Do you do it?

For better or worse, "googling" your date has become standard practice.

It's a big reason people should take the information they find online "with a grain of salt," says Dr. Paul Dobransky, a Chicago-based psychiatrist and author of "The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love."

He says there's nothing wrong with doing a little online homework -- but thinks the focus should remain on face-to-face interaction to make a final judgment.

"Our minds are more made for in-person, slow contact in getting to know one another," Dobransky says.

In the end, Danielle Martinetti says online research really only helps to a point, anyway. "The crazy stuff usually becomes apparent on the actual date," the 30-year-old New Yorker says.
"No amount of online searching is going to tell you that a person has issues with his mother, loves to be described as a George Clooney look-alike, has an overzealous obsession with hand sanitizer, or that he prefers to sit facing the door in a restaurant 'just in case."