If it were me id just send her a cbat message on OKcupid. Its a public profile so it shouldn’t be a surprise that single men in her area will see it and she obviously knows single men besides her husband. Worse case you say hi and wish her good luck. If its a scam you could save her or someone else some heartburn.
On the other hand if she was someone i saw regularly I’d probably wait until the next time I saw her and bring it up if I remembered. Either way who cares if she’s getting divorced, a swinger or a cheater this is no different than if you ran into her at the local club all dolled up. You go over say hi and move on with your life.
I didn’t say it would case a shitstorm, my reason for suggesting to leave it alone is because the probability of a scammer hijacking their pictures is real, it’s probably not the case. In all likelihood that’s her profile and she put it their on purpose. Whatever reason she had for doing it, she’s probably not looking for anyone’s unsolicited input.
I think my question is, if we assume it’s not a fake profile, what’s the motivation for contacting her? If you [OP] have interest in her, that just email (like) her like you would any other person. If you just want to know what’s going on, why she’s looking to date, that’s none of your business, IMO.
If you really have think it’s a fake profile and all you want to do is make her aware of it, then send her a FB message letting her know that you saw her picture there and you were concerned it might be fake. But, if it were me, I’d word it so that she doesn’t have to reply to me if she doesn’t want to.
Just to reiterate, the way OKC is set up now, you can’t do that. They have a new terrible system where you ‘like’ someone and if they randomly (because they don’t know who likes them) like you back, only then can you exchange messages.
If he wants to contact her, it would have to be through another means (facebook, email, face to face etc)
As for her having a (legit) profile on OKC while married, there could be plenty of reasons. She could be cheating, she could be in the process of getting divorced, she might be testing the waters to see if the grass really is greener.
I’ve had several friends start dating profile while still married (but soon to be divorced), long before friends outside of their immediate network would know anything is going on.
Eh, either it’s a fake account or else she’s voluntarily putting it out into the world that she’s available. You make stuff public and people are going to see it and remark on it.
If she’s a a friend then you should be able to call her up and say “let’s get lunch.” Address this in person, as a friend. If it’s option 1, maybe help her research ways to report a fake profile and change her privacy settings on Facebook so random bots can’t farm her pics to get fodder for fake profiles. If it’s option 2 then maybe she needs help or support getting out from a bad situation in her marriage. If she’s a friend then help her, if you can. I’ve had friends and family in bad marriages/relationships that we had to help and I’d do it again in a heartbeat. My ex-sister-in-law still tears up and tells me that I probably saved her life the night I told her to come to stay with us or we’d come get her. For option 3 you just need to be open minded because it takes all kinds to make the world go round and monogamy isn’t for everyone.
The only downside for you is you have to have some courage and challenge your own assumptions about this lady and her life. But that’s easy compared to what may be going on in her life.
Are you sure it’s an active profile? I got an email from the okcupid folks last week and I’ve not used the account for 8 years or so since I met Mrs Delicious, did she meet her current partner online??
In your situation I’d contact her and let her know, I don’t see what the significant downside is. If it’s a fake account, then she now knows that’s happening and can take steps to fix it. If they’re getting divorced, swinging, open, or whatever and don’t want it kept quiet, then no big deal. If they’re getting divorced, swinging, open, or whatever and do want it kept quiet, then they now know that they’re not as quiet as they want and can take steps to fix it. If she’s cheating then it’s the same as the last case but I wouldn’t actually want to help her cheat so would feel slightly bad about it, but really if she’s that bad at keeping it secret she’s going to get caught pretty quickly by someone else anyway.
Also, if someone chooses to publicly or semi-publicly announce something, it is your business when you hear it. It doesn’t make any sense to take out a newspaper ad announcing that you’re leaving your husband, then complain that someone talked about your upcoming divorce. I mean, in a number of courts taking out a newspaper ad stating “I’m divorcing Sally” for a few weeks functionally works the same as delivering personal notice to everyone in the area. I’d say that an OKCupid ad is actually more ‘public’ than a newspaper ad for most social circles, since people are more likely to skim a dating site than paper classifieds.
This makes no sense to me either. I see almost no downside to sending the message, and a lot of upside. The only real downside people have mentioned is ‘she’ll be embarrassed to know that you know’, but that’s just silly - she’s going to end up more embarrassed when someone she doesn’t want to know who’s more involved finds out.
If you know her personal email account, setup a burner email account and send her an email with, “Your profile is public on OK cupid. If you know your profile is public, ignore this message. If you don’t have a profile on OK Cupid, someone has hijacked your pictures for their profile. I suggest you contact OK Cupid and get it taken down. Respond to this email if you want details. If you didn’t realize people you know would see your public profile, you might want to think about ways of hiding your real identity better. I was worried your images were hijacked, thus the email. Beyond that, this is none of my business.”
Although if it really worries at you, cmosdes suggestion is a solid, anonymized way of bringing it to her attention in a way that shouldn’t affect any future dynamic between you (at least, not any more than the effect of you having seen it).
If this is real then the person should have reasoned the possibility of someone recognizing them. People go online to look for local people and its bound to happen.
I’d go ahead and tell the person but not do it in a judgemental way. Dont ask anymore questions. Just say you saw it. Dont ask why or whats up or anything.
I know I would want to know if someone was using mine or a loved ones picture and information. If its legit, then she should have prepared herself for this happening and as long as your not bugging her about it or gossiping to others, it shouldnt be a problem.
If you want to date her, get in touch with her, either privately or on OKC. If you don’t want to date her, either because you know her husband, or because it looks like a dicey thing to do, walk away. If you aren’t looking to date anybody, what are you doing on OKCupid?
How long has she been married, and do the pictures look recent? If she’s only been married a few years, the profile may be a zombie from back in the day. They never delete anything on these sites and you usually have to jump through a few hoops to get them to hide your profile so it doesn’t show up on anybody’s daily list.
So you’re saying that if her husband is setting her up to frame her for cheating in an upcoming divorce proceeding, you’d be happy to help the frame up work by letting it take her by surprise? Doesn’t sound like you’re much of a friend of hers then.
The “MYOB, I wouldn’t tell her” mindset here is extremely strange to me, and I certainly can’t see the sense in it.
Changed my mind and contacted her today as diplomatically as possible. I decided the possibility of her information being hijacked was real enough that I should say something.
Turns out it was genuine and she thanked me for being concerned. I realize we’re already largely anonymous here, but in an abundance of caution I won’t give further details. Thanks for the discussion everyone - lots of good points all around.
