---

Getting over Google grief

The web has made it easier than ever to find out what's happened to old friends. But how do you feel when you discover that they've died? Michele Kirsch goes sentimental surfing

Sunday October 12, 2003
The Observer

There is a little-explored downside to to the websites and search engines targeted at the pathologically nostalgic. What if you find out, through Friends Reunited or Google, that the person who was one of your very best buddies from 1978 to 1985 actually dropped dead, unbeknown to you, three years ago? Do you go through a form of cyber mourning, a sort of half-arsed process of bereavement whereby instead of experiencing the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance), you cut to the chase, get depressed for a while and then forget it? How much sympathy are you entitled to from friends and family who are still very much alive, have never even heard of this guy, and whose initial looks of bewildered condolence turn to thinly veiled irritation by the fourth anecdote in which you and your dead friend have some mad and crazy adventure? Your good old days are like that really interesting dream you had last night: no one really wants to hear about it...