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.

I would be willing to put all my money on a bet stating that if he had come across the husband on a dating site he would have officially handed over to the safe guarding lead for appropriate action!

You think posters would be agreeing it was a safeguarding issue if it were a man on a dating website?

He was concerned that either she'd been cloned/hacked or that she was having some sort of breakdown.
or was behaving erratically
Was mentally ill.
having handed the concern to an appropriate person to decide if any action was needed.

Bloody hell OP. Talk about misogyny. A woman was on a dating app so she must be having a mental breakdown or being erratic 😮. This woman is not the property of her husband, or the club.

Yeah, he wouldn't have done anything.

Yea they'd definitely be even more scathing about the weirdo tbf 😂

How do you know he’s pretending?

Here's my observation

He may or may not have been acting from a place of good intention

If he was acting from a place of good intention, he has highly miscalculated and overstepped boundaries

If he was acting from a place of good intention, then given the woman's profile is genuine, he's now the proximity scapegoat and landed himself with the intrusive busy-body reputation... which has the planned/unplanned side effect of protecting the woman (and by extension, her friends) from reputational embarrassment.

He should have spoken to her directly if he was so concerned.

If a child-or woman-got hurt and the man said, oops, maybe I should have said something, he'd be vilified.

But where was there any indication that a woman was any risk of getting hurt? She was on a dating site while married. That's no more dangerous than being on a dating site while single. Having an affair is a choice people are allowed to make and it has nothing to do with safety.

if he'd done nothing, he'd have been morally responsible for bad stuff

What bad stuff? There was no bad stuff. And of course he wouldn't have been morally responsible FFS. Literally nobody would think that.

wouldn't we all want him to go to the supposed right person to sort it out, if we were in a situation where we were vulnerable?

But she wasn't in a situation where she was vulnerable. She was an adult woman dating.

There is no way that he could possibly have thought he was acting with any kind of 'good intention'. This is the oddest interpretation of events I have ever seen.

Can men like this just back the hell off and leave women alone?

I am presume he isn’t great at working things out on his own or he just wanted to spread gossip or get one over on her

Either shows his lack of intelligence.

If anyone else saw someone they presumed had a happy marriage on a dating site the obvious conclusion would be that maybe the marriage wasn’t that happy
As for telling. Has he no sense of danger he could have put that woman in if her husband had been abusive

I can see why he is single if his first thoughts on seeing a woman he thinks he knows well on a dating sight was she was behaving erratically rather than he probably doesn’t know her that well after all

You can’t be serious 😂😂😂 this is the most ridiculous explanation ever, complete BS 😂😂😂😂

You think people on here would say 'Yeah, totally normal for someone to see a married man on a dating site and assume he must be 'behaving erratically' and that his safety was at risk'?

It's not about whether cheating on a spouse is acceptable - pretty sure most people would think it isn't. It's about whether cheating on a spouse is a safeguarding matter which it very clearly fucking isn't, regardless of the sex of the person involved.

Adult safeguarding is for people who lack capacity to make decisions for themselves or are being illegally exploited or harmed. It's not for ordinary grown adults who want an extra-marital shag. Jesus.

exactly, all those doubt-inducing, devils-advocate-esque, what-if virtue signalling hypotheticals are the equivalent of "but, what if grass was blue instead of green?"

turns out that.. context, situation and details kinda matter

Why is he on a dating site?

In that case he should have contacted her and told her about the profile so that she could have dealt with a fake

Instead he chose to create drama in the lives of adults by spreading the information to other members. I don't think that he was well intentioned at all - just wanted people to know that he had juicy gossip

I don't think it is. Standing up for a woman being attacked or harassed on public transport is completely different from not having the social awareness to know that some people in marriage cheat - or that people can do whatever they want in their personal lives and don't need people at the club/gym questioning their dating habits. (I find it quite bizarre that the OP/her friend imply that a woman must have a mental health issue or be having a breakdown just because she has an affair.)

If he genuinely thought the woman had her identity stolen, he would have just said, 'Jane, I think someone might have stolen your identity. I saw your details on tinder.' No need to say or do anything more than that. (Of course he could also learn to mind his own business. Dating, unless one or both parties is vulnerable in some way, is not everyone's business in the same way as helping a stranger being attacked on a train.)

And today's episode of Fuck Around and Find Out is brought to you from ...

'Behaving erratically' my arse. Your 'friend' is a shit-stirring curtain-twitcher.

At best, he fancied her and wanted to check that she was up for it before he nailed his colours to the mast. Went about it the wrong way if so.

Awful behaviour and totally unnecessary. No rationale can be used to explain this.

What's she got to be embarrassed about? She's single.

I have the ick thinking if any man I was with let alone married to was a gossip like your husband. Dear god going to a safeguarding person. The drama.

Safeguarding is for children and vulnerable adults.

Vulnerable adults are usually defined as those who are not capable of looking after themselves - dementia, severe learning difficulties etc.

it really does not stretch as far as a perfectly ordinary woman, now if you are going to drip feed that she lives in a care home or similar because she can’t look after herself then maybe.

if she’s got capacity then if he genuinely thought she was at risk of abuse because of having a profile on a dating app he should have spoken to her.

if she’s not got capacity then there will be either an appointee or someone with power of attorney who he should speak to.

in any case having a profile in a dating app is not a sign or symptom of abuse and I cannot imagine why on earth he thought this was appropriate to report.

He was concerned that either she'd been cloned/hacked or that she was having some sort of breakdown.

How offensive is that? He doesn't see women as adults with agency.

Could anyone actually believe that this might fall within the remit of a sports club she happens to attend?
A sports club?

All running clubs have to have a safeguarding officer even if they are for over 18s only.

Any adult can be vulnerable or at risk.

This guy may have been a busybody but the safeguarding officer clearly didn't act discreetly either. Not sure anyone involved here has exactly covered themselves with glory!