Was That...? Seeing Someone You Know On An Online Dating Site

The other day I had a couple of girlfriends over. We had some wine and laughs and one of my friends pulled up her online dating account to show who had been contacting her (laughs continued). We were scrolling through one of the features where the site suggests people it thinks you may be interested in. A picture of a dark haired, blue-eyed guy that lived about 20 miles away popped up. He looked handsome, normal. But something felt weird, I said, "He looks like Wyatt's friend, the asshole one."

We all gasped in unison as she clicked on to the next photo and confirmed our terror. This guy was the good friend of one of my neighbors. In fact, his very next picture was a picture with him and our mutual friend. We'd seen this guy socially a few times, and those few times made them a few too many.

The first time I met him, I'd thrown a big party and after an introductory chit-chat, he openly told me what I did for a living was "bullshit." He habitually tried to cheat at the games we played, and he threw a tantrum when I caught him and wouldn't let him take the prize. The subsequent times around him, he'd always conveniently forget who I was from the last time I saw him. It felt like the movie "Groundhog's Day" but every time I got to re-meet an asshole. Oh and did I mention he has a fetish for amputees?

To his credit, nowhere in Assholes's profile did he call himself a "nice guy," who "makes friends easily" and is "always fun to be around", but nor did his profile portray the person my friends and I knew him to be-- wait for it-- an asshole.

After we picked apart his profile and and everything he had to say; "He wishes he was athletic and toned! Where's the box for skinny and pasty?"; "Oh look, he's starting his own business! Why doesn't he talk about how he got fired from his job for being a prick?," she emphatically clicked "not interested,"  and we moved on.

Without a doubt there are tons of you who don't want your online dating profiles seen by a particular person; whether it's your ex, a client, a boss, a coworker, family member, or in this case, an asshole acquaintance. Although if history was any indicator, he probably wouldn't remember me or my friend even if he did see her profile, we didn't want to take the chance. So the next day we went back on the site to find his profile and take the measures I knew to protect ourselves.

We couldn't remember his profile name so we did a search using all the details we could remember from the night before. A few pages of guys came up including the face of another acquaintance.

Geeze.

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Finally a-hole came up. We promptly took note of his user name, as well as the other guy we knew, and added them to her list of blocked users. We then clicked the "hide" next to their box so that they wouldn't show up in search results again.

Getting Around the Problem:

For those of you who live in a small town, community or suburb, maybe this story is familiar. You're always a little vulnerable when you do online dating, you put yourself out there for others to see and know you, which means sometimes the people that see you aren't who you want.

It's unfortunate, but shouldn't mean we stop online dating because, if you take it away, you also take away a chance to meet someone special. Take time to figure out the privacy features of whatever site you're using.  If it requires you to purchase some kind of upgrade package to cherrypick who you want to have access to you, then do it. Also, it is worth it to explore different sites-- they have different options regarding privacy. Only you know what your peace of mind is worth.