Cheaters

Man learns his picture is plastered on 'cheater' website after first date. UPDATE

Modern dating can be a veritable minefield of potential disaster.Communication is more accessible and more complicated than ever the more options we have to access it. One man thought he had found someone with the potential for a long-term relationship and a chance to escape all the games. Then, he got an unexpected text.A woman [33F] I [36M] am dating posted my picture to an online cheaters pageThrowRA4551683 I met Danielle on a dating app and we immediately hit it off. Conversation was super easy for us so we swapped numbers and spent the next two weeks texting and talking on the phone.  I explained early on that I want to take my time because not only am I looking for something serious, but also have work commitments the next few months. I work in tech product sales, which can be very busy and also involve me leaving the city for a few days at a time.  She said she understood and was also looking for something long-term. Great. We met the weekend before Valentines and had a nice restaurant date following by dessert and coffee. We finished with a kiss and I walked her back to her car.  It was definitely the best date I&#39;ve been on since my last relationship. The next day I called her to say I was looking forward to seeing her again and would plan something when I get back.  I live in a major North American city and from the 15th-17th I was booked 3 hours away for on-site client meetings. I told her about this and let her know we&#39;d keep in touch.  On the Friday I&#39;m due to get back, I got a msg from a close female friend asking who I p*ssed off. I had no clue what she&#39;s talking about. She sends me a screenshot of my photo on what looks like a FB page and tells me it&#39;s a private group where women call out men for cheating.  It&#39;s called &#39;Are we dating the same guy?&#39; and this particular group is just for people from my city.  In the screenshot multiple people are posting under my picture with mostly harmless comments like &#39;oh I went on a date with him years ago, he was ok,&#39; but there were others like &quot;PM me for the tea&quot; and one woman said &quot;He&#39;s an angry asshole, stay away for your safety.&quot;  Because it&#39;s FB I instantly recognized her name as someone I went on a date with last summer who I had to block after she repeatedly tried to sell me her cat. Absolute lunatic.  A few things about me - I am single, I have never been married and my last relationship was over a year ago. I am very selective and Danielle was the first date I&#39;d been on since the end of summer. I am also a very private person.  I don&#39;t use social media and I don&#39;t kiss and tell. The fact that my photo is on this site is mortifying. What makes matters worse is when I got home I started getting texts from a bunch of other people I know either laughing at me or calling me a womanizer.  As of now I&#39;m aware that several female friends have seen it, one coworker, my sister, and a woman I know who lives in the same building as me that excitedly grabbed me when I was leaving this morning to tell me &quot;I saw you on that Facebook group!!&quot; Apparently it&#39;s a lot more popular than I realized.  There&#39;s only one person who would have the motivation to do this, so I called Danielle on the weekend and asked her. Initially she denied it, but after some prodding that flipped to apparently her friend posting it.  Why? Because a few of them had gotten tipsy together on Valentines as they&#39;re all single. My name came up after her friends asked why she wasn&#39;t with me that night after the great date she&#39;d told them about.  Apparently me not being around as I was leaving early the next morning for work was &#39;suspicious&#39; as was the fact we&#39;d been talking for multiple weeks but she&#39;d never seen my place.  She gave them a pic I used on the dating app and one of them posted it. She told me she was sorry but that I seemed too good to be true. Her last relationship ended due to cheating and she wanted to make sure I wasn&#39;t married or in a relationship. I told her I needed some time to think and would be in touch.  That was Saturday. We&#39;ve been silent until today where I woke up to dozens of msgs from her saying things along the lines of &quot;I&#39;m so sorry&quot;/&quot;I&#39;m so angry with myself for this&quot; and then the real truth.  It was her that posted it. She wanted to come completely clean and apologized for lying, telling me she panicked when I confronted her but she wants it all out now. She sent me screenshots unprovoked of the PM conversations she was having with women in the group about me.  Aside from the one headcase I mentioned earlier, there was nothing accusatory, but what I couldn&#39;t get over was how they were discussing me in such an open manner.  It had nothing to do with whether I was single or cheating, it was stuff like &#39;he took me to this restaurant, he drives this kinda car, this is what he&#39;s like in bed, this is what his place is like, this is how much money I think he makes.&#39;  I would never talk about exes or people I&#39;ve dated like that. And if a guy tried to talk to me about Danielle like that I&#39;d think he was a fucking weirdo and tell him to stop.  My two closest female friends are divided on this so I&#39;m here for advice. One thinks that women need to protect themselves against predators and violence and groups like this are necessary.  The other is angry on my behalf because the presumption of men being posted to that group are that they&#39;re cheaters or sketchy, otherwise why would anyone even post them there?  I really don&#39;t know what to do next. I&#39;ve never had to deal with anything remotely like this before. I like Danielle but it was ONE DATE. She also lied to me about it at first. This seems like a headache and we&#39;ve never even had sex yet.  Is she going to get even more paranoid after that? It doesn&#39;t feel like we&#39;re compatible. This feels like the past 3 weeks of us talking have been one massive waste and that actually stings because she&#39;s the first person I&#39;ve really liked since my ex. Here is what people initially had to say:kamjam16 First, I would sue the f*ck out of her. I&rsquo;m very similar to you. No social media and keep my life (especially dating life) very discreet. There are these groups in the city where I live and I would also be mortified having my face plastered on there and every woman I&rsquo;ve dated discussing this (I live in a big city and I&rsquo;ve also run into nut jobs).  I don&rsquo;t know what you can actually do to get your info off there though. I have women in my life who would tell me if I was on there, but aside from that, what can you do to defend yourself? Nothing. At the very least, you need to get this girl out of your life. She&rsquo;s a nut job too and I wouldn&rsquo;t have a shred of trust left for her.  Also for your friend who defends these groups, I would consider cutting her off too. She&rsquo;s using a defense of women needing to protect themselves when these groups are obviously just a place for women to slander guys they don&rsquo;t like and talk sh*t.  If a guy is truly dangerous, there are better ways to go about it then have these Facebook groups. If there were groups like this for guys to talk about women in their city, it would end up on the news. West-Adhesiveness555 I know of people who have found out about serial rapist in this kind of groups on Facebook. So it was bad luck for OP to be exposed like that because he isn&rsquo;t that kind of person, but as somebody said in a previous comment, the dating world can be scary. vexatiousd I would post her picture on a similar Facebook page for men to be warned of females that shouldn&rsquo;t be trusted, preferably one in your local area, just so she can have the same thing happen to her. But I live in a place where you can&rsquo;t just sue someone.  Ideally, suing her and her friends for defamation of character would be a nice way of going about things. You were literally being a decent person and these people decided that, with no evidence to the contrary, were a shady motherfucker who needed to be shamed because they thought that you deserved it. Run Forest, Run! Sypsy Go with your gut. It&#39;s easy for everyone to write her off because she was insecure, but it sounds like you have many reasons to stick around which you did not convey fully except &quot; It was definitely the best date I&#39;ve been on since my last relationship.&quot;  But I would definitely take it slowly. You might consider another date or two might help you get more information, and that wouldn&#39;t hurt you. Get her to take down the post and/or edit it to put you back to good standing. (whatever you want).  I know this will get downvoted because most people are going to say they know exactly what type of girl this is, and you shouldn&#39;t waste a second further with her. But that&#39;s just jumping the gun. The fact you posted and haven&#39;t written her off shows you&#39;re considering her. Good luck! FamousOrphan Those groups exist for a reason. We all know someone who has met some guy on an app and then been stalked by the wife he said he definitely didn&rsquo;t have. The groups are an attempt to basically pool information and unionize. What she did was fine. stitchup55 This lady must be terribly insecure. Dating these days is like walking through a field of land mines I guess for both men and women. I think the best thing to do would be to cut that one lose. What is she going to do on your other travels, if you two start to get serious? Accuse you of cheating? Cheat on you because she thinks your cheating? Two days later, the OP returned with more:Back with an update, but firstly, a couple of quick notes based on the feedback I got:ThrowRA4551683 &bull; No, I am not Patrick or David or Eric or Pascal or Bret. Thank you for the PMs asking. As much as I&#39;d like to be a Bret since that was my favorite wrestler as a kid, it&#39;s concerning that these msgs imply this seems to be happening so much that the identities can be confused.  &bull; I don&#39;t care if you think my close female friend &#39;violated the sanctity&#39; of your super cool secret girls only club. As she told me, her loyalties are to me. She&#39;s known me since I was a child and knows that I didn&#39;t deserve to have my photo plastered there.  &bull; I understand that those groups may be necessary in keeping women safe or finding predators, but their moderators should go harder in ensuring that it meets those goals rather than running a de facto gossip club where innocent people&#39;s personal lives are affected.  I&#39;ve had dozens of people reach out with very similar experiences, so perhaps your rules should reflect that rather than just &#39;kEeP bOyS oUt!&#39;  &bull; The lunatic who wanted to sell me her cat. He seemed like a cool dude, but I just wasn&#39;t in the market for a pet. He also only had 3 legs which made him run like a drunken sailor. All cats deserve love, I hope he got away from her.  &bull; Some of you (alarmingly) struggle with concepts of consent. I consented to my photo appearing on a dating app. I did not consent to my photo appearing in a &#39;is this guy trash?&#39; group. These are not the same and the stigma and assumptions associated with both are vastly different. I really shouldn&#39;t have to explain this but here we are.  Regarding me not realizing how big this group was. 3 of the women in my life all found out about it the same way. On Valentines Day a radio show ran a segment on it, then it got picked up by blogs and social media. It&#39;s even appeared on local television.  My friend saw it on Twitter. Another saw a &#39;this guy was dating 12 women!&#39; post that got shared and decided to investigate. My sister was texted by her friend about it. And when they all rushed to check the group out, there I was. Great timing. It currently has over 50k members. Anyway, moving on...  I decided not to pursue things with Danielle. She took the post down during our radio silence but it mainly boiled down to just not seeing her in the same light anymore. I can accept that she is genuinely sorry but I also know how I am, and it wouldn&#39;t be fair to either of us.  This is supposed to be the honeymoon period. Everything is supposed to be light and cute. Now it&#39;s just suspicion and resentment.  Not gonna lie, that period between when we first started talking to when I went away on my trip was really great. I looked forward to talking to her, when I would see a text I got butterflies, when we kissed it felt electric.  Some people said what she did was such an obvious red flag they were questioning why I was even hesitating. The reason is that I haven&#39;t felt like this in some time.  My last relationship lasted 5 years and after we broke up I legitimately wondered if I could find that spark again. Especially after trying dating apps here and there and not having much luck finding the right person.  I do want to feel that spark again and find my person, but holding on to something that already has these problems before it even starts is the wrong move. Instead, I&#39;m simply happy I got to experience it.  Now I know it&#39;s out there and possible again, just not with Danielle. But I&#39;ll be honest. I did wake up today thinking &#39;hey you never know, maybe couple months down the line I&#39;ll think different and maybe we&#39;ll go grab a drink.&#39; And then I saw she&#39;d texted me.  To preface, before I left the city for work she sent me a photo with a msg &#39;don&#39;t forget about me&#39;. It was her in a bikini on a summer beach blowing a kiss. She&#39;s quite... chesty... so it&#39;s not exactly SFW but there was no nudity.  I open today&#39;s text which reads &#39;hey, hope I&#39;m not disturbing you but I&#39;d like to ask you to delete that picture I sent and do not share it with anyone.&#39; What the f*ck? I replied &#39;The only copy of that picture is in our chat thread, do you seriously have this low an opinion of me?&#39; To which she apologized and said she was just making sure. Fine.  At first I was annoyed, but then I realized the most important thing - It was a reminder I&#39;d made the right decision. So I made another and deleted her number. I decided not to pursue things with Danielle. Here is what readers had to say:VanMan32 Lol Danielle concerned about someone misusing a photo of her? Sorry for how things panned out. I was late to the party when you first posted. Wish you all the best. worsttimehomebuyer I can&#39;t believe he didn&#39;t tell her &quot;I would never share a photo of you without your consent, what kind of monster would do that?&quot;  Neobule She is definitely fishing for a reason to talk to him again, and he did the right thing by ignoring it and not escalating it further. I am all for women looking out for each other but publicly sharing pictures of men like that is so violating and disgusting.  Just one very small thing: I don&#39;t know if elsewhere is different, but the people I know communicate almost exclusively through WhatsApp, and with how the app works you do not actually have to save pictures people send you, they are automatically saved in your gallery, unless the sender specifically selects the option that lets the receiver open the picture only once.  So, it takes more effort to delete a picture than to save it, and it would not necessarily be narcissistic to think that someone may still have the pictures they received in their phone. Your comments are still valid, I just wanted to add this. Low-Focus-3879 Danielle is addicted to drama --even the last message was a weird attempt to draw him back in while starting a fight. Good on this dude for opting out fast. Crlyb2611 As someone who&rsquo;s been cheated on, I understand Danielle&rsquo;s insecurity and trust issues. The fact that she took it out on OP after ONE date shows that not only is she nowhere close to ready to date but she also is giving her ex wayyy too much power. WisePhantom Posting in these groups sounds like a good idea in theory, but I bet the execution leaves a lot to be desired. They&rsquo;d have to heavily moderate it so they don&rsquo;t let the crazies and gossips take over. Might as well let people rate their dates on tinder and leave reviews lmao. Ladyharpie Since the cat is out of the bag, this group isn&#39;t new. It&#39;s been around a few years with hundreds of thousands members. This also is far from the only group as there is one for most major cities, at least on the east coast, as I was suggested to join four different ones in a two state radius.  I did join, there was a vetting process, the moderators delete anything that talks about their appearance or other superficial aspects to keep judgment down and a focus on experiences and objective events. I found 73 -127 of my women friends in often multiple groups.  I don&#39;t even date men but I was curious and figured it was worth it to be casually vigilant for myself and for others before leaving it. Because of the massive membership of these groups inevitably grow toxic but when it was more manageable I know it helped women.  In the short time I lurked there were definitely red flags from men, ranging into abuse, as well as married men cheating across multiple cities. Take that as you will. What do you think? Do you think he was right to be upset or do you think this woman was just trying to save herself a broken heart?

Modern dating can be a veritable minefield of potential disaster.  Communication is more accessible and more complicated than ever the more options we have to access it. One man thought he had found someone with the potential for a...