CLEVELAND — It's a "he-said, she-said" playing out on social media. In Facebook groups nationwide, thousands of people vet their next date in a group called "Are We Dating The Same Guy."
The idea of the group is to provide a safe space for women while dating. The group has equally popular spin-offs, "Are We Dating The Same Girl" and "Are We Dating The Same Person."
Locally, the "Are We Dating The Same Guy Cleveland/Akron/Canton" page has more than 55,000 members. In most major metros across the U.S., a group like this exists.
A Wadsworth man believes the sharing has gone too far and feels he was defamed and bullied within the group. After being posted several times in several different groups, Matthew Napier said the talk took a toll.
"It was just a big bash fest pretty much, and that's pretty regular in that group," Napier said.
Napier said women called him "pushy," "creepy," and "weird," but more nefarious information is what concerned him most, including information about his work and family.
"She made it sound like I was a danger to people with the terminology that she was using and then people started ridiculing me, started making fun of me," Napier said.
Administrators ask group members to remain respectful in its publicly posted group rules. They ask members to take no screenshots or share any internal information publicly.
The group asks members not to post personal information, last names, family members, phone numbers, addresses, or employment information. It states the group is about "protecting women, not judging men."
Napier said in his case, the rules were not followed, "they looked at my LinkedIn in and they saw my previous employer and they looked it up, who the head of HR was, and they posted her information, her phone number and email address and told everyone to call," Napier said.
I think that the original idea about creating a safe spot for people, women, to find men who are bad people or violent things like that, absolutely. But it's not being used for that."
To follow the group rules, a local member remained anonymous when sharing her experience with News 5. She uses the page to make sure she is safe while dating.
"Before I even go on any date, I literally go on that page just to gather just a little more information about that person," the anonymous member said.
At one point, when the woman was in a serious relationship, she looked up her fiancé, "my answers were in that group based on you know the women that came forward like, 'Oh, I have gone on a date with him. Meanwhile, we were engaged. So, it was one of those things like, okay this was exactly what I needed."
Napier hired Chicago attorney Marc Trent.
"We've had thousands of phone calls and emails from men throughout the country, even globally, the UK that have contacted us," Trent said.
Trent gained clients after filing a lawsuit in late July against Meta and the company "Spill The Tea Inc." which is listed as the parent company for "Are We Dating The Same Guy" platforms.
"We would like to have their specific posts taken down. We want to have the group overall taken down because we don't think it has a positive purpose," Trent said.
Meta filed a motion to dismiss at the end of August. Trent's firm is responding. Meanwhile, the group still puts reputations in the court of public opinion.
"What the group is there for is to really just inform other women, as well as protect other women," an anonymous group member said.
"Bullying people, both men and women, and it needs to stop. Meta has allowed it and even the admins and moderators of the group allowed it," Napier said.
Meta did not respond to News 5's requests for comment. Neither did "Are We Dating The Same Guy" parent company "Spill the Tea Inc."
