I’d swear I saw this story online years ago. Or one VERY similar.
Basically this. Have you ever been to a baseball game? did you see the pictures? someone texting in the row in front of you is going to be directly in your field of view, you don’t have to go out of your way to read their texts, they are showing them to you.
Sounds fake, but the reactions it provokes are hilarious.
Anybody who thinks this is a story about two good Samaritans should consider that before emulating the, probably fictional, characters.
Assuming this is true, these people had no right to go butting in to the lives of people they know nothing about, and making a complete stranger’s dirty laundry public- when they have no concept of the context or consequences- is unpardonable.
For all they know, this guy could be depressed and on the edge of suicide, and being publicly humiliated could be the thing that sets him over. Or maybe he is impotent and has an arrangement, and now the whole world gets to know something he is deeply ashamed of. Or maybe she was planning to let him down easy, initiating a divorce while letting him keep his dignity. Or maybe they are only together because of some tragic family circumstance, and having that come up now will have huge ripples across the entire family.
They just have no idea, and they don’t have to live with the potential devastation.
I find it hard to believe that he isn’t aware of what is going on, at least on some level. It’s his right to process that as he chooses.
I have notoriously bad eyesight, but there’s no way I accidentally read someone’s phone that’s more than arm’s length from my face.
Moreso if you are a nosy, gossiping busybody who deserves to wear the branks than if you are a person with any respect for others, of course…but your point has been made.
Yes, many. My attention is going to be on the field. Someone’s phone may be in my field of vision, but that doesn’t force me to concentrate on it. I’m literate; I’m also not interested in what someone else has on their phone.
I can’t believe this is a thing these days, that everybody runs around looking at everybody else’s phone. That’s rude and ill-mannered.
Who the fuck refers to their lover by full name in a sext?
[QUOTE=even sven]
For all they know, this guy could be depressed and on the edge of suicide, and being publicly humiliated could be the thing that sets him over. Or maybe he is impotent and has an arrangement, and now the whole world gets to know something he is deeply ashamed of. Or maybe she was planning to let him down easy, initiating a divorce while letting him keep his dignity. Or maybe they are only together because of some tragic family circumstance, and having that come up now will have huge ripples across the entire family.
They just have no idea, and they don’t have to live with the potential devastation.
I find it hard to believe that he isn’t aware of what is going on, at least on some level. It’s his right to process that as he chooses.
[/QUOTE]
Or maybe she is a disrespectful harpy, who has no qualms or sense of decency.
I agree that putting it on Twitter was certainly not the right thing to do. But, telling him when she is being so blatant? No question.
As it is, its amazing the lengths people go to in order to defend female adultery. There is even a tropefor it.
It would be any different if this were a guy. People generally deal with their marital problems the way they do for a reason.
If this was a good friend, who understood the situation and would be there to help the wronged party through the fallout, it would be a different story. But these ladies walked into the middle of a story they know nothing about, stirred the shit just for the LOLZ, made this guys pain and humiliation public and then ran off without a care in the world, even patting themselves on the back for their effort.
I’m just utterly gobsmacked that there are supposedly civilized people, even here on the Straight Dope Message Board, who think the two nosy twits were behaving well, first in reading a text over some stranger’s shoulder, and secondly in posting it publicly. I’m just flabbergasted that anyone defends them. Keep me away from all those self-righteous defenders please! (Yeah, I got a guy something like that living in the apartment next door to me.)
One of the hazards of modern day living is being subjected to other people’s smart phones. They are nearly impossible to completely ignore. I’ve caught myself shoulder surfing a few times. Only for a min or so. That glowing screen is like a magnet. Always when bored. Like waiting for food at a restaurant. Its like reading the headlines from somebody’s newspaper.
If you use a smartphone in a restaurant then you have no expectation of privacy. Of course good manners means someone won’t obviously shoulder surf. But it has to be expected when you blatantly fire off those texts in front of a crowd. Same thing for voice calls. I hate, hate,hate voice calls in a restaurant. Thanks so much for entertaining at least forty people with the details of your husband’s proctology exam. That happened a few months ago. Older lady and somewhat deaf taking a call one table away during away. Miserable experience. Nails on a blackboard.
I’ve thought more and the news story does seem too perfect to be true. <shrug> But the over the shoulder shots of the phone don’t look staged. Her fingers are covering part of one text. It looks pretty legit.
FWIW I mind my own business unless it seems important enough that I have to say something. I would have in this case and no one else would have known. Posting and bragging about catching this sexter is really not cool.
I doubt anything this blatant will ever come up anyway. For example, if I happened to see this lady at the concession stand. She greets someone. Quick hug, and a short conversation. I’d never give it a second thought. She probably just me a relative or old friend. I’m not expecting to see anything out of the ordinary.
In your OP you congratulated those two nosy twits for what they did!
Are you now kinda-sorta but not-exactly backing off on your support for them, seeing now the backlash you’re getting?
Here’s a FWIW for you: Remember that Pit thread about you from a few weeks ago? It’s been re-animated now because of this thread. Here.
Pretty poor back pedal.
This says more about you than what you would read on their screen says about them. You are correct, phone screens are all around. And yet somehow, most of us have enough f’ing manners to not to do what you apparently can’t help but do.
I am absolutely positive I heard the same story within the last year, except it was a man sexting. I’m VERY skeptical of this story.
Aceplace I was married for 35 years, I had all the trust in the world in my husband. One day, I picked up his phone out of idle curiosity to see how he had me listed (“the wife” “the ball and chain” or whatever) and I found a text that said “Are you alone?” and my whole world collapsed. I sincerely hope no other person in the world has to go through that pain.
Or what if the guy was an abusive husband and killed his wife after he found out? I’m firmly in the “mind your own business” camp. If I knew either party I might feel differently but doing something like that to two total strangers is playing with fire and it’s disingenuous to pretend that you were “helping” in some way.
I’m not back pedaling. I fully support letting the husband know. They shouldn’t have bragged about it online. That’s in poor taste.
Posting it here just further propagated it. If you feel it was wrong of them to post it online you didn’t need to make more people aware of it. Things go viral because more and more people post it to more and more places. There’s 1100 views on this thread. Maybe that’s 100 unique views, let’s be conservative and say that you made 50 more people aware of this store that would otherwise not have known about it.
And I’ll ask you again, why post it? Was it just to make more people aware of the story? I think you’ve said that when you’ve been asked about your posting habits in the past. Because if that’s the case here, it doesn’t reconcile with what you just said.
God save us from self-appointed moralists.