I’ve been dating a guy for a month, we slept together recently and said we’d be exclusive. However, he still goes on match.com (this is how we met). I don’t know that he is necessarily doing anything bad, maybe just chatting with women to stroke his ego… but it bothers me that he’s doing it .
I know I am being sneaky/snoopy by checking up on him to see how often her goes on the site (and he goes on often!), but I am looking out for myself. It’s not like I’d call this guy my boyfriend already, I know it’s still early… but what’s your opinion?
Is this guy bad news or should I just relax and be fine with the fact that he still logs on to match.com at this point?
Distrust is a slippery slope.
The fact of the matter is, you will never, ever know what the other person is doing at all times. In this case, you know he goes on match.com because you can see it. But since the beginning of time, men and women have had to learn to trust one another in their relationship.
I can tell you from personal experience that this was a skill I needed to learn. In my past, there have been times when even though the relationship was good, my insecurity would eat away at me. I would think things like, “Well, things seem good, but what if she’s doing something behind my back and playing me for a fool, etc. etc.” This type of thing has a lot more to do with our own personal insecurities and not so much with what the other person is or isn’t doing.
A problem with suspicion and snooping is: the more you fear and suspect, the more that fear and suspicion eats away at you and creates more fears and suspicions!
This creates a vicious cycle that destroys trust in the relationship and ultimately causes a problem where there was none.
Trust is very hard. But he hasn’t given you a reason to distrust him yet.
You have to remember that you don’t know his full story yet. At this moment, you are reading into the situation negatively, assuming that he has bad motives or could be playing you. There are thousands of possible scenarios that could be happening, most of them being neutral and some even positive.
I think that if you don’t make an issue of it, the relationship will have the opportunity to flourish and grow. Don’t waste your energy on bracing yourself for the bad and spying on him – focus instead on being an amazing girlfriend and on spending great quality time with him.
Yes, it’s scary. Yes, sometimes things don’t work out, trust gets broken and/or people get hurt. But that is the game of life and love – if you’re going to play at all, go all in.
Hope it helps,
-eric charles
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What she doesn’t know is that he could be logging on and looking at HER photo and reading HER profile again. When I met someone very special, I did that periodically for awhile just to see his picture or double checking some of his interests for date planning.
Very good point.
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What’s actually happening might not be a bad thing, but the suspicion/distrust/fear will lead to snooping, the snooping will lead to more suspicion/distrust/fear, which will lead to more snooping, etc.
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All the meanwhile, she’ll have her guard up to him, which will deteriorate the quality of the relationship. After all, she wouldn’t want to leave herself open and be played for a fool.
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And because her energy in the relationship is now degraded, the relationship will end up being far worse than it could have been had she not gone down the path of fear/distrust.
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Again, yes, sometimes people do get taken advantage of or hurt. But it is much worse to go through life with your guard up all the time, distrusting everyone, self-provective and bracing yourself.
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Personally, I have learned that it is better to assume people are good and do good things and not to be concerned until someone has actually done something bad. The path of fear/suspicion is too much of a price to pay and I would wager that at least 90% of my fears or suspicions have been totally off-base once I figured out what was really going on.
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Bottom line, you’re never going to know the full story most of the time, so you need to find a way to live with that.
I would ask him. Yes you do have to have trust in a relationship but you also need honesty.