Sifting the bullshit

It's trite to say that social networking is all the rage.

Facebook, Bebo, classmates.com, friendsreunited.co.uk, Picasa, Snapfish, LinkedIn, bla bla bla. Everybody's doing it and every marketing or PR consultant is proclaiming an aptitude for using it as a communication channel.

Point is, how many people are left now who aren't on a social networking site of some sort?

When it comes to dating, it's commonplace now to 'Google' the name of the person you're interested in to see what they're about. Most recently I've heard friends use Facebook as a verb rather than a noun, to check out the friends and background of an actual or potential suitor.

I didn't do that the first time she told me her name. I was in the back of my parents' car at the time I think, travelling somewhere or other in Norfolk circa December 2008 when that text message arrived. Her name seemed familiar to me somehow, but I couldn't figure out why.

Later, in our so-called 'relationship' I was planning to visit her in the town she was in at the time, because she'd - allegedly - been admitted to hospital. I was concerned. She seemed in a bad way, and I thought it would be a noble, romantic, and well-received gesture by me to surprise her with a visit. However, when I called the hospital, they'd never heard of her. "Well, internal communication within hospital sites probably isn't that great," I thought. Perhaps she was in a different building.

Nope. No trace of her name anywhere, on any list, or within any of the recently admitted patients.

Fast forward to this month. I'm jobhunting on the web when I remember that she told me she works for the organisation I'm already searching for jobs at. I get curious, and - sure enough - there's a gigantic directory of each and every individual working for that organisation on the site. Searchable by first name, last name, phone number and allsorts.

I search using her name first. Nothing. I double-check, first using her surname alone, then her first name alone in case I'd spelt it phonetically. Still nothing. Lots of people with matching first or last names, but nobody matching both. Finally I tried her phone number. Again, zero matches. My suspicion was aroused so I Google'd her. I get 50,000+ results, because she apparently shares a name with the star of one of the biggest news stories coming out of the UK in 2008.

Suddenly, her 'story' seems to be unravelling.

The last time I spoke to her she was returning to work so I know that she should still have a record with that employer. From the way she described it, I'm pretty sure I could hit the right department of that organisation within two or three guesses. Yet I can find no trace of her.

So, into the mind of Spock. What are the possible explanations?

1. That she isn't listed in the directory for some reason - but why? She did move locations, yes, but that wouldn't be a vaild reason for her to be removed - just for her details to have changed. Besides, even with a sloth-like IT team updating the directory and website, she's been in her new location for long enough for her new contact details to go live.
2. That she lied about where she worked. This would explain why she wouldn't be in the directory but - thinking back to some of the conversations we had - she described her work environment in great detail. Not just the physical space but the geography, the people she worked with, her role and responsibilities, the travel required, the meetings she took. Even if she was describing the job of someone she knew, she would have to know the details of their role pretty intimately to be able to talk so freely of them.
3. That she lied about her name. I'm trying my best to keep the cognitive distortions at arm's length here. I can understand why a woman on an internet dating site might want to use a pseudonym. That wouldn't surprise or bother me. But surely, by now, after nearly seven months, she'd have admitted it was her maiden/married name or a made-up name. Why wouldn't she, unless she had something (else) to hide?

There are 131 women in the organisation with the same first name as the person I've been communicating with. Of these, there are half a dozen or so whose job description seems to match what was described to me. But, at the end of the day, it's not close enough.

The only thing that can possible be surmised is that something is not right here. Besides, choosing a name that will always deliver so many search results in Google suggests some form of premeditation - what better way to ensure anonimity. Now I find myself doubting everything she said. How can I possibly tell what's truth and what isn't?

The plot thickens...