Late-stage vetting

I'm really happy to see that snooping isn't considered bad here at FDS. So many people like to shame you and say snooping is a breach of privacy, but what about your time as a woman? I've personally experienced a number of situations where I uncovered lies through snooping. Cheating, a man lying about his age, men talking about me to their friends, and so on. If I didn't snoop, I would have lost more time. If I had asked instead these men would have lied to me and deleted any evidence.

I wouldn't even consider the things mentioned above snooping, to be honest. If a man isn't being overly secretive in general (which means he is likely hiding something), you will see his phone, mails, unlocked computer, mail from his bank or something around or other things like that as a part of your everyday life. Do you know what I mean?

I'd already consider the necessity to snoop to look at these things a warning sign by itself. Does he never hand you his unlocked phone to look at something or leave it unlocked around you? Does he seem to hide his physical mail or gets mad if you accidentally see or open something? Does he make a point to always log out of all his accounts and computer before leaving you alone with them (job-related security measures he has to follow on a work phone/computer obviously excluded)? Is there a drawer, box, file, cabinet or whatever he doesn't want you to open in his apartment or does he get unreasonably upset if you open something like his gym bag without asking? Is there time when he is "unaccounted for" but acts weird about telling where he was and what he was doing?

Of course there is still the possibility of him hiding a second secret phone/bank account for his shady stuff to look out for, but having to "snoop" to access his primary devices is already a warning sign to me.

Snooping IS a violation of privacy.

But it's totally necessary and I'm glad this conversation is coming up.

I would never do this because I'm a person who has principles, but I'm grateful for these comments because it's making realise, actually, yes, I get to protect myself and my time and my energy. The amount of nonsense most men put us through, 'snooping' is our entitlement and insurance! Snooping is a violation of privacy. It is. But this is what they push us to, in order to prevent us from being violated in much worse ways!

Thank you. He has not proposed, but he initiated conversations about marriage, which led to discussing a lot of important topics about what we want in life, and affirming our shared values and goals. If he proposed today, I would have to decline, as I don’t feel like our relationship has reached that level of depth yet. I expect a proposal in another year or so, which will be 2 years total of dating. I’m finding it difficult to balance FDS’ principles of keeping men at a distance and being cautious about progressing relationships, versus being confident about accepting a proposal after 1-2 years of dating. Now that I’ve lived it, one year feels insufficient to truly know a man.

That’s a fair point! I imagine very few of us get to your stage and that’s why I think FDS focuses on early-stage vetting. I freaked out at the prospect of being engaged after a year. I tend to find men drop their masks after year one, and fall apart completely in the 18 month- 2 year mark. I wish women had more time to find a good man.