my boyfriend wants to use hinge to make female friends

[u/Specific_Broccoli]

hi girls. tonight we're having drunken udon noodles with a dirty martini because my original dinner was a single olive in said martini and the mods quite reasonably informed me that this does not constitute food 💛 humiliating. anyway, i've acquired noodles. sadly they have done nothing for the boyfriend situation.

i've been with my boyfriend for about a year. a while ago he told me he was going out for drinks with a female friend i'd never heard of before. slightly odd, but fine. women are allowed to exist and i'm not asking for a register of every woman he's ever met.

then completely randomly i found out they'd actually met on hinge before we got together.

this was information he'd somehow neglected to include when describing her as “a friend”.

when i asked him about it, he insisted they'd never dated and had simply become friends. personally i'd consider “we originally matched on a dating app” fairly relevant supporting documentation when telling your girlfriend you're off for drinks with a woman she's never heard of, but perhaps i'm overly committed to administrative transparency.

also: HE arranged the drinks. and she apparently didn't properly know he had a girlfriend either. he'd vaguely mentioned seeing someone but somehow never managed the enormous linguistic undertaking of saying “i have a girlfriend”.

so: former hinge match, drinks he initiated, girlfriend doesn't know their history, hinge woman doesn't really know about girlfriend. extremely efficient system. nobody has the full information except him.

we obviously had a massive row.

and somehow his takeaway from this was to ask whether i'd be okay with him using hinge to find more female friends in the future.

hinge. for female friends.

apparently we're treating the dating app like a local knitting circle now.

he thinks i'm being controlling because he wouldn't be “looking for dates”. i think if you're opening hinge specifically to meet women, we may simply have reached the limits of the english language.

anyway, we're currently barely speaking and he's annoyed that i'm struggling to move past something he insists was completely innocent.

perhaps tomorrow i'll download deliveroo and use it to find a dentist.

am i being unreasonable or has this entire situation gone completely off the rails?

edit: for context, there was actually a whole period before the “hinge for female friends” suggestion where i just felt completely insane for being upset that he'd gone for drinks with a woman, told me basically nothing about her, and i only found out by accident later that they'd originally met on a dating app. i've had jealousy issues before, so i kept telling myself i was being insecure and needed to trust the man who'd always made me feel incredibly loved and secure. then he suggested using hinge to find more female friends and my remaining brain cell finally clocked in for work. apparently i'd overcorrected from “jealous girlfriend” all the way to unpaid defence counsel 💀

[u/LePetitNeep]

I am usually first in line to defend mixed gender friendships, but COME ON. Your boyfriend wants to act single, so give him his wish.

[u/Specific_Broccoli → u/LePetitNeep]

this is the thing, he's always been the kind of guy who has a lot of female friends and i'll admit there was definitely some jealousy on my side sometimes, but i trusted him. he made me feel so loved and secure that i genuinely believed those friendships were just friendships. i think that's partly why i've been making excuses for this for so long. but the hinge suggestion finally opened my eyes and now i'm sitting here wondering how i'm ever supposed to look at the whole “female friend” thing the same way again lol

[u/melnotmichelle → u/Specific_Broccoli]

The fact that it’s a literal dating app is sending me! The mental gymnastics are wild. He’s as stupid as he thinks you are.

[u/mountainmeadowflower → u/melnotmichelle]

Like there's noooo other way to meet friends 🧐

[u/Necessary_Cake_973 → u/Specific_Broccoli]

Why does he even want more NEW female friends? I feel like this is so odd once you get into a serious relationship. I have OLD male friends that I knew prior to meeting my husband but I’m not on the prowl looking to pick up more male (as opposed to female) friends. So is your bf secretly gay and wanting to be around feminine energy or is he trying to fuck them behind your back and gaslight you into thinking they’re “just friends” ??

[u/taytrapDerehw → u/Specific_Broccoli]

Bet you, if you dig deeper, you'll find he's been cheating on you all this while. None of this makes a modicum of sense. And the audacity to call you controlling when he's a withholding, liar by omission is crazy to me.

Babes, You know what you have to do. This cheating dunce thinks you're dumb. Are you going to keep proving him right?

[u/Pepsicolaa5 → u/taytrapDerehw]

And digging even deeper, she’ll probably find that he’s fucked or been intimately involved in some way w all his female friends..

[u/LePetitNeep → u/Specific_Broccoli]

I have several guy friends that I’m close with and that I’ll go for lunch or a beer with, even one on one. We are truly just friends there’s nothing romantic or sexual between us. But I met them all organically, either through work or sports. I have never used a dating app to make friends!

[u/commanderspacecase → u/Specific_Broccoli]

Friends meet via interest groups. He's not on meetup, he's not going to group activities. And he should think YOU are his best friend. I'm 41 years old and have never met a couple in a healthy LTR who doesn't think of their partner as their best friend. If he needs someone new to talk to that badly, he needs a therapist, not some random woman who thinks their meeting is a date.

You don't seem to live together, you didn't mention kids. I know it hurts and it's scary, but cut this trash loose and tell everyone in your circle he was meeting up with women on Hinge. They will (properly) assume he was either cheating or shopping for a new GF while still being with you. He's already checked out, sweetheart. He does not appreciate you. He is not treating you with respect. There is no reason for you to try and save this mess. I'm sorry.

[u/K3rdegreeburns → u/Specific_Broccoli]

Sounds like your BF needs endless female attention in some form. Break it off now because hes already making you look like a complete idiot (no offense but for real).

[u/lem0nm0nkey → u/Specific_Broccoli]

dont give him the benefit of the doubt anymore, he’s playing in your face girl

[u/Alternative-Item-747 → u/Specific_Broccoli]

Girl, ... are you alright?? Because seriously???? You're still in that relationship, he told you that and you stayed???

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