Google thinks it is smarter than me. It started with harmless product placements, but as Google got older and wiser, it got a little cocksure. What was it about the email I sent to a friend ranting about the behavior of a recent crush that prompted the Google Ads to inform me of "Sassy Redhead T-Shirts"? Did my embittered missive sound like that of a sassy redhead? (I am not, for the record, a redhead, though I suppose I wouldn't argue with being called sassy.)
Gmail in particular has gotten a bit too big for its britches and has now taken it upon itself to run my social life. A recent email thread amongst my friends and myself prompted Gmail to attempt to schedule (on my Google calendar, of course) dinner with someone I've never met (a friend of a friend mentioned in the email). Actually, it attempted to schedule this dinner for all of us. Awkward since none of us knows her and we all live in different cities.
With the advent of the "chat" feature of Gmail has come an entirely new way for Google to help regulate my life. For those not familiar with Gmail or the new "chat" function, it's basically an instant messenger built into your inbox which you can use to talk to anyone on your contact list currently logged into Gmail. It's actually a pretty handy little tool that has proved useful during many a slow afternoon. You can invite your friends to be buddies with you and they will show up on your chat list. This was, I thought at first, the only way people got added to your list. But oh how wrong I was. Gmail, no doubt through some highly scientific process, will save you the time and effort of figuring out which of your friends you might (or might not) want to talk to on this more intimate level. As you might guess, this has its ups and downs. In burgeoning relationships (and even friendships) people are often hesitant to move things to the next level. Is it too soon? Are we ready for that? Who's going to be the one to initiate the change? Like your marriage-minded mother (or, in my case, father), who is not so patiently waiting for you to find "the one" already, Gmail is ready to give you the necessary nudge in (what it presumes to think is) the right direction.
Case in point, I started exchanging emails with a guy I met at a party. The emailing was great: lively, engaging, flirty. Everything was off to a promising start. A few weeks later, after we had exchanged a (Google-determined) suitable number of emails, I noticed that his name was now appearing, unbidden, on my chat contact list. I was unprepared for this. Were we there yet? Were we ready to share thoughts with one another that hadn't been formulated in the body of an email where they could be tweaked and cajoled into perfect sentences? How could Gmail be so sure that this was the right step at this oh-so-crucial juncture? Did it know something I didn't? What inside information had Gmail gleaned from our shared correspondence?
Unfortunately, Gmail couldn't answer any of these questions for me, and I was left, as one usually is in such precarious situations, on my own. To chat or not to chat? The 21st century question. Not to mention that this new appearance on my chat list led to a whole new set of angsty issues. I know he's in Gmail so he must have seen the email I sent him. Is he reading it? Has he already read it? Why hasn't he written back? Answer me, Gmail! But, alas, my technological enabler was mum on this subject as well. Apparently, technology can only help you with so much and then you will (gulp) have to face the world of dating and all of its harsh realities on your own. Even Google cannot protect us from our own human foibles and frailty. I once typed a message in the wrong "chat" box, sending a message analyzing my current guy situation to the guy in question. I don't think they have a blushing emoticon for such eventualities.
While Gmail has been acting like a bit of an old yenta recently, I suppose I should thank it for the well-intentioned shove into a more direct form of intercourse (conversational, of course, get your minds out of the gutter) as who knows how long it would have taken me to muster up the courage to formally "invite" this guy to be my friend. Maybe it's not that Gmail is smarter than me. It just has more chutzpah (and less at stake).