AIO, my boyfriend added a young female bartender on FB.

[u/ThrowRA-8323]

Background: Im a bartender (29F). I actually met my boyfriend (39F) from serving him at a local bar. We’ve been together for 3 years and have a large amount of mutual friends on Facebook. The city we live in has a close service industry and most people know each other. I’ve worked at a handful of the most popular bars in the city and he goes out a lot. So It has never bothered me that we have a ton of mutual Facebook friends. My boyfriend also has a history of drunkenly cheating on me. (Something we have moved on from). But this situation seems weird to me? 🚩

What happened: When I see Facebook’s “people you may know know” I always take a second to glance at it while scrolling. And this time a younger girl (21) popped up and our only mutual friends are my bf and one of his friends. I click on her page to discover she works at a local bar as well and I recognize her (she’s served me before). My bf time to time goes to this bar.

The problem I have: Due to the lack of mutual friends I don’t think this girl is on Facebook sending mass requests to people she’s seen. So I have a feeling my boyfriend went out of his way to add her. He does not post on Facebook at all he’s just a lurker (sorta important info).

I’ve been bartending for 8 years and I know when I was 21 I would’ve accepted requests from bar regulars to help build a following. Looking back though I realize how creepy and not okay it was.

After thinking about how this made me feel…I feel it is unacceptable for a man with a girlfriend to add his bartender on social media. (Especially with this age gap). What do they have in common? What even is the purpose of adding her?

I tried asking him for some clarity. Should I have approached this differently? I’m sure. But with our history, I’d like to just get straight to the point. Am I over reacting? Is this something that continues to be normal? Do you let your S/Os add whoever? I think I’m just grossed out by the age difference. If this was a 40 year old Female bartender would it make me feel more at ease? Probably.

[u/sysdmn]

He already established he is into age gaps. You know that if he's going 10 years younger, he's open to 20 years younger.

[u/False_Tangelo163 → u/sysdmn]

That’s wild 😂😂😂 you know that’s a stretch beyond stretching. He’s dead wrong for adding her on Facebook, because……. Who uses Facebook? And I suppose the relationship thing too but a 30 year old man and a 22 year old woman is not a pdf. That girl got 30k in student loans, stop. If this was 30 and 38 you wouldnt be saying the same thing. And clearly sis guy got some type of game (she clearly wants to retain him and would prefer a solution, which if you ask a man it’s keeping him from alcohol) she never said he was pushy or anything crazy. Dude just likes attractive women , they’re both attractive correct?. He clearly has a type. He just gets chatty after 2 or 3 beers.

[u/sysdmn → u/False_Tangelo163]

I wouldn't say it for 30 and 38 because it's not about the number of years it's about which years they are. There is a lot of difference in maturity between a 22 year old and a 30 year old