Its Not Who I Am, Its What I Do

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I was reading a US Magazine interview with Carrie Underwood earlier, and something she said hit home with me.

"If I met somebody, and they don't know anything about me," she said, "That's like, 'Oh, you're going to actually get to know me a little bit before you go Google me?"

Despite my lack of fame and notoriety, just by virtue of being a writer, I, too, get the ‘get to know me vs Google me’ thing in dating.

It’s a very uncomfortable feeling to have someone checking you out online. It creates a false sense of ‘knowing you’ in them, and it also represents an unfair ‘advantage’ in the balance of the blossoming relationship. In all honesty, it creeps me out to have someone who is interested in me checking me out online rather than just getting acquainted with me one-on-one.

I have also discovered, more often than not, that people who spend more time trying to find out about me on Google than one-on-one usually have issues I do not wish to deal with such as control, insecurity, and trust.

While writing has always been my heart’s desire, it is also something I do – it is not who I am. Sometimes I write about the things that matter to me, and sometimes I write what I am assigned, from the perspective I am instructed. Many times the final product is different from what I originally wrote. Sometimes the changes are minor and other times they are not.

In any case, assuming one ‘knows me’ simply by reading my writing or Googling me is wrong.

For the first time, I am beginning to understand part of the difficulty celebrities have in relationships. People think they ‘know’ the celebs based upon roles they have played, songs they have sung, and rumors that have been spread.

There will always be a piece of me in my writing. However, the whole me is far more complex and complete than any amount of Googling could ever reveal.

The only true way to get to know a person is to actually get to know them.

To that end, what do you find to be the best ways to get to know someone?


Source:
US Magazine (Online)
Carrie Underwood Apologizes for Upsetting Jessica Simpson
Monday November 3, 2008
http://www.usmagazine.com/news/carrie-underwood-apologizes-for-upsetting-jessica-simpson