My [23F] boyfriend [23M] of 3 years is using Tinder, claiming to be ‘looking for friends and hangouts’.

A woman (23) is heartbroken after learning that her boyfriend (23) of three years is using Tinder, claiming he’s looking for friends and hangouts, despite their plans for engagement. His profile picture shows him shirtless and cropped out of a photo with her, raising further suspicions. When confronted, he dismissed her concerns and made her feel guilty. Now, she’s unsure if she’s overreacting or if her feelings of betrayal are justified. Read the full story below.

‘ My [23F] boyfriend [23M] of 3 years is using Tinder, claiming to be ‘looking for friends and hangouts’.’

A (single) friend called me a couple of days ago asking me if I knew that Dave (bf) was using Tinder, despite being with me for the last 3 years, and living together and happily planning an engagement. I was distraught, knowing what tinder is and what it is used for, I was heartbroken. She goes on to tell me that his Bio says he’s “Looking to make some new, exciting and fun friends and looking to hangout. Willing to travel a little if there’s enough excitement involved!”

His pictures do not include me, despite 9/10 pictures ever taken of either of us for the last three years having the two of us together in them. One of his pictures is him at the beach, shirtless and a tiny man thong I got him as a joke. He cropped me out of the image.
I brought this up to him, and he laughed it off, saying that 1: my best friend of 11 years is a ‘nosy b**ch’ and that 2: he’s entitled to seek friends and be social, even if it is with complete strangers. Basically he completely invalidated my points and made me feel guilty for being upset by this, playing it off like I am being possessive.

Since then I’ve avoided bringing it up and just tried to get over it. He hasn’t been out and about any more than usual so it doesn’t look like he has any ‘takers’ yet, but this is just *not* sitting right with me. I’m upset and feeling betrayed, and I don’t know how to put my point across without him invalidating it or guilting me. What can I do? Am I in the wrong for not being OK with this? I do not want to throw away three years over something that might be ME being silly.

TL;DR: Boyfriend of 3yrs using a notorious dating and casual s**/h**kup app to “look for friends” with suspicious bio and pics.

Edit: Firstly, thank all of you for all of your perspectives and advice in this quite frankly disgusting situation I’ve found myself in. I decided I’d play dirty as someone suggested and made a tinder profile, pretending to be a friend (with her permission!) whom he does not know. I hit on him. He reciprocated and made plans to meet with ‘me’ at a nearby coffee shop that we occasionally date at, minutes after making ‘my’ intentions clear. Wow. In about 20 minutes he’ll be headed out to go and meet ‘me’ and I’ll be packing up his s**t ready for him to leave when he gets back. House is my families, he has no rights to any of it.. I deserve better..

Edit/Update 2: He sat at the coffee place waiting for ‘her/me’ for over an hour in the hopes to meet my, to be honest, gorgeous friend. Obviously she didn’t show up.

Shortly after he left I called my dad to explain, and I must have sounded pretty distraught because he came over without me asking. Dave came home to his clothes packed up by the door. He came in yelling “what the f**k is this?” and, unbeknownst to him, my dad was sat by me on the sofa and responded on my behalf, telling him in no certain words to get his filthy unfaithful ass out of his house. I am glad he did. I think my dad knows I’m timid and prone to being pushed about.

His face dropped when he pieced it together and without a word he 180’d and grabbed his bags. I know he has places he can stay, and family nearby, so I’m not worried about him having no place to sleep. This is going to hurt for a long time, but I can never forgive that kind of breach of trust. I’m not the type of person to move past it. I’ll allow him back to collect his pieces of furniture and such in a week or so when he is situated, but that’s as far as seeing him again goes. I am also dreading a phone call from his mother, whom I love dearly. She’ll be heartbroken too. Welp, bye bye three years. F**k you Dave! :’)

Here’s what Redditors had to say:

constanceblackwood12 −  Is he allowed to seek friends and be social? Sure. But “why are you using a notorious dating/casual s**/h**kup app to make new friends” is a TOTALLY VALID question. Even if, for some strange reason, he is genuinely only looking to make friends on Tinder, his profile is incredibly misleading to other people on Tinder, which means that he’s going to hurt a lot of innocent people’s feelings and cause a lot of awkward conversations if he’s not upfront and honest. Me personally, I would say that he can keep the Tinder account if:

1) He changes his profile to include the fact that he has a fiance.
2) At least one of his pictures includes said fiance.
3) If he does decide to communicate with anybody from the site, he tells said fiance.
But TBH he will probably refuse to do those three things, which is pretty suspicious.

[Reddit User] −  From my experience, Tinder is not about friends. I have never heard of anyone using Tinder for anything but h****ps. That said, let’s get reddit’s consensus before we make a decision. Maybe a ton of people use Tinder as a friend finder and you and I just don’t know it yet! If it’s a common practice, I’d let it go. Like you said, his actual behavior hasn’t changed yet. If no one has heard of using Tinder as a friend finder before, I’d have a serious chat with him about it. I’d say it all depends on the consensus.

thegdorf −  Your fiance is looking to cheat. Period. No one honest claims to use Tinder exclusively for “finding friends”. Yes, some people do end up making friends using it, but that is a side-effect of looking for s**. The fact his pictures include only him, and do not mention you at all is a pretty clear indication that’s what is happening. “Willing to travel a little if there’s enough excitement involved!” is not something you say to random friends you’re looking to make.

Also, what the f**k is this: “my best friend of 11 years is a ‘nosy b**ch'” What an a**hole. There’s no seeking people out on Tinder, the profiles you see are random. So your friend saw your fiance’s profile by chance, and *of course* she was going to tell you. Why the f**k are you allowing this massive disrespect to your best friend stand? For that matter, why are you letting this massive disrespect *to your relationship* to stand?

CeuticalNonsensical −  Why don’t you make a tinder? Make your profile similar to his, with single pictures, one of you in a bikini. He’ll run across you eventually and you’ll explain you’re just looking for friends.

[Reddit User] −  Nobody goes on Tinder to make new friends and hang out, that is what Meetup is designed for. Either your bf is dumb or lying.

atypicalgamergirl −  You may not be willing to throw away three years but he clearly is.

V3r1ty −  What can I do? Am I in the wrong for not being OK with this? I do not want to throw away three years over something that might be ME being silly. D**p him. No. Read up on The sunk cost fallacy. It’s a h**kup app. He does it behind your back. He is prepared to cheat on you. He doesn’t respect or love or commit to you. When confronted about his actions he knows to be wrong, he gaslights you.

G**lighting is a tactic used by a users and cheaters to make their partners feel silly / crazy / wrong. Any outside perspective will reveal that it is not. Using Tinder to find hookups while in an exclusive relationship validates immediately breaking up on the spot. Trust me. There is no coming back from this. Don’t try to save things. Save yourself the trouble, and walk away cleanly. You can do this, and you will feel much better for it.

lindseychan −  Eek. Let me lend you my story since I was actually someone who used tinder once thinking I could meet ‘just a friend’. I’d just had a breakup and was by no means in the mood for romance or touching. Most of my friend circle was close friends with my ex so I didn’t have a lot of options or know where to start and tinder was super big so I downloaded it. I put in my little about me thing that I was only seeking friends and none of my pictures of myself were flirtatious or anything, just shoulder-up shots, some including my cat.

Flipping through a sea of thirsty faces was pretty entertaining and distracting. I had it set to show me both males and females since I wasn’t just looking for male friends (your bf should also have this setting if he’s being honest, since looking for just female friends is weird). I judged who I’d swipe left (right? whichever one is “yes”) on by how many common interests we had (I’m big into music and it had all of my musical preferences taken from FB), not by attractiveness or whatever. Weird ik.

Struck up a conversation with a dude named “Nat”. We liked a lot of the same music and video games. After a few days we agreed to hang out at a hip local coffee shop. I’d expressed to him very seriously that I was NOT in any sort of mood to hook up and I genuinely was using this app for friends (silly me…). We chilled at the coffee shop, it was cool. Talked about pokémon and friend things. Got lunch somewhere else in town.

He wanted to continue the hangout and I had nothing else going on that day so I said we could hang at my apartment. I thought my roommate would be home and we’d all chill and talk but I got home and we were actually alone. Nervously I continued the hangout to not seem weird. We went into my room and I asked him to show me a pokémon online game he’d talked about. We sat on my bed because well it was my only seating option.

I got very into the game but he seemed uh…distracted… Soon I noticed that he was trying very hard to initiate “cuddling” and I got very scared and only more insistently drew attention to the game I was playing. He seemed annoyed and all I could think was “why are you doing this” because I had so clearly expressed my boundaries. He thought they were a joke or me playing hard to get.

He’d mentioned loving puppies before so I got up and broke free from his personal-space i**asion and let my roommate’s puppy out of her room to come play with us. This did distract him. He lit up and started playing with the puppy away from me. But…the puppy got too excited and ended up peeing all over this dude’s chest. Ahahahaha, Soufflé the yorkie-bischon frisse pup to the rescue. He tried to suppress his disgust but he left shortly after since I obviously didn’t want to bang and he now smelled like p**s. He never texted me again… :~)

Ok so, moral of that story is that even if your bf is going into this with the purest heart and most innocent of intentions (which the flirty profile pics with you cropped out make it seem sorta like no), tinder is NOT for making friends. It is absolutely foolish to think otherwise. If he wants FRIENDS and EXCITEMENT, tell him to look at Meetup.com and take a look at the clubs in his area.

My town has a lot of adventure/hiking/cycling sort of clubs. You should absolutely assert to him that using a DATING and H**KUP app to make FRIENDS is idiotic, disrespectful, and unacceptable. If he continues to protest, I think it’s time to break up. Edit: I’m a girl if that was unclear.

MrsBoo −  If I were you, I would make up a Tinder profile (with a different persons picture) and get in contact with him and see what he does. I cannot believe that anyone would use tinder for anything other than to hook up.

Aryeth −  Your dad is a badass.