I am currently in a graduate program alongside one of my close friends from undergrad, Nina. We attend a program in a large city, with more than 30k students at our school.
Nina had told me in spring that she was seeing someone, but I didn’t know anything about him. At the time, my dad was extremely sick and I was traveling 6 hours roundtrip almost every other day to see him in the hospital while working and studying, I didn’t have a lot of bandwidth. Nina and her boyfriend made things official around the end of the semester, but my dad had a sharp decline and died 3 days before finals. I was taking that 6 hour trip every single day and trying to figure out how I was going to make things work. I think the most I absorbed about Nina’s boyfriend was that his name started with the letter D.
I spent two weeks at home, then have been staying in Nina and I’s apartment for the remainder of summer. Nina has been at her parents’ place since May.
When I got back, I started having casual sex with a few different guys from Tinder, one of them being David. We had sex 4 times, but I stopped seeing him because he was extremely off-putting. I didn’t think anything of him, put new guys in the rotation, started going to therapy, and put that phase in the rearview.
On Saturday, Nina posted a picture of her and her boyfriend. Who is David. Who I had sex with 4 times without even thinking twice.
I feel sick to my stomach. I don’t know what to do. I know I was a horrible friend to Nina in spring and if I had given any amount of thought to her or her life, I would’ve known that they were dating. I know that he is the skeeze for cheating, but I feel like it’s less of a blow to Nina to say, “I saw your boyfriend on Tinder” than “I had sex with your boyfriend 4 times after I saw him on Tinder, had no clue you guys were dating though.” I tried talking about it with a friend of mine who does not know Nina and she said it would sound to her, if she were Nina, that I was punishing her for having a life while my dad was dying – which is NOT what happened. She said it sounded like I was lying about not knowing who he was.
I’m scared that if I don’t tell her, or don’t tell her the whole truth, that he’ll tell her and I’ll look complicit. But I’m equally scared that if I tell her, she won’t want anything to do with me anymore, even if she believes everything I tell her. I know I need to tell her, but how do I do so in a way that minimizes the damage? Do I wait for her to come back?
Tl;dr: I didn’t know I was having sex with my friend/roommate’s boyfriend. I need to tell her – how?
43 comments
If you were in her shoes what would you want your friend to do?
‘Nina! You’ll never guess who I had sex with! I’ll give you a hint. You’re being cheated on.’
First of all so sorry on the loss of your dad, It sounds like it’s been a bit of a rough time and I hope things pick up for you
This is a horribly awkward situation to be put in but I think you need to tell her
However just be prepared she may not believe you or he’ll pull the whole “she seduced me” scenario and make you out to be the bad one
For your own sake I’d tell her sooner rather than later, if I were her I’d appreciate knowing sooner too. It’s not your fault, and frankly in time she might see it as a blessing since you’re essentially just helping her see he’s a loser.
should you tell her? Yes, that would be the right thing, but you can’t control her reaction. Expect the best be prepared for the worst.
I hope you have evidence just in case.
Just tell her the truth after your dad died you starting seeing people on tinder and you slept with David that you didn’t know he had a gf til you showed the picture tell her if you knew you would have never done it and would have told her bf was on tinder
Tell her before she hears a different version of the story.
Minimize the damage? You mean the damage DAVID has done? Why in the world would you want to carry that for a POS like David?
You need to just call her and tell her. There’s no easy way out of this.
Definitely tell her sooner than later because it will get weirder and harder the longer you wait. She hadn’t introduced the two of you or shown you pics of him so how on earth would you have known it was her boyfriend on Tinder you matched and slept with? Hopefully she knows you well enough to know you wouldn’t have done this on purpose and she directs her anger accordingly. If she doesn’t and she blames you, then that’s really too bad she’s choosing to go that route. He’s the one on Tinder while he has a girlfriend. Good luck!
You should tell her everything and if she is the friend you say then she knew what you were going through. Yes it will hurt but better than telling her half truths and her finding out the rest. Plus why didn’t David say anything when he came to your apartment since he would have been there before with Nina.
Show her the tinder convo or texts if you have them to really show how it went down.
‘Does your boyfriend have a twin? I hooked up with a guy off Tinder that looks exactly like him. He said his name was David?”
David did a bad thing. And unfortunately you have been caught up in the trainwreck that he has created. Sometimes that will happen, it sucks but it is what it is and doesn’t reflect on you as a person or how you chose to handle your grief.
Unfortunately it is indeed plausible that your friend will project/misplace her anger. The realisation that her partner is an awful person is hard to deal with and if she takes that swing at you sidestep it but respect that anger and where it is coming from and give her time.
In my eyes the more straight you are the better. Don’t put wiggle room in it. ‘Over summer I went on a series of tinder dates and had a bunch of casual hookups. When you posted a photo with your boyfriend I realised he was actually one of the people I slept with at the time, unaware he was your partner as we had not ever met. I am not aware of what the rules of your relationship are or what you discussed with him or if he knew who I was but I slept with him in this time before cutting it off and I believe that is something you deserve to know.’
I can understand that you’re in a tough situation, and it’s important to handle it with sensitivity and honesty. Given the complexity of the situation, here’s a suggested approach to navigate this conversation:
1. **Choose the Right Time and Place:** It’s best to have this conversation in person when Nina is back. Find a quiet and private place where you can have an open and honest conversation without interruptions.
2. **Be Honest:** Start the conversation by being completely honest about what happened. Acknowledge that you had no idea David was her boyfriend when you were casually seeing him.
3. **Express Regret:** Let Nina know how deeply sorry you are for unintentionally getting involved in this situation and for any pain it might cause her. Emphasize that your actions were not meant to hurt her.
4. **Provide Context:** Explain the difficult circumstances you were facing during the time you were seeing David, such as dealing with your father’s illness and your emotional state. Let her know that you weren’t thinking about her personal life at that time.
5. **Clarify Intentions:** Reiterate that your actions were not meant to be malicious or hurtful, and that you deeply care about your friendship with her. Make it clear that you’re not trying to punish her or blame her for anything.
6. **Offer Transparency:** Share that you’re bringing this up now because you value her and your friendship, and you wanted to be open and upfront about what happened. Explain that you wanted to tell her before she potentially heard it from someone else.
7. **Listen and Respect Her Reaction:** After you’ve explained the situation, give her the space to react and express her feelings. Listen carefully to what she has to say without interrupting or becoming defensive. It’s important to respect her emotions, even if they are difficult to hear.
8. **Apologize Again:** If necessary, apologize once more for any pain this situation might cause her. Assure her that you’re willing to accept the consequences of your actions and support whatever decision she makes regarding her relationship with you.
9. **Give Her Time:** Understand that processing this information might take time for Nina. Allow her the space she needs to come to terms with it and make her own decisions.
Remember, honesty and sincerity are key here. While the conversation might be difficult, it’s important to address the situation head-on and show that you genuinely care about her feelings and your friendship. Good luck, and I hope your conversation goes as smoothly as possible.
So David met you at your apartment you share with Nina while she was out of town? If he had been seeing Nina didn’t he recognize the apartment? You need to tell her and just be honest that you were having casual hookups and hadn’t seen her boyfriend before.
Jesus 🤔 Reddit is the new Jerry Springer show 2020’s -esiw
The longer you wait, the more guilty you make yourself look. You didn’t know at first and that’s not your fault. Tell her immediately
Shouldn’t post this but that rotation and phase stuff seems so empty.
Wish you luck.
Put someone else in the rotation…lol. Just tell her the truth. You can try to go the less information route, but if she finds out later, your relationship is over anyway.
Same thing happened with me and my friend Anne in college…except it was her fiance. I knew she was engaged, but we were newish friends, so I didn’t know who she was engaged to. I was mortified when I found out. So, once I had collected myself, I pulled Anne aside and told her. It was super awkward, a decade later, we’re the best of friends. Not saying that it will go that well for you. But honesty is definitely the best policy.
I’m sorry, your friend who said you sound like you’re lying about not knowing is wrong. Just tell her the way you told us. Even if you hadn’t lost your dad, meeting dudes on Tinder and hooking up is not unheard of, and she would know if she’d introduced you two. Show her his Tinder profile. Then she will believe he’s on there at least.
Tell her. This has nothing to do with you not paying attention, there are plenty of guys called David. And you hadn’t seen a photo of the one she was dating until then, correct?
Do you have his Tinder profile?
Talk to her, tell her that is a guy you matched with on Tinder.
There are few truly effective “get out of jail free” excuses for being an emotionally neglectful friend, but a parent passing after a battle with illness is pretty close. Not enough to protect against “I slept with your boyfriend”, unless you are proactive, you frame it just right, you have PROOF, and are appropriately apologetic. Even then, it’s a gamble. But if you don’t, it’s gonna blow up in your face eventually, and with no real chance for you to advocate for yourself.
“Hey, there is no real easy way to say this, but you deserve to know, and I care about you too much to hide the truth from you. so you know when I was an emotionally wrecked zombie when my father was sick, and coped with the aftermath with some casual sex? Even though I didn’t know it at the time, one of my partners was your boyfriend. It ended ages ago, but once I saw that picture and realized who he was, I needed to make sure you know what he’s doing. I’m so sorry this happened, I didn’t figure it out until it was too late”
She’s never posted a picture of him on social media until now? That’s probably going to be the hardest part to explain since it seems hard to believe you couldn’t remember a close friends SO name and you never saw a picture once
Honesty is the best policy. Be open with her & Tell her the truth.
You could send her this post
The world has gone to absolute shit.
I don’t know if you should tell her or not but your friendship will never be the same.
Just show her the tinder profile/messages… the proof is in the pudding. Then she will know you met him on a dating site and since you never got formally introduced you didn’t know it was her boyfriend and when you found out you had to tell her
In very sorry for your loss and all that stress you were going through.
Even if the outcome is that Nina cuts you off, the right thing to do is to tell her. I really hope that after the shock and anger wears off for her that she will be able to truly know that it wasn’t your fault.
I think it’s really important to think, how guilty would you feel if they get engaged? If you’re the bridesmaid at her wedding listening to their vows???
He could be a SERIAL cheater, I doubt the one person he cheats on her with ends up being her friend. Tell her.
You had sex 4 times with someone you found “extremely off putting”?
Oh also my advice is to basically just show her this post and say you’re the op.
I want to be really clear about something: you were not a bad friend. Losing my dad nearly killed me, and I’m a decade older than you are. That kind of grief is such a horror show that taking in any information that isn’t absolutely vital? Feels totally impossible. The whole year around my father’s death just feels like a weird, foggy nightmare. My cousin recently mentioned something about that summer to me and I wondered how she knew, since she lives on the other side of the country. She told me she came and stayed with me for two months after he died, and I honestly had no memory of that. It was only three years ago. Like…now that we’ve had the conversation sure, I have a vague impression of her being around. But I was shocked when she told me. I remember my dad’s face, and I remember sobbing over his work boots and like you driving for five to six hours twice a week so I could help my stepmother with everything, but I honestly couldn’t tell you a thing about my friends’ lives at that time, including the ones who were apparently in my home.
Cut yourself some slack here.
Sometimes you have to risk losing a friendship in order to protect a friend.
You gotta tell her – and sooner is better than later. It’s gonna be a shitty conversation, there’s no way around it. But this isn’t your fault. You didn’t pursue her boyfriend. You didn’t knowingly have sex with her boyfriend. You went on tinder, which is your right. I would just sit her down one evening (y’all should both be sober for this) and say hey I need to tell you something really shitty. Then just lay it all out. It might even be helpful to just show her this post if you can’t bring yourself to say the words.
Also, it’s incredibly unfair to yourself to say you were a bad friend to her in the spring. Your father was dying. You were just trying to get by. Be kind to yourself. 💜
Your friend is wrong and that’s a huge leap.
You need to tell her that you slept with him, not just that you saw him on Tinder. If you say “I saw your boyfriend on Tinder” then it implies that you knew who he was at the time that you saw him on the app. If she confronts him about it and he responds with “I bet she didn’t tell you that we slept together four times,” then it instantly makes it look like you knew who he was, slept with him anyway, and then told her.
Instead, I think you should tell her something like, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I just saw the picture that you posted on Facebook. This is the first time that I’m seeing what your boyfriend looks like. I met a guy named David on Tinder and slept with him a handful of times before I broke things off. I had no idea he was your David.“
Immediately message her. Saw your pic. I hate to be the one to tell you but he’s cheating. I met him on tinder a few months ago and we hooked up. So sorry. Didn’t realize he was your boyfriend until I saw the picture. If she decides to not believe you or whatever, it’s on her. All you can do is be truthful.
Fake
I think you’re being way too hard on yourself. You were going through a rough time and if Nina is your friend, she will want to support you through that. You’re essentially blaming yourself for not being a good enough friend while your dad was dying. I would never expect a friend with a dying parent to pay attention to all the details of my life. It’s not your fault David cheated, it’s David’s. And if he was on Tinder, it wasn’t just you.
If I were Nina and you were my friend, I would be grateful you told me, and I would want to talk to you about what you’ve been through recently because it’s clearly a lot. I would not want to be someone to add on to that. Give yourself a break, let her know before someone else does, and reconnect with your friend. You guys will both be better for it. And don’t forget to bring the receipts, take screen shots.
My brother’s name is David and he’s in grad school in New York. I don’t know if the David in this scenario is in grad school too, but that’s so funny. I sent him this post like 🧐🤨
Telling her sooner is better than later bc it will look like you tried to hide it or something negative on ur part… you shouldve told her the story right when u saw her post him, it wouldve been alot easier but now, youve waited and it may seem a iffy to her. But i’d still tell her and apologize for waiting to tell her and also express that i didnt want to ruin things between me and her.