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/marathon_bar]

OP might be like me and grew up in an extremely dysfunctional environment and therefore never gained relationship intelligence during formative years.

[u/AggressiveGarbage91 → u/marathon_bar]

took me my entire 20s to gain relationship intelligence and grow enough self respect to stop allowing men free passes. and now in my 30s, I've actually grown into my spinster man-hating feelings quicker than anticipated because I am so tired of men's bad behavior being ignored and excused away. I'm in a happy relationship with an amazing, thoughtful man who even apologizes, but most men have me wishing I could burn holes in them with my sight.

[u/AggressiveGarbage91 → u/[deleted]]

all my luck, babe. and remember, every single person on this planet is responsible for managing their own emotions and reactions, bad behavior does not deserve a reward, and you deserve to feel peace and comfort from your loved ones. ✨

[u/marathon_bar → u/AggressiveGarbage91]

Yes, it takes a while to build that intelligence.

[u/tayrosemarie → u/AggressiveGarbage91]

I’m finally putting in the effort to learn this as a 33 year old woman. It’s so hard when you were taught dysfunctional relationship dynamics growing up. But the alternative is continuing putting up with men’s bullshit, believing that we need men, and that we deserve to be treated less than we deserve. I’m trying to accept that it isn’t my fault where I started or that it has taken me as long as it has, but that is also so hard. But I can do it and so can any other woman reading this.

[u/Special-Summer170 → u/marathon_bar]

Yeah, it's a whole thing. Learning that stuff on the fly really sucks

[u/marathon_bar → u/Special-Summer170]

It sure does.

[u/raspberrih → u/marathon_bar]

Well I think we're a bit past formative years now, aren't we

[u/marathon_bar → u/raspberrih]

And then it takes time to build up those skills.

[u/Adept_Taro_7028 → u/marathon_bar]

I’m honestly not sure that’s much of an excuse. OP took the first steps and asked for perspective, which is good, but growing up dysfunctionally doesn’t automatically make you lack basic self respect. It just really sucks that she had to learn that lesson this way and I feel for her, but I hope she listens to her gut and all of the other supportive women in this sub.

[u/marathon_bar → u/Adept_Taro_7028]

It's an explanation. Everyone starts from somewhere.