Comments

1

The Stranger has hired people far worse than either of these two people

2

You know

I could be talked into arguing that serial cheating like Nathan does... might rise to the level of criminal. He's an emotional grifter. Breaking one person's heart is fine - we're human. Two at once is low, but life happens. Three is a pattern. If you're dating more than 3 women at once and lying to them all... it could be argued that your intention is to hurt them.

3

Katie: I appreciate your bringing up the issues of effect on employment, child support, alimony, etc. Sometimes it isn't so simple as the bad guy getting the punishment he deserves. So, easy for victims' and bystanders' well being to be forgotten once the wheels of righteous justice begin to turn.

Like how you teased this our. Once free speech gets brought into the mix it gets to a whole new level of complexity!

4

A possible middle-ground: Thea could post a message to one of the websites devoted, as you say, to outing cheaters and cads, and refer to the man in question simply as "N." She could tell her story, noting the events occurred in Seattle and, particularly, Green Lake. That way, Thea would warn at least some women, not threaten Nathan's livelihood, and not risk being called to court for possible defamation and related issues. Just an idea. Yes, this is an ethically complicated situation. Real life is rarely simple. Don't be a doormat; don't be unduly vindictive. Balance.

5

Definition of 'sh*t-show'.

6

Yup. Losers all around in this one.

7

The world is a fucked up place with many fucked up people in it. Having the ability to move on after getting fucked over is a valuable skill.

The guy can cheat on everyone and there's not much you can do about it.

The girl can tell everyone he's a cheater, but it's probably a colossal waste of time.

There are better, more effective ways of spreading feminism.

8

Gah, the internet's a freaking cesspool for sure. You know who I bet would be able to provide a workable solution to this mess? Andrew Yang, that's who.

9

Cheating is essentially a physical assault. Men who cheat deserve 99% of the blame because the women do 99% of the grieving. I don't have a problem with that web site at all.

10

Well, I guess I've been assaulted three times by women.

13

I basically agree with everything Katie says here - he’s a low-life scumbag who deserves to lose all the women in his life; she sounds like a nutcase who is definitely not “over him,” and yet her free speech rights have been infringed by the court order. To me, the feminist issue here is a theoretical one - this wealthy (presumably white) man has accessed the judicial system in a way that I very much doubt a woman would be able to do, were the circumstances reversed. I’m not sure what the takeaway is here.... do your due diligence before you sleep with somebody?

14

“she has no desire to be in his life”
Sounds like she is obsessed with his life…

16

I'm not sure how someone can demonstrate this level of lack of integrity and have someone conclude that it doesn't have any relevance to his suitability as an employee, especially in a position of authority over other employees, or who is entrusted with anything the employer values. What? He only preys on women and they don't count? Even if you believe that, there is ample counter-evidence that people willing to hurt women for their own personal enjoyment are willing to hurt other people for other reasons as well.

17

Let's see a website that outs the lying scum that falsely accuse men of rape. Then we will talk about "the movement for equality"

18

“So she got on Facebook, found Nathan’s supposed ex-wife, and sent her a message asking if she and Nathan were actually split up.

“They weren’t.”

What, exactly, had prevented Thea from doing this when she first met him?

19

@16,

Maybe they work for a lending company or corporate sales agency, which seem to prize predatory behavior above all else. He'd be an asset!

20

@18,

Trust and faith in basic human decency? What an ignoramus.

21

@19: More seriously, most people compartmentalize pretty well. If he has a good work record, then everything outside of work can be dismissed as “she said, he said.”

@16, there could be serious consequences for the employer, if that employer allows tales of behavior which is not illegal and not relevant to work to enter the HR process.

@20: Or maybe I actually know what “dating app” implies.

24

@23 Hahahahahahhaa. Problem solved! That bitter chick with too much free time needs Dr. Gbojie to cast a love spell on her so she can move the fuck on and leave the guy alone.

27

So what's his name?

29

I have been out of the dating pool since 1995 - predigital. My SO and I wrote letters during out long distance years to save on long distance land line calls. Yeah, I'm old in Stranger years.

Recently met a divorced woman about my age starting to date again. Its been very interesting to listen to her describe what it is like with all these digital tools, but here is what is most interesting: the FIRST thing she does if she has a date with a guy she met on Match is * social media/internet research * to confirm if basic things are true (like being single). If she can confirm the basic details she's been told she goes ahead with it. Wow, I thought, I wish I would have had some of those tools in the early 90's - could have saved myself a lot of hassle.

So the moral of this story is: use the fucking tools you have at your disposal that were not even around when I was dating and save yourself some hassle. You can be much more informed than we ever were meeting strangers for dates - but you have to get the damn stars out of your eyes, put away your romantic notions, and do some fact checking. Jesus christ - I guess men with money can still manipulate women if they are good looking on top of it.

30

It's abuse, full stop. She abused him. This is no different from revenge porn. She is not a crusader warning other women. She was enthralled with bloodlust for revenge. His actions were of a private intimate arrangement, wrong though they may be. If a husband finds nude shots of his wife with another guy and posts them because he thinks "she's broken the covenant" of marriage and therefore privacy concerns are null and void, and then posts them to the internet, he's wrong. He's a dbag. He wants revenge, otherwise, he would be doing this full time to hunt down cheaters everywhere, not just those that touch his life. In the same way, Thea just wanted to abuse this guy. It's abuse. More to the point, it's domestic abuse. She wants to harm him. If you agree with her actions because of her anger, you agree with a guy doing all manner of unspeakable things to a woman when he finds out he's wrong. It's on the same continuum. It's abuse. Keep saying it over and over again until you get it. It's abuse. Perhaps serial cheating is also a form of abuse, but two wrongs and all. It's abuse. Full stop.

31

@30. For the WIN! My thoughts exactly!

34

I got lost trying to understand what that Getty image ( I have seen used many times) has to do with anything.
Also why is the stranger using these dumb, staged, lazy, stock images, they look so tabloid and cheep.
Anyway I don't get the image and caption under it.

35

shorter @30,

I will never post revenge porn, of anyone, ever! Because that's unfair and terrible. But if you personally deceive me... ME... then I will post massive amounts of revenge porn of you... and you will have gotten what you deserved! According to me! IT'S ALL ABOUT ME!

36

Sociopaths should be outed. They protect themselves with the very same social agreements they abuse to get their way. Nathan is now using the legal system in an attempt to take back control of the situation, classic move.

While I agree with many of the points made in the article, whatever Nathan is doing goes beyond cheating. He’s a serial manipulator that targets women. One could even argue he’s committing sexual assault by deception. These women consented to sex with a single guy, only to find out they had been lied and used.

I have zero sympathy for sociopaths. I think this is a creative solution. Nathan made his bed, and I’m glad he is exposed for what he is.

37

The weapons you wield in battle can and will be used against you. If you agree to a system of morality in which everyone's bad deeds are put on blast by every person that feels offense, well, that's a system you can support. But it's also a system that won't quite go the way you want. Thea showed a template on how to abuse women to men that would do so. Abusers since the beginning of time have "just wanted to make the world see what a bad person she is". Now all any man need do is spin up a url and contact someone's familiars and reveal all manner of things objectionable about said person. "Jenny said/believes these awful things about you, Jenny's boss. Here's emails she wrote me to prove it. I'm sure she's told you about how virtuous she is. Well here are nude images of her with several guys behind my back. Not virtuous at all, is it? (30 other accusations culled from private conversations intimate encounters ensue) Someone like this that would (thing that I specifically find awful) should be watched and outed. I'll be updating about what an awful harlot she is here regularly. Thank you for your time." Apparently some people agree that's how it should go. Perhaps the details will vary about what is offensive and beyond the pale. For you it's serial cheating. For someone else, it's speaking ill of one's parents. For someone else, it's running up a high credit card bill. Saying serial cheating is where the line should be drawn is all well and good, but clearly that's not where the line will end up being drawn. It will be pushed to include everything, and women will suffer for it. And then someone will say "How did all of this happen?" Look no further than one's own self-righteousness.

The intent is always the same in abuse: to harm the other person. And in our culture, short of the person literally trying to kill you in the moment, we shun and penalize people for doing harm by other than state sanctioned means. Because the alternative means always get out of hand and end up being used against the very people it was meant to protect.

The more interesting question to me than "should the government be able to silence true speech" is "why can people, in a world that is supposed to be on edge and hypervigilent about violence and abuse between current and former intimate partners not clearly see and call out abuse when it is right in front of them?" But it's not all a loss. I think that's what was causing Thea to "look like the crazy one" to everybody.

38

fwiw, contrary to what Hollywood would have you believe, there's nothing inherently wrong with vengeance.

40

Is Nathan being slut-shamed?

41

Cheating on people who think they're in a monogamous relationship is potentially deadly to them. The false pretenses arguably make it rape. My sympathy is with Thea, who was warning others, openly identifying herself. People are Blaming the Victim to call her names. I also agree with @16, @22, and @26.

I also agree that due diligence is warranted. It amazes me that people will sleep with someone without checking basic details, or meeting their family and friends. This is the Age of AIDS, after all. I remember a woman holding a baby shower party, clearly hoping the guy would pop the question then and there. So I actually asked him the question of the hour, was he thinking of marriage? (I had no brief either way.) No. Why not? He was married. Catholic. 3 kids, too, in Jamaica.

42

I only wish I would’ve had the smarts and balls to do something like this 7 years ago when I found out the man I had been dating had a long term girlfriend of fifteen years and two other women so four of us total and none of us knew about the others. Such bullshit that men think they can get away with this.

43

What state was this in, that truth was not an absolute defense against libel/slander? Massachusetts? Perhaps she should put the website back up and defend her right to free speech, if she has the courage. That judge should not have done that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Peter_Zenger
http://www.aaronkellylaw.com/truth-and-defamation

44

@43: “What state was this in, that truth was not an absolute defense against libel/slander?”

That’s perhaps a hint that not all is as we’ve here been told. Despite a public court case, the author here has gone to some lengths to obscure identities and details.

If “Thea” confronted “Nathan” at Green Lake in Seattle, that implies the state of Washington, where truth is an absolute defense against libel/slander. So, what really happened?

45

As long as "Thea" stuck to the truth and had 0% embellishment, she should be allowed to put it all up on her web page

If being a serial cheater costs you employment, too F'ing bad. "Cheating" is breaking the socially accepted rules for relationships, just like criminals violated legal statutes. If it's legal to not hire someone because they served time, it should be fine to not hire someone because they two-timed!

46

@45: There’s a huge difference between breaking a law, and not adhering to a social convention. As I mentioned @21, an employer could get into serious legal trouble for what is in effect a post facto decision to enforce social conventions as job performance.

48

As a man I'm fine with her website. She told the truth about an arsehole. I'm also ok with someone that's an arsehole having it affect their income. That's called unforeseen consequences. More impetus for him to change.


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