A woman with a longtime boyfriend has appealed to sex and advice columnist Dear Ashley (real name Ashley Cobb) with a delicate question: if her boyfriend is on Grindr, how should she react?
“Dear Ashley,” the woman, identified only as “Ms. Confused,” writes. “My boyfriend has a Grindr profile. I know this because I caught him scrolling one night while laying in bed. I asked why he was using it and he said that he was simply curious about how transgender women looked. To me, it didn’t make sense because he had the app saved under the “travel” folder and it didn’t seem like he was expecting for me to ever find out about it.”
“He deleted the app in front of me and swore not to use it again,” she continues. “Because I still have my suspicions, I made a fake account to check and see if he might be using it. I recently saw a profile with what I am sure is a picture of his torso as the profile picture. I’m confused, what does this mean?”
“Should I confront him and end it now?” she concludes.
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Ashley doesn’t mince words when it comes to Ms. Confused’s predicament.
“There’s not much to be confused about here,” Ashley writes. “Grindr is an online dating app for gay, bi and queer men. If your boyfriend was solely interested in seeing what a trans person looked like, he could have searched Google. He is also being dishonest. No matter your sexual orientation, it is never okay to be in a committed relationship but masquerading as single on a dating app without your partner’s knowledge.”
Related: Living the gay dream, Grindr dates, & poppers at the dinner table
“His dishonesty stems from him being uncomfortable in his sexual identity,” Ashley deduces. “He’s probably nervous to confide in you because he is unsure of your response. None of which excuses lying, but I can see why he would lie. Cis men aren’t allowed the same opportunity to openly explore their sexuality as women are. Women can ‘experiment’ with other women and nobody thinks anything of it, but men aren’t afforded the same. This makes it harder for them to publicly share their desires without fear of rejection.”
“With this in mind, if you’re going to confront him, you need to do so from a non-judgmental space,” Cobb advises. “Confront him with kindness. Also be prepared for his truth. If he confesses to being bisexual, are you okay with having a bisexual boyfriend? Be honest with yourself. If you are open to dating a bisexual man, as a couple discuss ways to be open about your desires moving forward. Ask him why he enjoys the things you’ve found him watching to gain insight on what he enjoys. If dating bisexual men is not your preference, be honest about that as well. Whatever your decision, remember to be kind and honest with both yourself and your partner.”
We can’t argue with that advice. As any guy here who has met someone on a dating app that also has a girlfriend will attest, a sticky situation like this can get very nasty very fast.
Donston
I don’t know about searching through Grindr in front of your significant other, especially if you’re trying to stay closeted. You do shit like that if you’re trying to get caught, don’t give a shit about your significant other’s feelings, or if it’s a made up scenario.
The “solution” to this old ass storyline is basic as hell. Ask your partner about their lifestyle, the dimensions of their sexuality, their motivations in being with you, their priorities and where they are in the gender, sexual, romantic, affection, emotional investment, relationship contentment spectrum. And then it’s a matter of how much you believe what he says and what you’re willing to put up with. I’m having a difficult time believing all these people are so lost in how to go about handling this stuff.
sfhairy
it’s a made-up scenario, but the advice is solid.
Gary Q VV
Oh good, this article opened the opportunity for me to trash the Chinese Communist Party’s monitored and controlled Grindr app. We need to stop using this app and choose an American owned hook-up app. I wonder if the US DOD has forbidden our troops from using Grindr. I’m going to research it.
Gary Q VV
Source: LA TIMES
The international ownership saga of America’s most popular gay dating app, Grindr, came to a close last month when a group of American investors took control of the West Hollywood company.
China-based Beijing Kunlun Tech Co. bought Grindr in 2016 and had hopes of taking the company public in a large stock offering until the U.S. government intervened. Citing fears that the Chinese government could use personal data stored on the app to blackmail U.S. citizens, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States announced that it was forcing Kunlun to sell the company to American owners in March 2019.
A year later, Kunlun reached a deal. A low-profile investment group, San Vicente Acquisitions, bought the company for $608 million.
Then in mid-June, Grindr’s employees got to meet some of their new bosses for the first time. Two of the investors in San Vicente, Jeff Bonforte and Rick Marini, announced in a company meeting that they would be Grindr’s chief executive and chief operating officer, respectively.
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They reportedly are STRAIGHT. Oh well, at least the US Government got rid of the Chinese Government.
BoomerMyles
To think I met the young Israeli inventor of Grindr about 10 years ago.
To think he’s a multi-multi millionaire now.
Al
He was laying in bed? Her bigger problem is that she’s in a relationship with a chicken.
Jack Meoff
So no advice from Dear Ashley about how to deal with the infidelity only about accepting his sexuality or not. Being bi does not mean it’s OK to cheat.
Donston
Going on Grindr doesn’t automatically mean someone’s cheating. A lot of folks do really go on those places to check out pics, to get compliments, to have anonymous horny conversations or even treat it as free therapy and advice. Some look at it as “advanced porn”. But if this story is to be believed, him supposedly deleting his profile yet you still finding his profile is a betrayal and deceitful as hell.
“Liberal media” has gotten to the point of depending on cliches and being so obsessed with accepting everyone’s sexualities, gender dimensions and identities that in some ways it’s become kinda toxic. Folks are not just supposed to overlook being lied to, manipulated, cheated on.
And while I like that there’s more willingness to talk about male sexuality and male homophobia as a whole, there’s also still a lot of selling naivety, treating everyone as the same and looking at things through a hetero-normal filter. Some of these guys who are in the “queer spectrum” but are with a female are primarily with a female because of babies, hetero pressures and expectations, internalized phobias, gay shame, queer insecurities, ego, etc. That needs to be acknowledged. And none of these advice folks really break down how individual sexuality, motivations, psyche, fluidity, and the gender, sexual, affection, romantic, emotional, relationship investment spectrum is. There’s a lot of being basic and pc and depending on cliches. But you can’t expect much else from these “advice” columnists.
Troyfight
“He deleted the app in front of me and swore not to use it again,” LOL LOL LOL LOL
OhHellNo
Pretty simple. Lose him, but first show his profile to his parents.