Mental Floss

How to spy on your next date: 5 Sites that'll help you sleuth

By David K. Israel

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1. Find out what your date's house looks like before you go

Everyone knows how to Google someone (don't forget the quotes around the name), but did you know you can see almost any home or apartment building on Google Maps just by typing in the address? Just go to Google Maps and enter the coordinates and then click "street view." Swing the camera angle around, up or down with your mouse on the photo.

2. Find out what your date's home is worth

We've written about Zillow.com before. For those who missed it, or forget, or forget if they missed it, Zillow let's you click on an aerial-view photo of a house and find out its current value. Though not always accurate, it's fun nonetheless and gives you at least the ballpark and a nice shot of your date's hood.

3. Find out your date's real age

Over at BirthDatabase.com, you can plug in your date's name and perceived age and the site will spit back all those people around the same age with the same name and give you actual birth cities/towns and filed birth dates. I tried to get it to give me my correct city/age (Philadelphia/past-your-bedtime) but instead, it gave me a bunch of other DKI's around my age. Still, it might work for you. And, like Zillow, it's pretty fun.

4. Find out if your date was, in the past, shall we say, not-so-upstanding

Don'tDateHimGirl.com has the skinny on some bad daters, and it seems their database is growing every day. Profiles/posts are written by real people, about real people. From the Web site copy:

"By signing up for membership on DDHG, you must agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. The policy states that what you're posting to the site is the truth and does not contain any defamatory information. Please do not post addresses, social security numbers or any other personally identifying information about anyone to this service."

5. Find out where your date used to live

Over at ZabaSearch.com, you can type in a name and the engine coughs up past addresses over the last 10 years or so. I tried it on myself and, sure enough, it mostly worked. Even creepier, perhaps (though I'm not sure it works), is this option, which lets you sign up for a notification each time someone searches your name on the site.