Dear Prudence
This just might end us.
Advice by
Jenée Desmond-Harris
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Dec 27, 20258:00 AM
Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Dousan_Miao/iStock/Getty Images Plus and Reddit.
Dear Prudence is Slate’s advice column. Submit questions here.
Dear Prudence,
For reasons I can’t fully articulate, I enjoy writing fake Reddit posts as a creative outlet. I am a prolific poster. I concoct outlandish but plausible situations to post in “AITA” and similar subreddits. Sometimes I take details from real life as inspiration, but in general everything is completely fabricated. Recently, my boyfriend found my Reddit account and read all my posts. Crap.
He was understandably upset—based on my post history, it looks like I’ve cheated on him with dozens of people, had a life of crime, lied about my identity, you name it. But it’s all fake, and just something I do for fun. I tried to explain my weird hobby to him, but because there are a few snippets of real life in there, he refuses to believe me. How can I prove to him that I’ve always been faithful and the posts are all false?
—Unreliable Narrator
Dear Unreliable,
I can see how this would be kind of fun. I wonder why you never told your boyfriend about your creative outlet? If you’re as prolific as you say, it must be a pretty big part of your life. And it’s relatively harmless. His refusal to believe that the posts are fake is probably a solvable problem. Could you cross-check dates to prove that you couldn’t have really been engaging in the antics you describe, or get testimonies from old friends? But when I combine his inclination to believe that you have lived a life of crime with the fact that you didn’t tell him about your actual life of online mischief, I’m concerned that you two don’t know each other well or trust each other. It seems like this is mostly out of your control at this point, but if you do break up, make sure your next partner is someone you can tell about your hobby. There’s someone out there who will make you feel comfortable enough to do so—and he might even help you come up with some stories!
Please keep questions short (150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.
Dear Prudence,
A few years ago, I met a man on a dating app. He lives in the U.S. and I live in Canada. We hit it off online and met in person a few months later when I was in his city on vacation. We had an amazing time and ended up sleeping together.
Since then, we have become good friends, and I have visited a few more times. We always had a blast, but I suspected his feelings for me were deepening, so I stopped sleeping with him after that first time. A year ago, he asked me to be his girlfriend.