Sometimes when I’m lonely, I take a few minutes to spend time with my Statscounter. Which is about every half an hour. Statscounter, for those of you who might not know, is a web traffic analyst tool. It tells you how many people visit your website, which links they click, what city they’re from and best of all, what search terms they used to wind up there. It helps me get to know you a little better. It also helps me understand what kind of things people are Googling to wind up on my site and in general tells me a little something about you, my reader. It makes me feel less lonely to know there’s people out there searching my site, purposely or (more often) inadvertently. Here’s a sampling of some of the more popular search terms people use to get to this blog, along some of the more, um, unsettling. Also, this is sort of like those lazy recap episode and a way to exploit old blog entries.

Search term: What Does Making Out Mean?

Search term variations: What does making out mean to a guy?,What does making out feel like?, What do I do when I make out?

Where you wind up when Googling this search term: Making Out the Make Outs

My thoughts: Apparently, there are a lot of people out there who don’t know how to make out. I imagine they’re either autistic or in their preteens. And if you think about it, we were all there at one point. But instead of practicing kissing your sort of boyfriend while your friends watched at lunch break, kids can just Google that shit to (potentially) save them from the awkwardness/a pretty adorable memory.

Search term: Kelly Oxford Comedian

Search term variations: Kelly Oxford hot, Kelly Oxford interview

Where you wind up when Googling this search term: Wanted: Svengali

My thoughts: Okay, in the last year, this is the number one search term that brought people to my website. I’m not going to get into how it feels to be a writer and have another more successful writer’s name bringing more traffic to your site than your own. I’ll leave it there because if I continue, I will start to cry and potentially up the risk of harming myself. That’s how it feels.

Search term: Erica Vanbriel

Search term variations:  Erica Vanbriel nipple dress, Erica Vanbriel pierced nipple, thierry mugler nipple dress

Where you wind up when Googling this search term: Hot Model Talk

My thoughts: My friend Erica was a muse for Thierry Mugler and is kind of famous for this one dress he made for her that centres around her nipple piercings. People appear to be to be interested in this infamous dress and have a hard time finding pictures of it. So the next best thing is reading about it on my blog. Oh, and Erica was also on an episode of Mantracker, so I suspect people Google her after the episode airs.

Search term: Two hot girls making out

Search term variations: two hot high school girls making out, two hot 15-year-old girls making out, two hot 14-year-old girls making out, 14-year-old lesbians making out in bathroom, two hot 13-year-old girls making out, girls making out with other girls

Where you wind up when Googling this search term: Two hot girls making out

My thoughts: People want to see young girls making out online. This is unsettling and I wonder what they think when they get to my site. The photo that accompanies the piece was taken when we were both of legal making-out age, but it still upsets me out that a good percentage of my readership is pedophiles.

Search Term: Bea Arthur

Search term variation: Bea Arthur Rufus Wainwright

Where you wind up when Googling this search term: Sit, smile and pretend you’re not stupid

My thoughts: Okay, so not that many people wind up on my site by Google “Bea Arthur” but if you do, my website comes up on the first page of links (though it keeps moving down). That is totally thrilling for me and I just wanted to share.

Honourable search term mentions: “How can I get my dad to say nice things about me to me” “its been awhile since I’ve had a boyfriend,” “I’m not age-appropriate for women my age,” “sexy legs cartoon painting,” “why are gay men so mean,” “how to sneak trying to get pregnant,” “a good story to get girls,” “chester cheetah gynecologist,” “clair danes’s pubes,” “define posicore mom,” “downtown Toronto why guys don’t make eye contact,” “eating one Ritter sport a day every week,” “how to place the blame on someone,” “ravers are overweight,” “vibrator to open jar,” “what is good about living your parents,” “why do hip hop artists hang around female pornstars,” “why do people make poisonous tacos.”

You know that clichéd question “If you could have dinner with someone alive or dead, who would it be?” I recently got to live that out with one of my heroes. Envious? Don’t be. I’ll tell you off the top, it was an uncomfortable experience that left me feeling like a big old dumb-dumb head.

The hero in question is a respected and adored Canadian broadcast legend. (I’m going to refrain from naming who she is, because I don’t want to be in bad standing with her by blogging about our dinner on the Internet. So you if need someone to imagine, how about picture Paula Deen’s glowing face, since she’s been in the news lately, and is a legend in her own right.)

When it was announced years ago that my hero was retiring, I cried, or at least clenched my heart, because the thought of not listening to her on a regular basis was heartbreaking. On-air, her presence was warm, thoughtful, astoundingly smart and personable. I wanted to be related to her. She made me listen, think and feel. I miss hearing the warmth of her voice.

Last week, my dad told me he was having dinner with a few broadcasting veterans he used to work with, including said hero, and asked if I wanted to join. I (obviously) said yes.

I had met my hero briefly at a Christmas party back in December. I’ve heard way too many stories of people having terrible experiences upon meeting their idols (the Bea Arthur/Rufus Wainwright one is pretty sweet) – this was not one of them.

Upon introduction, my hero was personable and sweet and later in the evening when she caught me staring at her wide-eyed from across a small group, she gently touched my shoulder and included me into the circle’s conversation. When my friends asked me what she was like, I described her as a Queen Angel. And I wasn’t exaggerating.

On the night of the dinner, I arrived at the restaurant early and nervously checked my iPhone as I waited. I didn’t want to be sitting there, upright with my hands folded, looking like I’d been eagerly waiting there, staring at the door, for too long.

When all the broadcasting vets and my dad finally arrived, the Queen Angel took a seat across from me. The moment had finally arrived! I was having dinner with one of the women I most admire!

Quickly the group of oldies launched into talk about what they’d been doing. Most of the table was retired, so there was a lot of travel stories and documentary recommendations.

I sat, listened and smiled widely. I didn’t exactly fit in.

Soon talk turned to the pros and cons of windmill power, the Plains of Abraham, The Ogaden War of 1977 and the bristling works of Christopher Hitchens.

I sat, listened and smiled widely – because was nothing else I could do. There was nothing I could contribute to any of these topics because I knew nothing about them.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years as a journalist is that if you don’t know something, admit it. You’ll only look stupider if you pretend you do. But at this dinner, there was no way I was going to divulge how little I knew about the following (broad) subjects: history, literature, geography and science. I’d prefer to come across as a wide-eyed mute than show how ignorant I am in front of someone who I admired so much.

After the meal, my dad drove the Queen Angel home. She asked about what I’ve been up to, if I’d found a place to live since moving back to Toronto. I spent the next five minutes, babbling nervously non-stop about everything that’s been going on: My challenges hustling and networking, how I want to be based in two places, preferably Toronto and Vancouver, and how I’m currently really single. She sat, listened and smiled, until we dropped her off at her front door.

“Hold your cards close to your chest and reveal them slowly,” my dad said as we pulled away from my hero’s driveway. “You give too much away about yourself.”

He was right. But I wondered if, while in the presence of my most admired hero, it would have been better to stay mum on the boring details of my personal life or admit the fact that I’m completely unfamiliar with a lot of common knowledge.

I’m still not sure I know the answer.