boys who might come sniffing around daughters, feel free to move there. Meanwhile, deal with this simple truth: WE. ARE. DADS!!!!

So as soon as she realizes whose page I’m perusing, she starts in on me. You know the rant. “Don’t be a stalker!” Et cetera.

First of all, it should not fall to a 60-year old semi-geezer to explain to a twenty-something college graduate how FB works. But just in case the young woman in question feels the need to be schooled in the basics of social media, here it is: Facebook is not private. It is more about advertising than communication. It is not a place to cache information over the distribution of which one means to exercise any measure of control.

Humph!

Moving on…

Referring back to the preceding paragraph, it seems clear to me (but of course, I’m only a geezer with little significant life experience, so what do I know?) that if there are aspects of his life and times that the young man would as soon keep out of the realm of inquiring Dad-minds, it might behoove same young man not to post them on social media. And to borrow a phrase from their generational lexicon – Ya think?!?!?!?

So the entirely unrepentant and thoroughly self-absorbed Dad of this story went merrily traipsing through the young man’s life history or at least, that portion of it that can be espied through his FB page. I shamelessly read posts, I looked at photos, I checked out friends and friends of friends.

Here’s the tragic, crushingly disappointing truth – I think maybe I’ll like this guy.

Crap.