Would you tell your friend that you saw her boyfriend with another woman or that he’s got a profile on a dating app? I always thought I’d be calling a friend ASAP to fill her in if I knew that info, but then I found myself in the situation and didn’t let my friend know that her boyfriend was messing around.
- Don’t get me wrong—I wanted to tell her. One day I was on a dating app when I saw my friend’s BF on there, the guy she was regularly posting couple selfies with on Facebook. I was shocked! I wanted to tell her what I’d seen and perhaps send her a screenshot of the douchebag’s profile, but then I realized it was probably best for me not to get into their business and private lives. Sure, they were posting happy selfies on social media, but that didn’t mean their relationship was perfect or public property.
- I didn’t want to get involved. It sounds cowardly but I didn’t want to get involved in their situation. It was a situation I knew absolutely nothing about. They might’ve already broken up, for all I knew. She was the kind of friend who’d sort of gone her own way and we weren’t as close as we used to be. There was a lot about her life that I didn’t know, so I couldn’t make a judgment about her relationship from the outside.
- It would’ve been so weird to speak up. We didn’t even have each other’s phone numbers anymore, so I can just imagine how weird it would’ve been to send her a Facebook message and tell her that her BF was on a dating site. I’d be creeping out of the woodwork to give her such bad news. No, it felt so awkward, like I wasn’t supposed to be the one to tell her something that could potentially be devastating.
- She might’ve questioned my motives. Honestly, if I put myself in her shoes, I might’ve thought, “Why is a friend I haven’t spoken to for years getting into my business and telling me this?” She might’ve wondered why I, out of all people, had to be the one to tell her, and perhaps even thought my caring message was fake AF. We hadn’t shared big life events in a long time—we just weren’t those kinds of friends anymore—so this felt inappropriate.
- There could’ve been an explanation for it. Look, I’m not trying to excuse the guy, but since I didn’t know anything about their relationship, there might’ve been a solid explanation for why he was on a dating app. Perhaps they were in an open relationship, his profile was old, or they were in an on-again, off-again relationship.
- The truth would come out. I really believe that cheating always comes out. If her BF was cheating on her, she would’ve caught him sooner or later. He was stupid enough to have a profile on a popular dating app, after all.
- I wasn’t directly involved. If he’d sent me a message on that dating app, then I would’ve been dragged into the situation. I would’ve known that he was listed as “in a relationship” with someone I knew on Facebook, and would’ve confronted him about it or told my friend about his dirty antics. But that wasn’t the case—I had no part in the situation at all so I felt I had no right to let her know.
- Yes, I would’ve wanted to know if my BF was cheating on me, but… I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to know from some friend or acquaintance on Facebook. FFS, it would be humiliating if my friend had to tell me something like that, especially if it was completely out of the blue. Relationships and their issues aren’t open territory for anyone to weigh in on with their two cents’ worth or ambulance-chasing observations.
- If we were closer, it would’ve been different. If my friend confided in me about her life and relationship, and I saw that her boyfriend wasn’t a good guy, I’d definitely tell her what I’d seen. There’s no doubt about that. If she trusted me, I think that would’ve been a better foundation to tell her something like this. She’d also know my comments were coming from a good place.
- She couldn’t say I was a bad friend. I felt guilty for not telling her what I’d seen, but then I realized that she couldn’t tell me I was being a bad friend because we weren’t really friends anymore. I was just an acquaintance, someone she used to know, someone who didn’t really have an obligation to tell her about her boyfriend or cause drama.
- She had to deal with her own situation. Would I really be helping her by telling her that her boyfriend was on a dating app? I’m not so sure. What if she already had a feeling that he was cheating on her, but she didn’t want to face the situation? What if she knew about it and was okay with it? These are all things to consider. Whatever the case, she was in the situation and she might not have been blind to it. It wasn’t up to me to jump in and “save” her.
- I didn’t want to mess up her view of me. At one point in our lives we’d been best friends, and then we’d gone our separate ways. There had been no drama or fighting. We still had positive opinions of each other, and I didn’t want to ruin that by making her most recent memory of me that of the woman who told her she suspected her BF of being a dickhead. No matter what she thought of him, I didn’t want to be painted in a negative light, like some nosy gossip or malicious messenger. It’s just not me.
