Are We Dating the Same Guy Reddit Explained

Treat a specific, checkable detail from a group post as a lead worth verifying, not as proof on its own, and treat a mood-only label like "toxic" or "red flag" as something to note and set aside until you have more.

The concept started with a New York City group built in March 2022 specifically to help women check whether someone they were seeing was also seeing other people, and Glamour reported that nearly every major US city now runs a version of it. Scale varies widely by city: the Guardian found roughly 164,000 members in the New York group, about 79,000 in Los Angeles, and around 81,000 in Toronto. For how the groups and the companion app admit members and route posts, read how these groups and the app work.

What a post has reportedly surfaced

Reported posts have surfaced hidden engagements, overlapping relationships, and warnings about abusive or violent men, not just ordinary dating complaints. In one exchange the Guardian described, a woman posted asking for information on a man using only a first name and photo; another commenter said he'd already been posted days earlier, and a third replied, "I'm shaking, I'm his fiancee." That's the kind of thing a specific post can catch: a relationship he never mentioned.

The Guardian also described a woman whose sister posted after a man ghosted her with a story about a dead donkey, and learned through the group that his story didn't check out. Beyond cheating, the Guardian reported the groups increasingly function as a way to warn women about men with histories of violence or abuse.

Group rules, and why closed doesn't mean permanent

The groups run on a stated list of rules, and those rules only hold if every member follows them. Glamour reported in 2022 that these posting rules were common across city groups at the time:

• Anyone can post anonymously.
• No doxxing or posting sensitive personal information.
• Screenshots are not supposed to leave the group under any circumstance.
• No bullying, no victim blaming, no hate speech.
• Members are told never to tell a man he's been posted.

Individual groups set their own moderation and admission standards, so treat this list as a snapshot of common practice rather than a rulebook every city group follows today.

Those rules are why most posts stick to a first name and a photo instead of an address or workplace. They don't guarantee privacy forever: a group stays closed only as long as its members keep it that way, and disputes over posts have followed some of them into court. One disagreement over a group post became a defamation case, reported by CBC News. Write anything you post as though it could end up outside the group, because for some posts, it eventually did.

Weighing a specific claim against a vague one

A specific, checkable detail deserves more weight than a mood. "He's engaged to someone else," "he has a pending case in court," or "he ghosted me the same week his fiancee found the group" are claims you can test against a record or a direct conversation. "He gave me a weird feeling" or "he's bad news" describes the writer's reaction and nothing you can verify.

When a claim is specific, look for the thing that would confirm or contradict it: a public record, a consistent timeline, or his own answer when you ask him directly. When it stays vague, you can still slow down, you just don't have enough yet to build a conclusion on.

That same openness is also the source of the criticism these groups draw. The Conversation, in a piece on the network's roots and criticism, described it as "accused of being toxic" even while tracing its origins to a longer feminist tradition of women warning each other about dangerous men. A post can name a man, his location, and include a screenshot from his dating profile, all before anyone outside the group has confirmed any of it. That's the structure that catches a concealed engagement quickly, and it's the same structure that can carry an exaggerated or one-sided account just as fast. Treat a post the way you'd treat a claim from someone you don't know well: take a specific, checkable detail seriously enough to verify, and set the mood-only claims aside until more than one source backs them up.

What to do with a post, whichever side you're on

Check what's checkable, write only what you witnessed, and answer inaccuracies with facts if you're the one posted. If you're reading a claim about a marriage, a court case, or a registry status, that's the kind of detail you can confirm independently before deciding what it means for you.

If you're writing a post, stay inside the group's own rules: first name and photo, what actually happened, and nothing extra that doesn't help another woman evaluate the claim. If you learn you were posted, save the original post and comments before anything gets edited or deleted, then correct the specific factual claim instead of arguing with every comment underneath it.