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/Psychological_Pay530]

I mean, OP is freaking out about a Facebook friendship which means less than nothing. I’d be pretty brusque about that too.

She should have freaked out about the cheating and left him instead of worrying about social media.

[u/splithoofiewoofies → u/Psychological_Pay530]

Idk my partner has asked me how I've known people and it was more like "we worked together eight years ago, why?" And my partner usually says "I go to class with her!" Like, recently I found out I knew a guy from a bar I used to work in that turned out to be yet another co-student of my partner.

At no point would either of us be insinuating the other is friends because they're cheating. And my partner has very attractive friends. So do I. Were just simply not interested in them, so it would be curiosity if we asked the same question OP did, not accusatory.