Checking her out at work? She’s Googling you

Forget about making yourself look so hot and sound so cool on dating apps and websites, ’cause it’s not only potential employers checking up on your social-media profiles to help them determine whether you’re fit to work for them. Potential dates are heading to your Facebook and Twitter posts to help them determine whether you’d make a fit “boo” or “bae.”

Eighty percent of singles admit to having researched a date beforehand, according to a recent study. JDP, which offers employment screening and background checks for risk mitigation, conducted a survey of 2,000 Americans to check out how people are checking out the folks with whom they are considering doing dinner and a movie.

Let me say that these dating youngsters have it easy. In the old days, we had to do the dating equivalent of walking 5-10 miles in the snow to get to school. We checked up on potential sweeties by asking around — a viable method in a city like Little Rock, which still qualifies as a big small town. Or we checked out the newspaper’s Police Beat columns to make sure the potential sweetie’s name hadn’t shown up in there. Or we simply listened to our gut.

The survey revealed that in all, 88 percent of its respondents have researched someone before going on a date with them. Thirty-eight percent “always” do so; 23 percent “usually” do so, while 16 percent “sometimes” do and 11 percent “rarely” do. I wonder what the “I do, but don’t want to admit I do it” percentage would have been.

Other revelations:

■ Seventy-two percent do their research before going on that first date. A super-cautious 33 percent research potential dates even before contacting them. Eleven percent each research their bae/ boo hopes “before third date” and “after third date.” I guess that isn’t as bad as moving in with somebody two weeks after meeting them and subsequently suing or being sued by them on a TV judge show, but it still seems to be a bit slow on the draw.

■ Of those who research, 88 percent hit up Facebook, that first bastion of give-’emenough-rope-ness; 70 percent, Google. Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube follow in descending percentages. (Columnist’s note to researchers: Check out LinkedIn more. As one member there lamented the other day, people are treating it more like Facebook. And it may tell you whether your potential date, who has purported to be Jeff Bezos’ second in command, is actually job-hunting.)

■ Two-thirds say they go “most” or “all the way” back in a person’s social media profile. They’re checking out those photos/videos (70 percent) and that person’s interests (56 percent); getting a feel for their personality (42 percent); checking out the types of friends they have (30 percent) and ferreting out whether they’ve got a criminal background (24 percent — surprised that’s not higher). Other things researchers are looking for, in order of descending percentages: pictures/videos of exes, work history, education and political/religious views. The priorities, divided by sex, aren’t surprising: Women are more interested in criminal background and work history; men are more interested in pictures/videos and interests. ■ What have those potential main squeezes lied about? Weight (the most, at 52 percent), living situation (43 percent live in Mom’s basement but claim they have a house in the Hamptons/Hollywood Hills/the Heights; age (42 percent), height and so on. The work lie (Bezos’ right hand? Riiiight) comes in at 21 percent. ■ Forty percent have backed out of a date because of something they found researching online. Nothing about the excuses used to back out. Suggestion: “Um, look, I lied about myself to get dates, so let’s not go out after all. It’s not you; it’s me.”

On a serious tip: I’ve issued multiple gentle warnings in this space to beware of what you post on social media. But while gross, crude, obnoxious or otherwise inappropriate social-media posts are pretty good in identifying people as donkeys, the lack of such material doesn’t make them paragons of dateable, marriageable virtue.

Research is good. But don’t discount the gut. Or Police Beat.

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