Egosurfing at its best

I’m a successful real estate agent. Apparently I round up gullible clients and take them on twenty-kilometre-drives through the dusty by lanes of the city. I then charm my way through their pockets, making them pay through their nose for just about average apartments.
It also appears that I moonlight as a Post-doctoral researcher, glasses perched over my nose.
I often test my vocal chords (and patience) as a college lecturer at a suburban college.
When I am not busy expanding my training business, I reach out for my favourite sketching pencil and start work on the next wedding gown design - after all, I am counted among the city’s leading wedding dresses designers.
I slogged for last year’s civil services examinations. That I didn’t clear is another story.
Safety is my middle name - I am a Fire Engineer.
I launch educational programmes for expectant mothers – sure is a lovely sight - me sitting around with women with bulging bellies.
I churn out career advice to students.
And the coolest - I accept applications for an International Mental School in Australia.

None of the above are me, I should add.

I’m coming clean on this one...

Some would call me an ego surfer. Some would tut-tut and shake their heads in pity.

People are divided in their opinions – while some indulgently overlook it, there are also those who would condemn me to eternal perdition for being, as they would term it, ‘swollen with pride.’ Social acceptance stills seems a long, long way ahead.

My sin?

I occasionally Google myself.

And quite a few fun things pop out when I do. I have more namesakes than I can count on my fingers. And the hangover of this eavesdropping on oneself in the cyberworld is delicious, to say the least...

Is this that bad? Is it that awful to have an urge to know whether you are digitally distinct or not? And in a virtual world where I might come across a person who may know everything about me, I’d rather know what he’s been reading about me online. So there comes the handy Google tool. Thank you very much.

When Homer Simpson did it, he was called funny. Yet if I do it, appellations like 'weird' and 'unnatural' freely do the rounds. Wonder why the disconnect!

It’s not altogether uncommon. But there are of course those souls who are in constant denial. They might actually peep surreptitiously on the Google main page, filling in names of friends, ex-es, bosses, sworn enemies, and while they are at it – type in theirs too. Just for a lark sometimes. Yet they feign ignorance whenever a mention comes up of what they do(n’t) carry out clandestinely.

Is it such a sad, sad thing to do?

I think not.

There are benefits to this vanity-searching – self-Googling lets you know if any joker out there has posted something embarrassing, inaccurate or downright malignant about you. But of course, if you are on the addictive path, it could lead to what is now called Googlitis.

And if this ego-surfing cheers me up on a gloomy, rainy day, I’d say it’s worth the raised eyebrows...

What do the rest say?