Welcome to the first edition of From the Desk of Pedro... a place where I can share some thoughts and advice with you.

As a gnome, I spend a lot of time standing around in people's gardens and while doing that I take time to ponder many of life's great mysteries.

Now as most of you will agree, when it comes to mysteries we encounter on a daily basis, there is nothing more mysterious and complicated than the opposite sex.

Whether single or in a long-term relationship, understanding what the opposite sex wants, needs, thinks, and feels can be akin to figuring out how the ancient Egyptians built the Pyramids.

But as difficult as dating and relationships were in the past, things are already getting much more complicated.

That's because we now live in an age of instant information. Sites like Google and MySpace now give us access into people's lives like never before. How common is it now for someone to Google a person they just met? With so much information about an individual available online it's safe to say that the blind date you're going on Friday night may know more about you than you think.

It first begins with you and what you post online about yourself. Perhaps you don't want a prospective date to know you're a hardcore Democrat just yet, but when he/she visits your MySpace page and sees Al Gore as your top friend, well that cat is out of the bag. Perhaps you want to come across as a straight-laced guy/girl, but those pictures of you dancing on a table at a club in Mexico just keep popping up.

Whatever you post online about yourself could and may come back to haunt you at some point. There could be serious implications for your work life, but I'll stick to relationships for now.

The information you put online is, in the end, just who you are. And if you're comfortable with that, then you really have nothing to worry about. You just have to realize that now, the whole "getting to know you" process with a new date may be accelerated thanks to that detailed bio you wrote on your MySpace page.

Now I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing. It may weed out some people who may not have been right for you, or it may attract those who might not have been interested otherwise.

On the flipside, maybe it helps you find that right person to connect with, or let you screen out someone you know just isn't right for you.

(Pedro's aside: At this point I could go off on a tangent about how people spend too much time putting others into categories or screening based on certain information, when really that right person may be the one they least expected.... but I'll leave that for another column)

When you do go on that date, all that information you've gleaned from the net can work to your advantage. Especially if you met on MySpace. It can act as a foundation, a common bond that gives you and that new date something to talk about over dinner.

So now, all this access to information could make finding a person easier and getting to know them easier, and take off some of that pressure of a first date. Maybe this whole internet thing isn't such a bad development for dating after all?

Alas, if only it were so. Like any good mystery, things only get more complicated the deeper you go.....

For more on that, you'll have to wait for the next edition of From the Desk of Pedro.