On October 31st, 2024 I discovered the love of my life was on Grindr behind my back, talking to, flirting with, and sending naked pictures of himself to who-knows-how-many men. I had been planning for some time to propose that Christmastime, just a couple months later. We had been together over six years; I thought we would grow old together.
The profile on Grindr.
He was so deep in my heart that the pain cut deeper than any other had immediately. My vision was blurry constantly. I couldn’t feel my arms. I felt like Reality itself was up in the air and I was lost at sea fighting wave after wave of disenchantment and confusion.
I confronted Him and he lied. I gave him another opportunity and he lied again. He didn’t know that on Grindr you can “Explore” profiles anywhere in the world and when it became obvious he would lie until the chickens came home, I sent him a screenshot of his profile that I could see when I “Explored” right on his apartment several states away.
Faced with proof that he could no longer deny, he finally caved and confessed.
Lying time and again until faced with irrefutable proof, I would soon learn, would become a hallmark feature of this man I thought I knew just weeks prior.
A realization suddenly struck me. A few months prior, I had flown out to visit him for a week. In the car one day I grabbed his phone to help navigate the GPS or do music or something, and after a few seconds he snatched it back really urgently and suddenly. This was foreign, it felt so unlike Us. I instantly pictured what he might have been not wanting me to see on his phone, and the weight of my presumptions made the air in the car heavy.