People search

I didn't expect this. And I shouldn't have looked. Now I need to look more.

I did a White Pages search on Copernic. It is pretty thorough. I was looking for P. I've wanted to email him, but doing a search kept me occupied enough and not emailing. That's a good thing.

I've searched on him before and not gotten a lot. What I'd found was old.

This time, Copernic had him, his old town, his new town, and a new relative: a woman with his last name who is not his daughter, mother, or niece. A woman with the first name of his old co-worker, one who quit their mutual workplace shortly before P and I'd met. They kept in touch. She had very bad taste in men. Early on in our relationship, she'd called P to say that her crazy ex-boyfriend had declared that she could have half of everything - and proceeded to chain saw all their furniture in two while she was at work. I remember restraining orders and jail time due to that and other junk.

Last I recall, she'd moved on. She was pregnant with her black landlord's baby and her white live-in boyfriend didn't know. I guess she'd have been due last summer.

I never met her, but I never considered her a threat, even though she'd occasionally call while I was there and he wouldn't answer the phone - told me it was impolite and he often didn't answer the phone when his crazy mother called, so it wasn't that unusual to let the phone ring. I knew their conversations could get long and involved.

I also didn't consider her a threat because she was too young - mid 20s or so - and too mixed up. She seemed to provide the source of laughs more than empathy. Maybe P needed someone more mixed up than he, someone who could relate and guide his teenaged daughter on a path closer to her own. Sorry, can't help the sarcasm.

I just don't know.

He didn't seem to want to be married that badly.

Last summer when his home email address bounced, I knew immediately that he had moved. I don't, however, remember the last time I searched on his name, not that the turn around on Copernic would have been THAT quick to show a marriage the next week. Last summer, he'd started a new job, bought a house, was beginning in therapy - it was a time of a lot of changes. I wouldn't call him especially good at change.

Was he cheating on me? Or was he merely thinking of cheating on me? Keeping one on the hook? Or was she opportunistic in nabbing a guy as she was in dire straights? Was I stupid in not worrying about what I thought was a work relationship that had the side benefit of some interesting gossip?

I've checked the dating website he'd originally contacted me from several times in the last six months. This site is nifty in that it shows the last time someone logged in. P last logged in a few days before we did our exchange of junk last summer. I have actually been silently commending him for not trolling a dating site as he was trying to get himself together. Maybe he was already occupied instead?

I have to decide if it is worth it to pay the website for more data. It'd be $50 and I fear it'd only provide info on her "married" name, so I wouldn't get the real background I want.

If/when you do people searches, what do you use? Have you found the dirt you wanted? Any idea how I could research a potential wedding date? Email me privately if you want. I know about Freedom of Information Act, but don't you have to know specifics to use it? I could make a stab at where they might have gotten married, but it could be a goose chase from county to county.

I wish I could leave it alone, but I can't. Wouldn't it be fun to send them flowers for Valentine's Day? Just to pay him back for the ones he sent me last year?

Please comment.