In this episode’s Spill It segment, my friend Veida Horn joined me to answer a viewer question that feels incredibly modern, and honestly, incredibly relevant:
What do you do when you’re dating a man and absolutely nothing comes up when you Google him?
No social media. No LinkedIn. No professional trace. No digital footprint at all.
Is that impressive because he’s private? Or is it a red flag?
For me, it’s a red flag. A major one.
We live in a world where almost everyone leaves some kind of trail. That does not mean a person has to be online all day, posting every meal and every thought. Plenty of people are private. Plenty of people do not use Instagram. Plenty of people keep a very low profile. But having no trace at all is different. That is where it starts to feel less private and more suspicious.
That was the heart of the conversation Veida and I had in this segment. A missing digital footprint is not automatically proof that someone is dangerous or deceptive, but it is enough to make you pause. In today’s world, most adults have some kind of visible record. A professional listing. A company page. A property record. A mention tied to work, education, or community. Something. When there is nothing, it raises a very reasonable question: what is being hidden, and why?
I shared a story from my own life about meeting a man in Europe. We exchanged numbers, and afterward I did what many women do now as a basic step of caution: I looked him up. He had told me where he worked and what he did, so I expected to find at least a minimal professional presence. Instead, I found nothing. No evidence of the career he described. No confirmation of the story he told. No online footprint that matched the person he claimed to be. That told me everything I needed to know. I did not continue.
That may sound harsh to some people, but women are constantly told to ignore their instincts in the name of being polite, open-minded, or romantic. I do not believe in that. I believe in paying attention when something feels off. I believe in respecting your own discomfort instead of explaining it away. And I believe that when the facts do not line up, you do not owe someone the benefit of the doubt at your own expense.
What Veida and I kept coming back to is that dating is not just about chemistry. It is also about credibility. If someone presents himself one way, but there is no evidence to support even the basics, that matters. It does not mean you need a complete dossier on every man you meet. It means you should not talk yourself out of seeing what is right in front of you.
Women are often made to feel paranoid for asking practical questions. But being careful is not being paranoid. Looking someone up is not crazy. Wanting to know that the person you’re dealing with is who he says he is is not overreacting. It is common sense.
I also think this question touches a bigger issue in dating right now, which is that people sometimes confuse mystery with depth. They are not the same thing. A man being hard to find does not make him intriguing. Sometimes it just makes him unaccountable. And when you are trying to build trust, accountability matters a lot more than mystery.
That is why my answer to this viewer’s question is simple: be careful. You do not need to turn it into a dramatic confrontation. You do not need to become a detective. But you do need to take the information seriously. If nothing comes up, if the story is thin, if the details do not match, if your instincts are telling you that something is off, listen.
A good dating life is not built on giving strangers endless chances to prove they are safe. It is built on discernment. It is built on self-respect. And sometimes it is built on walking away early, before a red flag becomes a real problem.
That is not cynicism. That is wisdom.
Watch this episode of Party’s Over for the full conversation, and if you have your own dating question, send it in. Your story might be the next one we Spill.
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