u/Willing-Share-5617

Received this response on a thread that is now deleted, when I said I don't check those sites prior to getting to know someone.

Most women aren't there because they don't think guys should date around. They're there because they think women should know if a guy is a criminal, married and/or otherwise dishonest. Weird that you think it's just a bunch of gossip and lies as a woman. Also, just because you know a guy as a friend or family member or you went on a date once doesn't mean you know how he is in a romantic relationship.

Perhaps this is true in your city, but in mine it is truly "ARE WE DATING THE SAME GUY". I've seen very few posts about criminals since that can be checked elsewhere. Married would fall under the "dating the same guy" although for such a huge city I rarely see married men posted.

And no - I didn't know someone as a friend or family member or go on a date once with someone and think what was posted was untrue. I was DATING the man, although not exclusively, and a woman came on there posting about him, pissed that he was dating someone else. I asked if they'd had an exclusivity talk (the answer was no per her, she messaged me). Seems she'd gone on one date, acted pretty crazy, texted him from multiple numbers after being blocked.

I'm amazed at the women on there who think things should be exclusive after a couple of dates when they haven't had that conversation with the other party yet. So yea, it's mainly butthurt feelings over expectations that were never discussed / gossip.

BTW, this is coming from a woman’s perspective. I was part of the group I just joined it out of curiosity. The more I read the posts and the comments from women about specific guys, the clearer it became that it wasn’t really about helping people dodge someone toxic, manipulative, or abusive. It was more like, “Oh yeah, I went out with this guy and he’s an avoidant,” or “He did this to me.” A lot of what they say just comes off as that man simply wasn’t interested in you.

People forget that every person you date brings out a different version of you. Every man I’ve gone on a date with or actually dated brought out different parts of me I wasn’t the same person with each of them. So when some women (not all, just some) talk like this, it feels like they’re trying to deter you from dating that person. And some of these women are exes people who maybe went on a date with the guy six months or a few months ago. Why are you still so consumed by what this man is doing? That feels like such an unhealthy space to be in.

Then there’s the whole thing of asking for the guy’s phone number or saying, “Who are you seeing this weekend? Drop his initial.” That is so unhealthy. It keeps you in a constant state of anxiety and panic you’re stressing every week that the person might be cheating every time you see an initial that matches his. It’s exhausting and unnecessary. Honestly, the whole thing feels more like a social experiment than anything helpful.

I met someone recently and we clicked ridiculously fast. It was only a short amount of time, which almost makes me feel stupid for being this sad about it, but it felt like one of those rare connections where you immediately feel comfortable around someone. We spent several days together. He brushed my hair. He made me coffee every morning. He introduced me to music I’d never heard, movies I hadn’t seen, and a million references I didn’t understand. We took a spontaneous little trip together. We stayed up talking, had incredible chemistry, and I was genuinely excited to learn more about him. It felt like I had stumbled into this tiny unexpected adventure with someone. I also have significant trust issues from things I’ve experienced in the past. I’m in one of those private Facebook groups where women post men they’re dating as a safety check, so I posted him. I got responses I wasn’t prepared for. Some were gossip, but some people made extremely serious allegations about him. I panicked. He eventually found out about the post.
He denied the serious allegations completely. He was also deeply hurt that I’d posted him at all. Privacy is extremely important to him, and from his perspective I’d taken something between us and invited strangers into it instead of trusting him or talking to him. He ended things immediately and told me not to contact him again.
I’ve respected that, but I regret the post. The frustrating thing is that I still don’t know what the “correct” decision was. Some of what people said became much less damning once I actually looked at the details, while other allegations were serious enough that I understand why seeing them scared me. I can’t know what was true, and I don’t think ignoring serious warnings would’ve necessarily been smart either.
I just wish I’d handled it differently.
I keep thinking about how sweet he was with me. The stupid little things are what get me like the coffee, him brushing my hair, showing me songs and movies, laughing about things I didn’t understand, waking up next to him. We’d barely begun whatever it was, and suddenly it was completely over. When I picked up something I’d left at his place, I left him a little goodbye note saying I appreciated our time together even if it was only a speck in a sea of time. Maybe it really was only a speck. I just wish I hadn’t helped make it one. I was trying to protect myself, but I crossed someone’s boundary in the process.

All y’all know about this Facebook page that exists supposedly to see if women are dating the same guy in the area? Instead, it’s used for bitter exes or friends of exes or someone who went on 1 date with the guy to talk crap about them?

They screenshot your online dating profile, share to the fb page, and people start giving their subjective impressions of you. None of it is about dating the same guy, instead it’s used to spread unproven theories, psychological “diagnoses”, unfounded warnings about “safety”.

There are a ton of lawsuits popping up against these pages for everything from defamation, copyright violations, harassment, and false claims. Posting anonymously isn’t as anonymous as you think it is. That’s my PSA 😁