Was what he did so terrible?

[Babbyy]

A friend is a member of a sports club.

He came across the profile of one of the women from the club on a dating site. Woman is married to a committee member from the club.

Friend was worried. Either she had been cloned or was behaving erratically. So, friend mentioned it to the safeguarding officer at the club. This is a woman who is best friends with dating profile woman, so he expected she'd be sympathetic to profile woman, have a quiet word and between them they'd do what needed doing (if anything) .

It turned out the profile was genuine and that the marriage had ended, although that was not public knowledge. No one was discreet about friend's "interfering" and he is now being vilified as a busy body, when all he was trying to do was make sure this woman wasn't vulnerable.

Possibly I'd have spoken to profile woman directly, but I understand why he felt it more comfortable to speak with her friend who happened to be responsible for safeguarding.

Just in case anyone thinks safeguarding is only about children, it's not. There are no child members at this club, but in line with its governing body, it still requires a safeguarding officer.

People are making up some rediculous threads on here at the moment.

My "skin" is that he's my friend and has been for a long long time. He can be odd socially but he's not nasty and he's not a gossip. If he was he'd have told me before he went to the safeguarding woman and I'd have almost certainly advised against, but he didn't breathe a word to anyone, except someone who he should surely have expected discretionary from.

Is he not behaving erratically by going on a dating site? Should you report him to the safeguarding officer?

Safeguarding women didn't do a very job of safeguarding your friend, did she? I would ask her why on Earth she gave her friend your friend's name.

I would be very annoyed with her, actually. Your friend did nothing wrong.

So why didn't he speak to the woman directly?

Haha. Single man who makes no secret of the fact he's on dating sites v apparently happily married woman?

I don’t think he was being a busybody, his mistake was not going to the person concerned directly really.

Yeah, it does sound like he may be socially inept or have quite a low level of emotional awareness.
The safeguarding person wasn’t particularly secretive about it, so I think the bigger issue is that she appears to have spread the gossip in the first place.

Because he went to the safeguarding lead not the partner
Bit of a difference

Becuase he was shy/nervous? I think he got that wrong, but felt it was more appropriate to speak to someone who could help if there was an issue.

ANNOUNCE THE SEPARATION!?

Is the online dater Gwyneth Paltrow?? If not, that’s a ridiculous comment. It’s absolutely none of anyone else’s business down the club!

OPs friend knew exactly what he was doing. And it’s unfair to now blame the safeguarding lead for any fallout who did exactly what he intended and followed it up with the subject. The subject is rightly miffed at the embarrassment of it all. Its played out badly for him and he needs to own his mistake. And probably apologise if anyone is willing to take him seriously.

I'm not his BFF, but nice try. Because he wasn't gossiping?

I was about to say this!! Swap the gender roles and it will be different responses all day.

I'm not sure that telling profile woman where the information came from is what was expected?

I really don't. He's nearly 20 years younger than me and probably slightly vulnerable himself.

If so then the person to have mentioned this to was her.

You're assuming that intention and effect are the same thing.

If I set fire to someones coat with the intention of keeping them warm, then that intention doesn't really matter when they end up burning to death. I'm not being a helpful person, I'm a killer, regardless of my intent.

He may not have had the intention to be a gossip, but his actions were to gossip about someone to their friend. He wasn't being a helpful do-gooder, he was being a gossip.

I wouldn't ever get involved in something like this unless I knew the people involved very, very well and was close enough to them to be able to have the conversation. If I don't know the woman involved well enough to ask her myself directly, it isn't my business. At most I'd contact the site if I truly thought her data might have been stolen.

Given (as far as I understand) most dating apps work at least partly on location, surely it was only a matter of time until someone came across her profile?

Also, he may have been a bit naive/shit stirring (it’s impossible for any of us to really say..) but she’s hardly kept her head down if she is the one who has gone around telling people? You could argue she’s causing as much drama as he is, perhaps more as he only told one person, who you could easily think should be keeping this type of thing on the down low. There was no need for the safeguarding lead to tell her friend exactly who had raised the concern. No one comes out of this looking great…

It seems to me a fairly typical cliquey, gossipy and two faced sports club community.

Yep he crossed a line, and he should have kept his beak out.

The activity at this club is clearly not enough for this man. He has too much time on his hands. He may be too embarrassed to continue with this one anyway as everyone there will think he's a bit of a twat!