My take is: that sucks. Building fake online profiles for the express purpose of spying and prying into previous boyfriends is extreme and troublesome. That's what Facebook is for. It's not a good habit, even on FB, but from time to time, sure we all get curious and want to confirm our ex's are still moderately unhappy and dating someone uglier than us. But, going to great lengths to get a peek into an ex's life isn't healthy.
Your friend's creating a profile in order to check up on her current man is baffling for a few reasons. Are they "allowed" to be dating other people? If so why the fake profile? She can use her real profile to scope him and continue mingling with others. If they are dating exclusively then he's essentially cheating if he's trolling a dating site. Guys in monogamous relationships don't have any business going on dating sites. It's like a recovering gambler hanging out at casinos--not a strong move.
Your friend needs to identify why she is doing all this. Why doesn't she trust these men? Does she trust herself? Is she operating out of an unhealthy playbook because she got cheated on in the past or comes from a family of cheaty liar types? My further take is: take her by the hand, tell her to hang up the Sherlock Holmes hat and put on the, let me work on why I feel I need to do this hat.
I did this.
Thats how I found out he was talking to other girls and who knows what else.
Worse part was I couldnt confront him, because then he would know I was on the site too. Which is kinda a double standard.
You could tell him that “your friend” said he hit on her online & she “showed” you. Or…, you could just dump him & let him wonder about you. I think if you suspect, you are probably right. in this case, you were.
I've been so tempted to do this because it felt like my boyfriend was shutting me out. We met online and I wanted to find out if he was still an active member, but I've never actually had the nerve to look through his information. It seemed like an invasion of privacy.
I have mixed feelings about this one. If a person is doing this, they obvious feel the guy is doing something shady. One day a GF asked me to look on one of those dating sites to see if her husband had a profile. (She caught him cheating.) I never thought I wound find a profile for “my” guy! I knew something wasn’t cookies & crème with this guy, but I thought he just had trust issue. Another GF (who he didn’t know) went online just to say “hi” to him. He immediately asked her out. Like I said, I have mixed feelings about this one.
I have done this only because i had a feeling my ex was cheating on me. And i was right. He created another myspace profile for the girl he said "they're just friends". This isn't my style but after being told by a girl i'm the new flavor of the month, a letter from his brother that my ex was sleeping with his gf, a nude picture i found on his email...i decided to spy on him. I've been cheated twice and both were confirmed through email spying. Like i said this isn't my style but sometimes your instinct is right and on both cases i was right. I know it's wrong to invade someone's privacy but sometimes when you're desperate to know if something is really up or you're just paranoid...people resort to this kind of thing.
I have to agree with you...., sorry Amit.
I actually did this too, after a guy I had been seeing said he really liked me, and I made him happy, but he didn't want the pressure of a commitment, but was so busy with work that he wasnt seeing anyone else. My "fake" profile was an average looking girl with an average life, but he winked back and began writing to her, and they emailed back/forth for a couple weeks.
"She" asked him if he ever had a relationship from this online site, and he said he had dated (past tense) one girl, but it was just "friends" and he is looking for more of a relationship. He even wrote to "her" right before he was picking me up for a date, saying "I'm going to dinner with a friend later, but I'll contact you tomorrow".
SO, not that I condone doing this to play games, I just needed to know, clearly, that he was telling other women I was just a friend, regardless of what he was telling me.
Made my decision easier.
I know some people have severe trust issues and do this just to do this. Not to mention control issues. They will have to confront those feelings eventually or die early from a stress related issue.
Then there are others who have a legitimate suspicion and this is the only way to go about finding out. I personally would not do this unless I had a VERY good reason too. Like I suspected the "other" person was underage. Otherwise I would wait for him to slip up in a more obvious way. It's not in me to spy or go through people's stuff.
I'm guessing the fake profile allows them to look without the other person knowing. That way, you can for good or bad, process whatever emotions lead you to see what the other person is up to without having to deal with any repercussions.
Woah woah woah BAD IDEA. If you're dating him and you don't trust him, either he's not to be trusted or you're not mature enough for a relationship. There are better ways to confront him than to spy, plus then you're stooping to a level of secrecy and trickery that he's at. If you just have insecurities, maybe you should work those out before you date or you will feel this way about every guy at some point. If you're not dating him, it's best to MOVE ON and you will never move on if you snoop around his profile. Who cares? Tell yourself that, and act on it. It's like a diet- but a guy diet. Don't bother yourself with what he's doing because he most likely doesn't give a rip about what you're doing. Get on with your life. Fake it till you make it.