What do you do when your trick doesn’t tell you he’s married (to a woman) until after the two of you have hooked up? That’s what one man wants to know. So he’s writing to advice gurus Stoya and Rich Juzwiak over at Slate for help.
“Recently, I was hooking up with a guy from Grindr who was behaving a bit oddly,” the man’s letter begins. “He invited me to his apartment building but said we had to meet in the building’s pool showers and not his apartment because he was being ‘discreet.'”
Ignoring that first very obvious red flag, the man agreed to hook up with the guy. They met in the pool locker room and snuck into a stall together.
“We started to do our thing, but he got extremely paranoid at any sound, like a door shutting down the hallway, and we had to keep pausing,” the man continues, but, he says, he ignored that second very obvious red flag because “he was hot.”
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It wasn’t until after they had finished the deed that the trick dropped the bomb.
“We were getting dressed in the locker area, and he said, ‘Sorry if I seemed jumpy, but I’m married and I live with my wife here.’ Wife. In an apartment down the hall. Dude! I just gave him a look and left.”
The man says he felt guilty afterwards and still isn’t quite sure what to make of the whole thing.
“What do you think is my level of responsibility here?” he wonders. “I avoid profiles that explicitly out themselves as married and looking for down-low play. But if I get the vibe and neither of us says anything, should I feel bad about not asking?”
In their responses, Stoya and Juzwiak both agree that it was really the trick’s responsibility to disclose his martial status prior to the hookup, and that the man shouldn’t beat himself up over something he didn’t know or think to ask about ahead of time.
“It’s not your fault when someone deceives or lies to you,” Juzwiak says. “Part of what many people enjoy about these kinds of hookups is that they’re breaks from one’s everyday life. They are by definition decontextualized.”
He continues, “You hope that people give you enough information to decide to go forward with the anonymous sex in a manner that allows you to make ethical and informed decisions, but there are few set rules, and so behavior varies widely.”
Stoya adds, “I feel like the little bit of guilt is a reasonable reaction, then. I don’t think it’s our writer’s job to tell her, but I also don’t think seeing this person again is a good idea. Significant guilt would be too much—he didn’t set his cap for a man he knew was married.”
“Yeah, it’s well within the married guy’s responsibility to disclose that information,” says Juzwiak. “Once it is disclosed, some of the responsibility is transferred to the recipient. If this is something that vexes him, he could ask ahead of time.”
What do you think about the situation? Share your thoughts in the comments section below…
rikard_pearson
UNHhhh
CesarRobinson1442
UNHhhh – BUNHhhh. Search engine will help you q6yGqeDKbskbatugGsfugu6lu4983896
Heywood Jablowme
Any time a guy uses the word “discreet”… RUN!
Of course, in print they almost always misspell it “discrete” (yes that’s also a word but means something else entirely), but that’s another problem for another day.
wellinmysoul
If it’s a hookup why does it matter?
WashDrySpin
EXACTLY…it does not matter….you both got off and that all that matters
Paco
Because… “he was hot.”
Was he the last hot guy on Earth?
Desperation tends to overrule higher reasoning.
Brian
When you’re having sex with a complete stranger, why would you care about something like this? You’ve already lost the moral high ground just by being on Grindr. Just enjoy it for what it is and find another way to validate that you’re a Good Person.
WashDrySpin
EXACTLY…get off and then get out
Doctor Benway
Yeah, who cares if he’s married, straight, bi or I don’t know what. That’s Grindr, it’s like a golden foretaste of a waste collection.
You only doing that for sex, it won’t get serious, you aren’t gonna see him again, stop torturing yourself (unless you’re a born again Christian who think he’s gonna go to hell for that).
Seriously, life is already complicated enough to torture yourself.
bonbon
While you shouldn’t intentionally hook up with married men and he shouldn’t go there again it’s otherwise not his problem.
OzJosh
If you ignore the most obvious in-your-face signal that they guy is attached then you don’t really have any right to moan.
PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS
Boo freaking Hoo….
wellinmysoul
huh?
Aromaeus
Yeah guys who tell me they are DL or ‘discrete’ on Grindr get instantly blocked. Nothing wrong with wanting your private life to be private however in my experience it just means they have a SO(usually a woman) they don’t want to find out.
Yooper
Well, first, this Graham guy needs to figure out what is total BS and what is garbage on the interweb, is he really regurgitating this crap? So let’s assume this is some riveting socio commentary. Ok, you really give a hoot if a trick is married? It’s sex, one stop shop, Grindr driven rocks off, no fuss no muss, ya got what ya were yearning for. What’s the issue?
winemaker
The first clue ”discreet’ should be a red flag. This usually means the guy’s a closet case, he’s married to a woman, nothing wrong with that, he might be bi or whatever or involved with a significant other, aka domestic partner, or husband; and is looking for something quick and on the side. Run, don’t walk from these type of guys. Really who needs someone who’s already involved.
QJ201
I don’t hook up with married men, but have no problem arranging to have sex in a public place where I could possibly be discovered and even arrested.
The Relic
If it was only an occasional encounter, what was the problem that he was married? Just another dramatic man wanting to get attention.