Hello, world! My name's Stephen LaConte, I'm a writer here at BuzzFeed, and according to my friends and family, I'm pretty darn good at giving advice.
So earlier this month, I invited BuzzFeed readers like you to slide into my DMs (@StephenLC on Instagram and Twitter) with your biggest problems — and I'm about to solve 'em in a new advice column for BuzzFeed.
Today we've got two (2) problems to solve. I've removed all names and identifying information to make sure we keep everything ~anonymous~ around here. Let's do this thing!
First, we've got this woman, who recently walked in on her boyfriend jerking off to some, uh, ex-rated videos:
My advice? Dump him — but maybe not for the reason you're thinking.
It does indeed sound like your boyfriend isn't over his ex — he's made you feel paranoid about that in the past, and stumbling upon this nostalgic little jerkoff session doesn't exactly help his case. That alone would be a perfectly valid reason to walk away. But there's another big violation that might be happening here, and it's one I think you shouldn't ignore: Is he violating his ex-girlfriend's consent by hanging on to those videos?
I wonder if this woman knows that your boyfriend still has private, intimate videos of her saved on his computer. Personally, I'm inclined to think she doesn't know, as your boyfriend has already proved himself quite capable of sneaking around.
Let's be real clear about this: Unless this woman gave explicit permission for your boyfriend to keep, well, explicit videos of her after the breakup, he should have deleted them, period. And the fact that he continues to use them as his own personal Pornhub is extremely shitty to both of you.
You're asking important questions right now about whether or not you can trust this man. Unfortunately, I think you have more than a few reasons to believe you can't, based on how he's treating you AND how he's treating this ex.
So yeah, please dump his ass. And if you ever filmed any of your own sexual adventures with this man, make sure they're deleted before you walk out the door.
Next up, we've got this young woman, who wants to know if she'd be a horrible person if she dated her former BFF's ex-boyfriend:
Are you a horrible person if you date him? Maybe not. BUT...is your former BFF gonna think you're a horrible person if you date him? Probably! And you need to be okay with that, if you're going to proceed with this relationship.
Look. You've laid out a solid case for why dating him might be fair game: They've been broken up for a long time, you no longer have any friendship with the girl, and at the end of the day, you and this guy are both adults capable of making your own romantic choices.
But your former BFF likely has a good case for why you shouldn't be dating this guy. It sounds like her own relationship with him was rocky, and you were her best friend and confidante for much of that time. Don't be surprised if she views you dating him as a big, fat betrayal — and your mutual friends may take her side on that.
So, back to your question: Would you be a horrible person if you dated him? It depends on who you ask, I guess! But instead of asking me, or your former BFF, or your friends, or anyone else for that matter, I highly suggest asking...you! Do you think you'd be a horrible person if you dated him?
You know the specifics of this situation better than anyone. What does your gut tell you? Does the idea of dating him feel wrong? Like a betrayal? Like something you shouldn't do? Or does it feel okay? Reasonable? Honest? Fair?
Listen to your gut. At the end of the day, you can deal with a few people thinking you're a horrible person — it's much, much harder when you think that about yourself.
Well, that's all the advice I'm giving today, folks. But now it's your turn — sound off in the comments with YOUR best advice for today's letter writers. I'll be reading...
PS: Do YOU have a problem that you want fixed in front of thousands of internet strangers? DM me! I'm @StephenLC on Instagram...
...and I'm @StephenLC on Twitter, too. See ya in the DMs!
