“See who’s viewed your profile,” is the new, “Want to know what so and so said about you?” LinkedIn makes no pretense of being discreet. The site is no better than the yenta friend who can’t wait to tell you that someone said something about you. Today they told me that only 21 people have looked me up in the past month, making it clear that it’s a pathetic number that puts me at the bottom of the pile. It was an unproductive disclosure as they’re trying to lure me to upgrade to LinkedIn Premium, which would allow me to find out the names, skills, shoe sizes or whatever else they have on my 21 stalkers.

To shleppers like myself, those who don’t pay, they identify people looking at our profiles as, “someone in the greater Detroit area, someone in publishing” and “someone from Shijiashuang, Hebel, China.” I’m not curious enough to pay to get more specific information, preferring to guess who these someones are. The “someone in the greater Detroit area” remains a mystery, but I can live with it. “Someone in publishing” is, no doubt, a major agent or publisher, wanting to be the first to read my memoir. And if that’s not the case, I’d rather hold onto the fantasy than find out it’s an unpaid intern. “Someone from Shijiashuang, Hebel, China is probably one of those who’ve seen my website, www.personalized-urns.com, and emailed me offering to sell me cremation urns at wholesale prices or asking to buy huge quantities from me, clearly a scam as I design one of a kind mosaic urns and don’t have enough years left to turn out the number they claim to want.

Another reason I wouldn’t upgrade is I’m onto LinkedIn and feel sure they would immediately out me and announce to other premium members, “See who just upgraded and is checking you out.”

I just hope LinkedIn doesn’t buy Google and let the world know whom we’re Googling.