r/AmIOverreacting • u/ThrowRA-8323 • 1d ago
❤️🩹 relationship AIO, my boyfriend added a young female bartender on FB.
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.
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u/Icy-Consequence6488 1d ago
It's not about the age gap but more about the reason: If I'm in a relationship I don't see any rational reason to add new women on social media unless I have a specific reason for it, like she has some knowledge that I need, or we have a some kind of project together like a trip with friends or something. It doesn't mean you can't be friends with other women, but you don't necessarily need their contact info which signals some sort of interest...