the Internet, on my face

So, I've been streaming the scifi show Continuum, about a cop chick from the future forced to do her thing in our own dark times. But she's not only equipped with a wearable computer, but also a chip in her head that lets her see people's heart rates when she speaks to them, etc. Basically, Google glass in her head. It's inevitable that someone, like me, watching a show, like that, would invariably muse: "gee, I wonder what she'd see if she looked at me."

My life has been fairly driven by the whole "what-people-think-I-am-at-first-glance". On the upside, it got me laid alot, people foolishly thinking I was more dark and dangerous than I actually ever was; on the downside, I probably lost a lot of good jobs because people can't separate their idiotic first impressions from my well-stacked resume. So, it's a slippery conundrum. In the coming age where people will look at me and get a whole lot more than just "a weird feeling", well, let's just say i will be effectively wearing my Linkedin profile. And so will we all.

I don't think they'll be much choice in the matter. It's not like we'll get ready to go out for a night of clubbing and stress over whether we'll wear our Google+ profile or our Add-Dating-Site-Here profile. It might be zen to say "we are who we are", but now it's literal. And to those people with different levels of access (or those who just hack well enough to pretend to be someone with a higher level of access), we'll be literally wearing our medical data, our criminal record, our tax record. When people squint at us or do a double take, it might be because they've discovered that awkward online photo before we have, superimposed over our faces.

Now, I don't want to get all dystopian like some old guy about the rise of the robots or anything. I'm Mister Cautious Tech Geek after all. I dream about the day when I only need Siri as a friend and confidante (but with Helen Mirren's voice). I have been well aware for quite a while that my shrouds of privacy would soon become a thing of the past. What I didn't realize was that I would also have to say goodbye to my air of mystery.