Advice - Stalkers!

Dear Ian,
I was mortally offended by your remark in last week's advice column to GOOMM.
You said that waiting too long to ask out someone once you'd become friends
with them was "creepy." I believe I speak for all obsessive creeps out there
when I say "So what?"
I say GOOMM, creep on people all you like. It's OK to be friends with someone
first and perhaps they will take your internet stalking of them as a compliment
when and if you finally confess your love in a drunken haze.
Could happen.
Signed,
Give Creep a Chance

Dear G-CAC,
Okay I admit that there are benefits to Internet creeping. It's kind of fun and every now and then you come across someone you vaguely know on a naughty website. Or you find out something impressive from their past, or you learn that a website they made in grade 12 still exists but mostly contains animated gifs in a poorly html'd mess. It's fun... it's not fun if you're attracted to the person and not laughing about it with them within hours of learning some Internet tidbit.

First of all let's check if you're doing it right:
1) Checking on facebook? Looking through "this person is friends with" if you can't get access? Switching to their network so you can see more?
2) Googling in quotation marks? Googling all email addresses?
3) Does he/she have a myspace which he/she rarely checks but which may have hilarious photos from the past?
4) Do you know what his home town is? Canada 411'd his number, then googled his/her phone number? His/her parent's number?
5) Have you found an old website? Blog? Youtube acount?
6) Have you thoroughly researched old boyfriends and/or girlfriends and stacked yourself up against them?
7) Have you checked dating sites armed with age, gender, location and scoured the pages for a profile?
8) Looked up common profile names (like "pinkkittendragon_13") in all manner listed above?
and last:
9) Have you edited his/her head onto shirtless 80s heart-throbs?
If that is what you're doing: creepy.

Here's why it's creepy: people like to believe the Internet is secret like some mysterious diary that it's not. If you post something online, it's public. Facebook, myspace, youtube are there for anyone to look at. As long as you aren't hacking passwords you are seeing what (arguably) that person already wanted people to see. Just never did they believe a person would compile a mental shrine to their public persona... except for me (I'm vain).
While you are befriending this person you're deceiving them out of an equal playing field. Although he/she could be net-stalking you, they probably aren't. If you're not coming clean about what you're doing then you have the tools to manipulate. "Let's go to see the new transformers movie" you might say
"I love the transformers" he responds. Despite only researching them the previous night after spotting his geocities website you have put yourself at an advantage. You seem the interested, loving companion and because he (never having net-stalked you) has no idea that you want to see 'The Women' starring Meg Ryan's washed up career--he seems a bit of a jerk.
Okay, let's say those heads pasted on Corey Feldman's body are still getting you through nights of being the thoughtful stalker. That person will never want you as much as you want them. Unless they are net-stalking you like a vigilante through the brushes, your attraction to them will always win. And if you let the person you fall in love with be their Internet persona, the real thing will disappoint. Because when it comes down to it, what they put online is what they want the public to see.
So: net-stalk away, but cautiously. It's unhealthy if you want to develop a real bond with the person. But it's perfectly healthy if you net-stalk a close friend and harass them for their geocities atrocity from 1998. Or embarrassing remnant of a misspent youth.

You can write to Ian for advice at Ian_Mullan@hotmail.com