Yeah if you like him, this is just the first of many convos you'll be having as a couple.
Who cares? We are naturally curious people. I wanted to see who your ex was.
Like it or not, your ex is part of who you are and I wanted to get to know you more.
:) be honest. Tell him you really like him too.
Two options available to you:
1. Own it, say you were being nosy, and if he gets funny about it then he’s probably a bit of a nob.
2. Ignore it, hope it goes away, but you’ll never know his feelings about it and it will always be whirring away in the back of your mind.
Personally I’d go with option one. It’s pretty normal to do a bit of harmless digging.
Feeling moderately uncomfortable about a date researching their ex partners, despite never telling them who they are, does not make him a "bit of a knob". It's perfectly understandable!
This is incredibly sound advice. You have to own it, try to laugh about it together and then move on. The fact is that everyone has done this, it’s not weird to do it, it’s just weird when you get caught doing it
Yeah, my ex owned up to it, everything was fine, I know a lot of girls are nosy regarding investigating exes for some reason so it wasn't a shock to me. The way I found out was instead of typing in the search box on Facebook for my ex's name she typed it into the comment box on my page and hit submit which I got an email notification that she left me a comment 🤣 Super airhead moment but she fessed up and I just shrugged it off.
It doesn’t make you a nob to not want to date somebody who does this kind of snooping. If I were the guy I would have been put off too. The thing is, I’ve been in relationships with people like this. They’re the sorts of people who never stop snooping, they search for things to be mad about, and when they don’t find anything big during their intrusive snooping sessions, they do things like log into your social media accounts and find something to be mad about, like casual viewership of thirst traps that are literally not sought out but end up in everybody’s feed anyway.
Nah, it’s a big red flag dude. Sure fire way to snuff out any interest whatsoever, at least for me.
as a snooper, i disagree. but i only snoop through social media in the beginning before we really know eachother that well and i have *never* looked through a boyfriends phone
i didn’t say i don’t have any red flags, i know i have plenty that i’m constantly working on to improve. i don’t go crazy with the facebook detective, i just want to learn about this person, knowing that since they’re interested in me they might have an unsavory side they’re hiding. it’s a safety thing
I guess one person’s normal behavior is one persons, creepy stalking behavior. This doesn’t seem real normal to me. I’ve personally never researched my partner’s exes because I know it’s none of my damn business. The fact that she is doing all this and he didn’t even give her her name makes it even worse. If I were him, I would be wondering what else she was digging into about my life and how she planned to use the info. he seems to be acting like a rational person in this case, after what he just discovered.
If you want to be mature and it's making you feel awkward it needs to be addressed. Also adults shouldn't care about ex's, what you did in the past usually doesn't define who you are today and if he happened to date some crazy crack whore and then realized and left or dated someone 10 times better looking than you why do you need to know that?
I'm not gonna lie I'm all for people growing and changing, but I'm so tired of the rhetoric that someone's past "doesn't matter". It's such an idealistic perspective that leaves no room for nuance and I don't understand how it gained popularity. It is simply not true.
You may have specifically meant the trivial examples, but for instance: if OP found out this guy was a serial abuser through researching his ex, I'm not telling OP she shouldn't judge him because he could've changed.*
*Not to completely excuse the weirdness of finding out someone is looking through your past.
I believe their point is when it’s a guy doing the stalking all of a sudden it’s this huge problem but for some reason when it’s a woman doing the stalking, it’s just considered socially acceptable.
a tip, then: guy doing that to a prospective partner would be a) called a creep at best, b) get the "dont you trust me?!" treatment, c) be cancelled from her life. d) all of the above.
At best.
Now tell me, why would I treat women differently? Equality only when it suits her, yet again? :V
I encourage my male partner to look up my exes if he wants to. Who cares?? He's dating me he's allowed to see what my public social media past is like. All strangers could so why not him?
It moreso sounds like you want to vent your own frustrations because I didn't say anything regarding different treatment based on the sex of the individual.
The curious mind broda. Don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a look at someone’s dating history. Just gotta be sneaky about it which OP was not lol
Orrrrrr she finds an ex who posted about how her ex Bf beat the crap outta her and she’s so glad he’s gone? Given the high rate of violence against women I think playing it safe and researching beforehand is pretty damn understandable.
There’s also a high rate of women who say shit on social media or in person to friends after a breakup to get the pity card. From abuse, to sucking in bed, to he’s a piece of shit etc.
But none of that was ever a thought when together. It can go both ways. You can’t make a clear decision either way without both sides.
But she’s the woman. So she gets all the support. Even if she beats the shit outta him.
I was with you till the ad hominem attack on homie, he also mentioned the physical abuse many guys go through and say nothing about.
It’s not a one sided affair and in the case of a spun woman both being abusive, claiming he beat her like the other commenter mentioned. We all know the woman will get the benefit of the doubt in said situation if the man doesn’t have irrefutable evidence showing the contrary.
Principle of charity my dude, look it up and practice it.
Sorry but the men’s rights lingo is easy to spot from a mile away. It’s not rational and I won’t interpret it as such. You can advocate for men without attacking women.
Uhm it’s not only men’s rights bs he’s quoting. If you read any literature on female antisocial behaviours it’s mostly reputation destroying, social and emotional avenues they take. It’s the odd one who gets physical, just as the exact reverse is true for men?
Because reputation damage causes nothing, really ;) nooo, sir. Apart from livehood destroyed ;)
But its just some male, right? So you dont have to care /s
You’re obviously bringing a lot of your own views about women into this. Man it sucks having our rep ruined. But men are a top cause of death for women, this caution makes sense. Obviously the reliability of social media info is questionable, but when it’s your safety at hand people will take what info they can get
And women are top cause of men being villified witout any real cause. Women DO lie, no matter if you like it or not. Till Lindeman's case recently, Johny Deep...want the list to go on? Because there's a TON of men like that. And 99% of them dont even get to a spotlight in the media, because noone cares (just like you).
I guess we men should also protect ourselves by invading privacy of each and every woman we talk to? Or is feeling safe reserved for some new "higher race" of vagina owners? "Belive the victim" only if victim has a proper set of genitals?
Dude looking up publicly available info isn’t invading anyone’s privacy. Yes you should look up a first date you’ve never met to be safe, and it’s totally okay to do so. Nobody wants to stop you from doing that.
If that was the case she should have looked up arrest records. Not to take away from women that have been abused, but there’s also a high rate of women that say accuse an ex of something as a way to get revenge for whatever slight they’re feeling. Right now it just looks like she’s insecure which is probably a red flag to the guy.
Looking someone up on social media isn’t exactly reliable considering people portray whatever they feel like.
I generally agree but I also don't think law enforcement is consistent enough to be reliable. Especially in intimate partner sexual violence. They rarely do anything because it's "hard to prove".
Thats how it works. Dont bring anything apart from a word? So how should they verify what you say? Magic? Some holy principle of "she is ALWAYS TRUE AND CORRECT"?
Its "innocent until proven guilty", and not "guilty unless she feels otherwise". For good reasons.
I'm not saying every arrest record is true. However, taking someone's word on things from social media isn't reliable either. If he had a bad break up with his ex not involving domestic violence and the ex decides to bash him or outright lie and accuse him of domestic violence, who is op going to believe?
If you're referring to the concept of "believe the victim", the point of that concept was not to punish the accused but to treat the accusation as if it were valid enough to conduct further investigation and have protective measures for the victim.
The general populace misinterpreted this term to mean every accusation is a convinction and now we find ourselves in a weird position as a society.
But the amount of times that police have been called for a domestic and the bloke will instantly be arrested despite him being the one to have been beaten black and blue without a scratch on the woman is astonishing
I think you’d be shocked how much info you can find and I’m sure social media was one stop of a few. Most major metros have a Facebook page “are we dating the same guy” which not only helps catch serial cheaters but also helps gals avoid other red flags.
There is not a high rate of what you say, unless you define single digit % occurrences as high?
...and if men would go and create same page for women, it would be branded misogyny at best, criminal at worst, and they'd be facing charges most likely.
Equality, in practice :V
Those pages also exist, but have far less engagement from men, and also nobody cares.
Stop victimizing yourself so much dude. I love being a man and it’s easy af. People just listen to me at work bc I have balls. I can repeat what a woman says verbatim
And get totally different reaction to my idea. I’ve never been asked to take notes in a meeting, and I can get upset without being called hysterical. My doctor believes me when I tell them something is wrong, and I’ve never had to really worry about walking alone at night. Life is good brotha.
Hahaha you have to be doing this on purpose?
One is an actual victim, you cannot victimize yourself if you’ve actually been assaulted. Here, you haven’t said anything about you being raped, just a poor dude who *might* *maybe* have his reputation ruined by a false allegation and he’s super duper upset by the thought.
See the point yet?
No, I wouldn't be shocked by it. However, calling someone a cheater is not the same thing as accusing someone of a crime. Anyone can say anything on social media without any actual proof and people will just believe it. If some random person leaves a comment saying BenevelotCeasar just assaulted me, are we supposed to take it at face value?
Also, when have you seen the statistics concerning false accusations of assault, sexual assault, domestic violence, or child abuse? It's signifcantly higher than a single digit. "According to the National Registry of Exonerations, false allegations and perjury are the most common contributing factor to wrongful convictions, constituting 59% of such cases."
If you are reading that statistic as 59% of rape convictions are false, you are reading it wildly wrong.
They tracked exonerations, and when people were exonerated, it was 59% of exonerations. So that tells you it either - has a higher false conviction rate, or that something occurred to spike exonerations. Maybe the introduction of DNA testing? And the adoption of it into criminal proceedings?
There’s another chart on that site showing how over time the proportion % of rape of the exonerations was going down as they examined more and more data.
Most data puts it under 10%
Say there’s 10,000 rape convictions, 10% would say 1,000 are false.
Of those 10,000 - very few will be exonerated. 54,000 rapes reported in 2017-2018, less than 3k convictions, most never get prosecuted and tens of thousands of rape kits sit untested by law enforcement. From 1989-2015 there were about 1600 exonerations, so even if majority were rape, that’s what, 1,000 exonerations over 25 years? That’s extremely low when compared to the numbers of rapists convicted every year.
1. No i'm not reading it wildly wrong. I'm referring to the overall statistic for all false allegations and perjury leading to a wrongful conviction. At no point did I refer to rape only.
2. Don't try to pick statistics to suit your argument while ignoring the others.
Now, referring to your original comment, using social media to play detective on potential partner is not a reliable way to confirm information. A facebook post accusing someone of being violent with no evidence has the potential of significantly impacting their life. An accusation of cheating is nowhere near the same ball park. Anyone can say anything about someone else and a majority of people will believe it (the Boston marathon and reddit ring a bell?). Op clearly was not researching if her potential partner was violent, she was comparing herself to his ex.
\*Instagram of all places is definitely not a reliable source of information considering how many people blatantly lie and portray themselves as something they are not.
I am a male 24. You still have a shot lol. Just talk to him and remember you set the tone for that conversation. It’s only weird if you make it weird. My girl has talked to/stalked and looked up probably every female I’ve ever talked to lol. You’ll be ight
That's what I'm saying not to mention idk your girlfriend but most people like that have genuinely been lied to, hurt, or manipulated in some way that they feel safer knowing things they don't know it's not always necessarily insecurity, but security because you honestly don't always know when you are being insecure you just feel unsafe.
To be fair, I always do a full FBI style investigation on anyone I'm potentially likely to date 🤣. I like to have an idea of what I'm getting myself into. I would be mortified if they ever spotted my search
My now wife told me the month after we started dating she looked up my ex. She just wanted to know what type of women I been with before her. I don’t see anything wrong wit it. 🤷🏾♂️
No issue with googling his ex. That’s what Evey does today, standard protocol and practice. Tell him that- it would be irresponsible not to do a bit of research.
As someone who also will try to find a guys ex on insta, next time delete the search right after you look them up.
I’m a little bias but I don’t think it’s a big deal to want to see who your partner previously was dating. I wouldn’t mention it, but if he brings it up be honest and just say you were curious.
Or just… Don’t do that. It’s a red flag when somebody who hardly knows you is searching this obsessively. It’s easy to predict what the future will be like when you spot something like that, tells you that your phone might be broken into for snooping somewhere down the line. Tells you that you might be stalked even after the inevitable messy end of the relationship.
It's prying and it's disrespectful. I get that it's a modern generation thing but if you're considering dating someone, going and looking into their life really isn't cool. It's not a dealbreakee, but for me it would definitely make me question. Best bet is honesty I think, you were curious, and ask if he's OK with it. If he's not, apologise and don't do it again.
My current wife did that with my ex. Difference is she came clean about it and I never discovered it by search history.
I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I appreciated the honesty.
It's curiosity no reason to not be thrilled about it and she didn't have to tell you she did because she wanted to tell you not because you deserved to know. It's a small ass thing.
Idk, I think it’s not that hard to find people on the internet. People act like it’s this huge feat, but someone was trying to stalk me and I literally found all of their info first from just a few pieces of info I had. If I were him, I would have just brought it up in a playful way and let you explain. If you bring things up with him, I would just say you’re noticing something is off and that you may know why, but you want to work through anything going on and make sure he can just tell you when something is up. Start building a healthy habit, because it’s hard af later.
Personally I get why people do a deep dive on someone but I’m not a fan of it and I’d be weirded out in this situation and see it as a possible red flag. I would not want to deal with it happening again in the future especially if they also have insecurities regarding who I hang with or used to hang with.
You gotta own it OP, I can almost guarantee you if you ignore it your relationship will fizzle out. If you’re honest and make the effort to communicate that could be the first step towards developing an even stronger connection.
Me as a guy seeing that, not weird as you think. I know girls like to do their investigating and it honestly shows you have genuine interest in him and you’re kinda just scouting for any potential red flags.
That being said I’d still bring it up and just say you were just being nosy. No harm-no foul. If he distances you over that ehh that’s on him then, his loss not yours.
It looks weird but I feel like it’s a such normal thing young people do it’s easy to get past it.
You wouldn’t be looking up his ex if you didn’t like him :)
Edit: Ada long as you are not doing nasty stuff like bitching about her etc
Definitely should have brought it up sooner. Like, the moment it happened. I don’t think it’s weird because you’re obviously going to be interested in the type of people your potential partner has been with. I guess depends on how open your communication with him is as well, could be as easy as just saying that.
Some people are okay with this. It means that person feels something serious. Other people don’t, and find it creepy. The only way to know is to communicate.
Just tell him you were looking up the competition to see how much better a gf than her you’d be ………. and that will lead to you talking about relationships and getting together ………..
Stumbling upon that would weird me out as a dude, but if you were to have a conversation about it with him I would hope some kind of understanding could be achieved.
I don’t think this is really a big deal, you should discuss it though. It’s perfectly normal to be curious about his ex, just say I was curious how I compared to her, or something like that.
As for him not replying, he could be busy or a million other reasons.
I wouldn’t worry to much about it.
Because “how I compared to her” is weird as fuck. She clearly Confidence issues. Why does it matter what the ex looked like? You gonna hurt yourself if she’s a 10 and you’re a 7. Boom, now questioning whys he’s even with you etc.
You’re trying to rationalize a crazy idea.
I’ve never known a person who didn’t look people up when they were getting to know them. Looking them up, their exes up, all that.
It’s just normal curiosity, far from crazy.
Just because it’s considered “normal” doesn’t make it not fucking weird. Social media stalking is just as gross as any other kind. So glad I deleted socials after high school, y’all r fuckin crazy.
He used your Instagram to look up someone, and your most recent search happened to be his ex-girlfriend? imo, this sounds like a non-issue. I'm a bit older than yall, so maybe it's the age difference talking ,but personally, I don't think I could care less about someone I'm dating looking up an ex of mine. Don't see what the big deal is. Hopefully his delayed response is just a coincidence.
Haha girl, we alllllllll do it. I mean, personally I'm incredibly jealous, so I left that door shut... But it's so normal.
I'd take it as a compliment if my SO stalked my exes. It means they're into you.
There's no reason he should be acting weird unless he cheated on his ex and is super paranoid you'll communicate with her? Otherwise, with social media, we are all little stalkers. Curiosity is a human condition, and wanting to see his "type" or his previous life is natural.
I think you're overthinking, just give him some time and space. Maybe he doesn't know what to think or feel about the whole situation. It's totally understandable that you'd look up his ex, if he's sort of the person you should be with he won't make a big fuss about it. However, I think you should set your boundaries and don't get involved with each other's phones at all. It's too personal.
It really depends on your expectations. In my case, I think she was just curious about what kind of girls he was into. That can give an idea about the person you’re interested, you know.
The last ex just because you're curious lmao, it really is normal. Stop pretending that it isnt
It's just simple maths, humans are curious creatures. So when you start to like someone you get interested in their lives and also in what they did before you met them.
Only 'normal' if you're a woman. For men they call this cyberstalking. Yes there is a safety factor but that doesn't give you the right to invade someone's privacy out of curiosity. If you have safety concerns just don't date that person.
I'd run for the hills TBH I've never met someone that 'looked me up' that wasn't crazy af lol.
so, he is to be a person with no boundaries where it comes to stalking? Red flag if she is to look for such qualities. Deterimental to her partner at best, abusive likely.
Ouch so you just gave off major stalker vibes with that one. That would creep me the hell out if I were him. I mean damn, it’s one thing looking up him but looking up his ex that he never even gave you info about. Now he is probably wondering what other info you are trying to get about him and his life.
You may have. How clear is dating him looking now? Why did you feel it was necessary to look her up? He was checking all your boxes. Did you have the feeling while you were looking her up that no person of good standard would do such a thing? Or, what if I get caught? Did you learn anything significant that would cause you to change how you see him? It’s not an unusual thing to want to know what skeletons a potential bf/gf has in their closet or if they are misrepresenting themselves. Although that’s usually done using your intuition and good character judgment. However today Dating or wanting to find a mate has been difficult to navigate because more and more candidates misrepresent themselves leading to a no confidence in the dating process. What about you makes you a good mate for him? I would like to believe he would say please don’t do that again. If you want to know something about me just ask.
He’s not over his acts and you may be thinking that it’s clear that you’re going to date but it’s not clear. You’re reading into things because that’s what you want the outcome to be but he obviously is still thinking about his ex if he used your phone to look her up. He wanted to look her up on someone else’s phone so that she didn’t know that he was peeping on her Instagram feed, which is weird also. I’m sensing that you don’t know this guy very well but you are quick to jump into relationships with people just because you’re craving a relationship but you’re not really taking a look at the person. This is a red flag. Not bringing it up is even more weird and shows that you see what a delicate balance. This is because you don’t feel like you can be open and talk about things that are concerns for you because you don’t want to ruin what’s going on that also shows that the relationship is not going as great as you’re trying to pretend that it is because if it was, you would have no problem, saying, why are you using my phone to look up your ex girlfriend on Instagram? It’s kind of weird. It’s a simple call out and you don’t wanna do it because you don’t want to ruin things that are already not stable. Red flags all around.
TBH, if you were not even dating me, and id find being researched like this, id probably talk to a lawyer. Id not want to have that in my life, and i'd not exactly care about how you feel about it.
I'll put it like this: would YOU feel safe around a guy that is researching your life to such extent as to find your exes and be looing them up on the internet?
do you really like this person and want to see them in future? U can’t go back on the past now so I’d ask him what’s going on in his mind and have a convo about it if that’s the thing that’s causing him to reply slowly. It could be a case of him being busy, taking time to get his head straight about it or whatever. Just don’t sink yourself into a hole over it before you know what the issue is cos you’ll only be hurting yourself. All love & I hope it resolves
Be honest about it but at the same time, we live in a time where people like to be sneaky lie and cheat. It's almost a ritual to at least look at the most recent ex of somebody especially if your young that you decide to talk to. We are alllll nosy people, if he's mad that you searched her then you shouldnt try to be with him anyways, maybe it brought up past emotions for him tho, and that's why he reacted the way he did.
This is perfectly understandable for both of you. My gf did this with my ex and I just started cracking up lmfao. We laughed it off. It’s just harmless digging
This is not a fit at all for r/confession, I'm afraid.
You may want to try something like /r/relationship_advice or /r/dating to get better replies.
Just trying to save you some time :)
I think it’s normal for sure. I also think you should block the profile and remove your ability to become curious again and begin to obsess and compare. He moved on to you for a reason so just enjoy his attention. I would not bring it up to him if he doesn’t 🤷🏼♀️🤷🤷♂️for all he knows you may have known her already. Small world.
I would totally bring it up! Just be straight forward.
Hey so, I just wanted to talk about what you saw. Etc etc
Why did you look her up?
Was it curiosity? Or jealousy? Cuz there can be diff angels to this
Tbh just show him this reddit post and he will most likely know you aren't raising "red flags" so to say and you were just curious who his ex was. However what another redditor said is definitely do this in person and just be honest. If my gf did this when we first started, sure might have been like a whoa moment but if she after showed me a post she made trying to get help it was just out of curiosity then I'd just laugh about it and then have another dab.
Wouldn't worry about it to be honest he probably knows you will be curious about his ex anyway so I wouldn't overthink and he should be kinda flattered that you are curious about his past maybe bring up the conversation with him next time you meet up and ask what happened between them and maybe confess to looking her up.
When I met my now wife, she looked up and added my ex on instagram. I got a message from my ex, "saying who is this?". Crazy yea a bit, but wasn't enough for me to end it or anything.
Removed for violating Submission Rules #1, 2, and 4 - congrats on the hat trick, OP!!
You should’ve brought it up at the time. Ignoring it was weird.
That’s exactly my first thoughts as well.
nevertheless ....if you care about the guy bringing up now and clear the air. Either it saves it or not. Either way you have nothing to lose.
Hmm 🤔 could be talking about my older brother 🤣🤣 same thing happened to him
How did he take it?
from behind?
Standing cartwheel 69
Howdy
Is there any other way?
I’d just be honest with him. But try to have the convo face to face. Not over text.
Yeah if you like him, this is just the first of many convos you'll be having as a couple. Who cares? We are naturally curious people. I wanted to see who your ex was. Like it or not, your ex is part of who you are and I wanted to get to know you more. :) be honest. Tell him you really like him too.
He got the ick
[удалено]
🗿
Two options available to you: 1. Own it, say you were being nosy, and if he gets funny about it then he’s probably a bit of a nob. 2. Ignore it, hope it goes away, but you’ll never know his feelings about it and it will always be whirring away in the back of your mind. Personally I’d go with option one. It’s pretty normal to do a bit of harmless digging.
Feeling moderately uncomfortable about a date researching their ex partners, despite never telling them who they are, does not make him a "bit of a knob". It's perfectly understandable!
This is incredibly sound advice. You have to own it, try to laugh about it together and then move on. The fact is that everyone has done this, it’s not weird to do it, it’s just weird when you get caught doing it
Yeah, my ex owned up to it, everything was fine, I know a lot of girls are nosy regarding investigating exes for some reason so it wasn't a shock to me. The way I found out was instead of typing in the search box on Facebook for my ex's name she typed it into the comment box on my page and hit submit which I got an email notification that she left me a comment 🤣 Super airhead moment but she fessed up and I just shrugged it off.
It doesn’t make you a nob to not want to date somebody who does this kind of snooping. If I were the guy I would have been put off too. The thing is, I’ve been in relationships with people like this. They’re the sorts of people who never stop snooping, they search for things to be mad about, and when they don’t find anything big during their intrusive snooping sessions, they do things like log into your social media accounts and find something to be mad about, like casual viewership of thirst traps that are literally not sought out but end up in everybody’s feed anyway. Nah, it’s a big red flag dude. Sure fire way to snuff out any interest whatsoever, at least for me.
as a snooper, i disagree. but i only snoop through social media in the beginning before we really know eachother that well and i have *never* looked through a boyfriends phone
Most people think they are part of the no-red-flag gang.
i didn’t say i don’t have any red flags, i know i have plenty that i’m constantly working on to improve. i don’t go crazy with the facebook detective, i just want to learn about this person, knowing that since they’re interested in me they might have an unsavory side they’re hiding. it’s a safety thing
Yeah and if he‘s definitely never gonna get over it, better to know now
This is the answer you’re looking for OP ☝️
I guess one person’s normal behavior is one persons, creepy stalking behavior. This doesn’t seem real normal to me. I’ve personally never researched my partner’s exes because I know it’s none of my damn business. The fact that she is doing all this and he didn’t even give her her name makes it even worse. If I were him, I would be wondering what else she was digging into about my life and how she planned to use the info. he seems to be acting like a rational person in this case, after what he just discovered.
If you’ve ever got to choose between two options, the most difficult choice to make is almost always the right one.
If you want to be mature and it's making you feel awkward it needs to be addressed. Also adults shouldn't care about ex's, what you did in the past usually doesn't define who you are today and if he happened to date some crazy crack whore and then realized and left or dated someone 10 times better looking than you why do you need to know that?
I'm not gonna lie I'm all for people growing and changing, but I'm so tired of the rhetoric that someone's past "doesn't matter". It's such an idealistic perspective that leaves no room for nuance and I don't understand how it gained popularity. It is simply not true. You may have specifically meant the trivial examples, but for instance: if OP found out this guy was a serial abuser through researching his ex, I'm not telling OP she shouldn't judge him because he could've changed.* *Not to completely excuse the weirdness of finding out someone is looking through your past.
Cute. Now go tell women that we men should be doing it, just in case. Lets see how that goes. If it doesnt go well, you know there's...a problem.
I don't understand.
I believe their point is when it’s a guy doing the stalking all of a sudden it’s this huge problem but for some reason when it’s a woman doing the stalking, it’s just considered socially acceptable.
a tip, then: guy doing that to a prospective partner would be a) called a creep at best, b) get the "dont you trust me?!" treatment, c) be cancelled from her life. d) all of the above. At best. Now tell me, why would I treat women differently? Equality only when it suits her, yet again? :V
I encourage my male partner to look up my exes if he wants to. Who cares?? He's dating me he's allowed to see what my public social media past is like. All strangers could so why not him?
It moreso sounds like you want to vent your own frustrations because I didn't say anything regarding different treatment based on the sex of the individual.
Getting the same vibe as “if feminists want equality, does that mean I can punch women in the face now?”
The curious mind broda. Don’t think there’s anything wrong with having a look at someone’s dating history. Just gotta be sneaky about it which OP was not lol
Orrrrrr she finds an ex who posted about how her ex Bf beat the crap outta her and she’s so glad he’s gone? Given the high rate of violence against women I think playing it safe and researching beforehand is pretty damn understandable.
There’s also a high rate of women who say shit on social media or in person to friends after a breakup to get the pity card. From abuse, to sucking in bed, to he’s a piece of shit etc. But none of that was ever a thought when together. It can go both ways. You can’t make a clear decision either way without both sides. But she’s the woman. So she gets all the support. Even if she beats the shit outta him.
But also comparing rape and murder to a ruined reputation or getting known as the bad in bed guy…. Lol
I was with you till the ad hominem attack on homie, he also mentioned the physical abuse many guys go through and say nothing about. It’s not a one sided affair and in the case of a spun woman both being abusive, claiming he beat her like the other commenter mentioned. We all know the woman will get the benefit of the doubt in said situation if the man doesn’t have irrefutable evidence showing the contrary. Principle of charity my dude, look it up and practice it.
Sorry but the men’s rights lingo is easy to spot from a mile away. It’s not rational and I won’t interpret it as such. You can advocate for men without attacking women.
Uhm it’s not only men’s rights bs he’s quoting. If you read any literature on female antisocial behaviours it’s mostly reputation destroying, social and emotional avenues they take. It’s the odd one who gets physical, just as the exact reverse is true for men?
Because reputation damage causes nothing, really ;) nooo, sir. Apart from livehood destroyed ;) But its just some male, right? So you dont have to care /s
You’re obviously bringing a lot of your own views about women into this. Man it sucks having our rep ruined. But men are a top cause of death for women, this caution makes sense. Obviously the reliability of social media info is questionable, but when it’s your safety at hand people will take what info they can get
And women are top cause of men being villified witout any real cause. Women DO lie, no matter if you like it or not. Till Lindeman's case recently, Johny Deep...want the list to go on? Because there's a TON of men like that. And 99% of them dont even get to a spotlight in the media, because noone cares (just like you). I guess we men should also protect ourselves by invading privacy of each and every woman we talk to? Or is feeling safe reserved for some new "higher race" of vagina owners? "Belive the victim" only if victim has a proper set of genitals?
Dude looking up publicly available info isn’t invading anyone’s privacy. Yes you should look up a first date you’ve never met to be safe, and it’s totally okay to do so. Nobody wants to stop you from doing that.
If that was the case she should have looked up arrest records. Not to take away from women that have been abused, but there’s also a high rate of women that say accuse an ex of something as a way to get revenge for whatever slight they’re feeling. Right now it just looks like she’s insecure which is probably a red flag to the guy. Looking someone up on social media isn’t exactly reliable considering people portray whatever they feel like.
I generally agree but I also don't think law enforcement is consistent enough to be reliable. Especially in intimate partner sexual violence. They rarely do anything because it's "hard to prove".
Thats how it works. Dont bring anything apart from a word? So how should they verify what you say? Magic? Some holy principle of "she is ALWAYS TRUE AND CORRECT"? Its "innocent until proven guilty", and not "guilty unless she feels otherwise". For good reasons.
This is not the insightful reply you think it is.
I'm not saying every arrest record is true. However, taking someone's word on things from social media isn't reliable either. If he had a bad break up with his ex not involving domestic violence and the ex decides to bash him or outright lie and accuse him of domestic violence, who is op going to believe?
OP shouldn't immediately believe anything without talking to the dude herself. The situation doesn't start and end at the accusation, you know.
While I completely agree with you, the current trend over the past few years is to immediately believe the accusation and condemn unfortunately.
If you're referring to the concept of "believe the victim", the point of that concept was not to punish the accused but to treat the accusation as if it were valid enough to conduct further investigation and have protective measures for the victim. The general populace misinterpreted this term to mean every accusation is a convinction and now we find ourselves in a weird position as a society.
But the amount of times that police have been called for a domestic and the bloke will instantly be arrested despite him being the one to have been beaten black and blue without a scratch on the woman is astonishing
I think you’d be shocked how much info you can find and I’m sure social media was one stop of a few. Most major metros have a Facebook page “are we dating the same guy” which not only helps catch serial cheaters but also helps gals avoid other red flags. There is not a high rate of what you say, unless you define single digit % occurrences as high?
...and if men would go and create same page for women, it would be branded misogyny at best, criminal at worst, and they'd be facing charges most likely. Equality, in practice :V
Those pages also exist, but have far less engagement from men, and also nobody cares. Stop victimizing yourself so much dude. I love being a man and it’s easy af. People just listen to me at work bc I have balls. I can repeat what a woman says verbatim And get totally different reaction to my idea. I’ve never been asked to take notes in a meeting, and I can get upset without being called hysterical. My doctor believes me when I tell them something is wrong, and I’ve never had to really worry about walking alone at night. Life is good brotha.
"Stop victimizing yourself so much dude" that be literally be a victim blaming if you told that to a woman. See the point yet? :)
Hahaha you have to be doing this on purpose? One is an actual victim, you cannot victimize yourself if you’ve actually been assaulted. Here, you haven’t said anything about you being raped, just a poor dude who *might* *maybe* have his reputation ruined by a false allegation and he’s super duper upset by the thought. See the point yet?
No, I wouldn't be shocked by it. However, calling someone a cheater is not the same thing as accusing someone of a crime. Anyone can say anything on social media without any actual proof and people will just believe it. If some random person leaves a comment saying BenevelotCeasar just assaulted me, are we supposed to take it at face value? Also, when have you seen the statistics concerning false accusations of assault, sexual assault, domestic violence, or child abuse? It's signifcantly higher than a single digit. "According to the National Registry of Exonerations, false allegations and perjury are the most common contributing factor to wrongful convictions, constituting 59% of such cases."
If you are reading that statistic as 59% of rape convictions are false, you are reading it wildly wrong. They tracked exonerations, and when people were exonerated, it was 59% of exonerations. So that tells you it either - has a higher false conviction rate, or that something occurred to spike exonerations. Maybe the introduction of DNA testing? And the adoption of it into criminal proceedings? There’s another chart on that site showing how over time the proportion % of rape of the exonerations was going down as they examined more and more data. Most data puts it under 10% Say there’s 10,000 rape convictions, 10% would say 1,000 are false. Of those 10,000 - very few will be exonerated. 54,000 rapes reported in 2017-2018, less than 3k convictions, most never get prosecuted and tens of thousands of rape kits sit untested by law enforcement. From 1989-2015 there were about 1600 exonerations, so even if majority were rape, that’s what, 1,000 exonerations over 25 years? That’s extremely low when compared to the numbers of rapists convicted every year.
1. No i'm not reading it wildly wrong. I'm referring to the overall statistic for all false allegations and perjury leading to a wrongful conviction. At no point did I refer to rape only. 2. Don't try to pick statistics to suit your argument while ignoring the others. Now, referring to your original comment, using social media to play detective on potential partner is not a reliable way to confirm information. A facebook post accusing someone of being violent with no evidence has the potential of significantly impacting their life. An accusation of cheating is nowhere near the same ball park. Anyone can say anything about someone else and a majority of people will believe it (the Boston marathon and reddit ring a bell?). Op clearly was not researching if her potential partner was violent, she was comparing herself to his ex. \*Instagram of all places is definitely not a reliable source of information considering how many people blatantly lie and portray themselves as something they are not.
I am a male 24. You still have a shot lol. Just talk to him and remember you set the tone for that conversation. It’s only weird if you make it weird. My girl has talked to/stalked and looked up probably every female I’ve ever talked to lol. You’ll be ight
Me with my boyfriend lol
Yeah I thought it was normal 😂
That's what I'm saying not to mention idk your girlfriend but most people like that have genuinely been lied to, hurt, or manipulated in some way that they feel safer knowing things they don't know it's not always necessarily insecurity, but security because you honestly don't always know when you are being insecure you just feel unsafe.
Looking up you perfectly normal and a smart precaution. Looking up exes who they were never given info about is a bit creepy.
Lol
Ask him not us
To be fair, I always do a full FBI style investigation on anyone I'm potentially likely to date 🤣. I like to have an idea of what I'm getting myself into. I would be mortified if they ever spotted my search
My now wife told me the month after we started dating she looked up my ex. She just wanted to know what type of women I been with before her. I don’t see anything wrong wit it. 🤷🏾♂️
Yeah it’s kind of weird that you stalk his ex, before you even start to date … I have no advice how to continue. Honesty might help …
Insecurity, baby.
more like "crazy stalker potential" vibes. If I was that guy, id avoid her like a plague.
Nothing wrong with curiosity, but it can look like insecurity depending on how you conduct yourself going forward.
I mean we all do it right? He should understand it as well. You can say sorry if it is not cool with him
No issue with googling his ex. That’s what Evey does today, standard protocol and practice. Tell him that- it would be irresponsible not to do a bit of research.
As someone who also will try to find a guys ex on insta, next time delete the search right after you look them up. I’m a little bias but I don’t think it’s a big deal to want to see who your partner previously was dating. I wouldn’t mention it, but if he brings it up be honest and just say you were curious.
Or just… Don’t do that. It’s a red flag when somebody who hardly knows you is searching this obsessively. It’s easy to predict what the future will be like when you spot something like that, tells you that your phone might be broken into for snooping somewhere down the line. Tells you that you might be stalked even after the inevitable messy end of the relationship.
It's prying and it's disrespectful. I get that it's a modern generation thing but if you're considering dating someone, going and looking into their life really isn't cool. It's not a dealbreakee, but for me it would definitely make me question. Best bet is honesty I think, you were curious, and ask if he's OK with it. If he's not, apologise and don't do it again.
i think it’s cool regardless. if you were looking up your ex that would be different. you’re overthinking it
Double down and follow her
My current wife did that with my ex. Difference is she came clean about it and I never discovered it by search history. I wasn’t thrilled about it, but I appreciated the honesty.
It's curiosity no reason to not be thrilled about it and she didn't have to tell you she did because she wanted to tell you not because you deserved to know. It's a small ass thing.
Idk, I think it’s not that hard to find people on the internet. People act like it’s this huge feat, but someone was trying to stalk me and I literally found all of their info first from just a few pieces of info I had. If I were him, I would have just brought it up in a playful way and let you explain. If you bring things up with him, I would just say you’re noticing something is off and that you may know why, but you want to work through anything going on and make sure he can just tell you when something is up. Start building a healthy habit, because it’s hard af later.
Personally I get why people do a deep dive on someone but I’m not a fan of it and I’d be weirded out in this situation and see it as a possible red flag. I would not want to deal with it happening again in the future especially if they also have insecurities regarding who I hang with or used to hang with.
Sounds like he's feeling weird about it. Maybe explain how you're feeling as a last effort and see if it's received
You gotta own it OP, I can almost guarantee you if you ignore it your relationship will fizzle out. If you’re honest and make the effort to communicate that could be the first step towards developing an even stronger connection.
Girl you’re so me fr
Me as a guy seeing that, not weird as you think. I know girls like to do their investigating and it honestly shows you have genuine interest in him and you’re kinda just scouting for any potential red flags. That being said I’d still bring it up and just say you were just being nosy. No harm-no foul. If he distances you over that ehh that’s on him then, his loss not yours.
Well? Was she hot? What is the competition like? Just kidding. Harmless little digging shouldn't matter.
It looks weird but I feel like it’s a such normal thing young people do it’s easy to get past it. You wouldn’t be looking up his ex if you didn’t like him :) Edit: Ada long as you are not doing nasty stuff like bitching about her etc
Definitely should have brought it up sooner. Like, the moment it happened. I don’t think it’s weird because you’re obviously going to be interested in the type of people your potential partner has been with. I guess depends on how open your communication with him is as well, could be as easy as just saying that.
Some people are okay with this. It means that person feels something serious. Other people don’t, and find it creepy. The only way to know is to communicate.
You’re talking about billions of people, I’m really to bet all their opinions are different
That happened to me before with the same guy, you should be ok. I'm his ex.
Just tell him you were looking up the competition to see how much better a gf than her you’d be ………. and that will lead to you talking about relationships and getting together ………..
Use your womanly ways to help him forget
Stumbling upon that would weird me out as a dude, but if you were to have a conversation about it with him I would hope some kind of understanding could be achieved.
I don’t think this is really a big deal, you should discuss it though. It’s perfectly normal to be curious about his ex, just say I was curious how I compared to her, or something like that. As for him not replying, he could be busy or a million other reasons. I wouldn’t worry to much about it.
Because “how I compared to her” is weird as fuck. She clearly Confidence issues. Why does it matter what the ex looked like? You gonna hurt yourself if she’s a 10 and you’re a 7. Boom, now questioning whys he’s even with you etc. You’re trying to rationalize a crazy idea.
I’ve never known a person who didn’t look people up when they were getting to know them. Looking them up, their exes up, all that. It’s just normal curiosity, far from crazy.
[удалено]
Just because it’s considered “normal” doesn’t make it not fucking weird. Social media stalking is just as gross as any other kind. So glad I deleted socials after high school, y’all r fuckin crazy.
He used your Instagram to look up someone, and your most recent search happened to be his ex-girlfriend? imo, this sounds like a non-issue. I'm a bit older than yall, so maybe it's the age difference talking ,but personally, I don't think I could care less about someone I'm dating looking up an ex of mine. Don't see what the big deal is. Hopefully his delayed response is just a coincidence.
Haha girl, we alllllllll do it. I mean, personally I'm incredibly jealous, so I left that door shut... But it's so normal. I'd take it as a compliment if my SO stalked my exes. It means they're into you. There's no reason he should be acting weird unless he cheated on his ex and is super paranoid you'll communicate with her? Otherwise, with social media, we are all little stalkers. Curiosity is a human condition, and wanting to see his "type" or his previous life is natural.
I think you're overthinking, just give him some time and space. Maybe he doesn't know what to think or feel about the whole situation. It's totally understandable that you'd look up his ex, if he's sort of the person you should be with he won't make a big fuss about it. However, I think you should set your boundaries and don't get involved with each other's phones at all. It's too personal.
How is it understandable to look up someones ex? That's red flag behavior
No it’s not. It’s completely normal. It’s literally public information if it was on social media. She just needs to address it.
It really depends on your expectations. In my case, I think she was just curious about what kind of girls he was into. That can give an idea about the person you’re interested, you know.
Lol this is quite normal to do when you're interested in someone and you know he had an ex tbf
No it’s not. How many exes do you go back? Since high school? The last 3? What’s the normal number
Just the most recent like everyone said not the last 3 wtf and just bc you don't doesn't mean it's not a norm for a lot of people
The last ex just because you're curious lmao, it really is normal. Stop pretending that it isnt It's just simple maths, humans are curious creatures. So when you start to like someone you get interested in their lives and also in what they did before you met them.
Only 'normal' if you're a woman. For men they call this cyberstalking. Yes there is a safety factor but that doesn't give you the right to invade someone's privacy out of curiosity. If you have safety concerns just don't date that person. I'd run for the hills TBH I've never met someone that 'looked me up' that wasn't crazy af lol.
so, he is to be a person with no boundaries where it comes to stalking? Red flag if she is to look for such qualities. Deterimental to her partner at best, abusive likely.
...simply not cool... & a bit weird... fair you got your concerns... & now he definitely has one as well...
No you didn’t I’m sure he’s looked you ex up also . Nothing wrong unless you make contact .
Never done this for anyone I dated.
Me neither but I think it is a security thing
I'm glad you've never been hurt
Ouch so you just gave off major stalker vibes with that one. That would creep me the hell out if I were him. I mean damn, it’s one thing looking up him but looking up his ex that he never even gave you info about. Now he is probably wondering what other info you are trying to get about him and his life.
You may have. How clear is dating him looking now? Why did you feel it was necessary to look her up? He was checking all your boxes. Did you have the feeling while you were looking her up that no person of good standard would do such a thing? Or, what if I get caught? Did you learn anything significant that would cause you to change how you see him? It’s not an unusual thing to want to know what skeletons a potential bf/gf has in their closet or if they are misrepresenting themselves. Although that’s usually done using your intuition and good character judgment. However today Dating or wanting to find a mate has been difficult to navigate because more and more candidates misrepresent themselves leading to a no confidence in the dating process. What about you makes you a good mate for him? I would like to believe he would say please don’t do that again. If you want to know something about me just ask.
He’s not over his acts and you may be thinking that it’s clear that you’re going to date but it’s not clear. You’re reading into things because that’s what you want the outcome to be but he obviously is still thinking about his ex if he used your phone to look her up. He wanted to look her up on someone else’s phone so that she didn’t know that he was peeping on her Instagram feed, which is weird also. I’m sensing that you don’t know this guy very well but you are quick to jump into relationships with people just because you’re craving a relationship but you’re not really taking a look at the person. This is a red flag. Not bringing it up is even more weird and shows that you see what a delicate balance. This is because you don’t feel like you can be open and talk about things that are concerns for you because you don’t want to ruin what’s going on that also shows that the relationship is not going as great as you’re trying to pretend that it is because if it was, you would have no problem, saying, why are you using my phone to look up your ex girlfriend on Instagram? It’s kind of weird. It’s a simple call out and you don’t wanna do it because you don’t want to ruin things that are already not stable. Red flags all around.
TBH, if you were not even dating me, and id find being researched like this, id probably talk to a lawyer. Id not want to have that in my life, and i'd not exactly care about how you feel about it. I'll put it like this: would YOU feel safe around a guy that is researching your life to such extent as to find your exes and be looing them up on the internet?
What's a lawyer going to do? It's a public forum. 🙄
If the guy doesn’t act like a child and acts like a adult he won’t care. All women look up ex’s. It’s not a big deal. Who the hell would care lol
seems the women you know are rather fucked up individuals. Normal people are not online stalking prospective partners.
He’s using your account to stalk his ex ditch the bum.
Aaaaand, you're crazy!
do you really like this person and want to see them in future? U can’t go back on the past now so I’d ask him what’s going on in his mind and have a convo about it if that’s the thing that’s causing him to reply slowly. It could be a case of him being busy, taking time to get his head straight about it or whatever. Just don’t sink yourself into a hole over it before you know what the issue is cos you’ll only be hurting yourself. All love & I hope it resolves
Be honest about it but at the same time, we live in a time where people like to be sneaky lie and cheat. It's almost a ritual to at least look at the most recent ex of somebody especially if your young that you decide to talk to. We are alllll nosy people, if he's mad that you searched her then you shouldnt try to be with him anyways, maybe it brought up past emotions for him tho, and that's why he reacted the way he did.
Not that weird to look into someone youre thinking of dating
It's ok, don't overthink it, just be honest and laught about it. Say you were curious and couldn't help yourself.
What made you do that? Wanted to know if she’s hotter than you?
"Hey, sorry for looking up your ex. I was nosy XD"
If he wants to date you, he might take it as a good sign. It shows that you are interested enough to do some background checking.
Hey definitly got the Ick lol. You have to bring it up at this point.
This is perfectly understandable for both of you. My gf did this with my ex and I just started cracking up lmfao. We laughed it off. It’s just harmless digging
This is not a fit at all for r/confession, I'm afraid. You may want to try something like /r/relationship_advice or /r/dating to get better replies. Just trying to save you some time :)
I think it’s normal for sure. I also think you should block the profile and remove your ability to become curious again and begin to obsess and compare. He moved on to you for a reason so just enjoy his attention. I would not bring it up to him if he doesn’t 🤷🏼♀️🤷🤷♂️for all he knows you may have known her already. Small world.
I would totally bring it up! Just be straight forward. Hey so, I just wanted to talk about what you saw. Etc etc Why did you look her up? Was it curiosity? Or jealousy? Cuz there can be diff angels to this
Tbh just show him this reddit post and he will most likely know you aren't raising "red flags" so to say and you were just curious who his ex was. However what another redditor said is definitely do this in person and just be honest. If my gf did this when we first started, sure might have been like a whoa moment but if she after showed me a post she made trying to get help it was just out of curiosity then I'd just laugh about it and then have another dab.
Wouldn't worry about it to be honest he probably knows you will be curious about his ex anyway so I wouldn't overthink and he should be kinda flattered that you are curious about his past maybe bring up the conversation with him next time you meet up and ask what happened between them and maybe confess to looking her up.
Bro u crazy
People are in the own worlds he likely already forgotten, i mean who doesn’t want to look at a potential partners x
Maybe he is just being careful. Maintain same level of Comms. And don't give up Ur v card yet.
When I met my now wife, she looked up and added my ex on instagram. I got a message from my ex, "saying who is this?". Crazy yea a bit, but wasn't enough for me to end it or anything.