Man Called Insensitive For Refusing To Give His SSN To His Girlfriend's Friend For A Background Check
Her concern is understandable. But are her demands reasonable?
pixelshot | Canva Pro Dating is a bit of a nightmare nowadays, even more so if you've been burned by a partner in the past. It's easy to take that "once bitten, twice shy" dynamic way overboard.
Such was the case of one man on Reddit, who found himself faced with a demand from his new girlfriend that he found totally inappropriate.
The man's girlfriend asked for his social security number so she could run a background check on him.
In his Reddit post, the man wrote that he and his girlfriend had been in a relationship for just under a year. So he was shocked when she sat him down a recent evening and made a rather strange request.
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"She said she needs to have a serious conversation with me and she asked for my social security number," he recalled. "I said, 'Absolutely not, why would you need that?" Her reasoning, while understandable, has done little to make him willing to comply with her request.
His girlfriend's last boyfriend turned out to be a criminal living a double life.
His girlfriend's suspicions are understandable given her last partner was basically a Jekyll and Hyde. "He had a bunch of criminal charges in his past that he'd never told her about and eventually exposed her to some sketchy and dangerous behavior before she broke things off after he cheated," he explained.
She has a friend who works for the federal government and she wants to do a full background check on him just to make sure he is who he says he is and that he is a "safe partner."
"For the record, I don't even have a parking ticket," he went on to say. "I don't care about a background check, she won't find anything." But to him, it's a matter of privacy. "I'm not giving out my SSN," he wrote. "I don't feel comfortable enough providing that to her friend."
When he refused to give out his SSN, she accused him of being 'insensitive' and issued an ultimatum.
"She got upset and said I don't understand what women go through and it's about safety," he wrote — which he actually agrees with. "I admitted she's right, I have no idea what women go through."
But it doesn't change the core conflict for him: "That doesn't mean I'm giving my SSN out to a complete stranger," he wrote. She wasn't willing to budge.
"She said that our relationship isn't going to be able to progress unless I give him my SSN because she needs to know that she's safe, and she's offended that I don't trust her taste in friends."
He tried to compromise but she wouldn't budge, so they ended up breaking up.
In a follow-up post, the man said that after taking time away to consider the matter, he understood why his girlfriend was upset. So he presented her with a compromise: He'd pay for a background check of his own.
This way, he'd know his personal information would be kept safe and they'd avoid any potential illegalities involved in her friend using federal resources for personal matters. She refused, saying her friend is the only one she trusts.
"I said if that's how you feel and you won't budge, then the issue here is trust, and I'm not willing to stay in a relationship with a woman that doesn't trust me because of some [stuff] that doesn't have anything to do with me," the man wrote.
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It's hard not to agree with him. Her worries and suspicions were understandable, but so was his desire to keep his personal information safe. He was willing to go above and beyond to ease her mind, but her response was totally unreasonable.
Unsurprisingly, their conflict soon erupted into a huge fight that ended their relationship. While he's heartbroken, he can't help but feel like he "dodged a bullet because there's no reason [this] should have gotten this messy."
It's unfortunate that either of them ended up in this situation, and he should be applauded for being willing to work with her on it. Ultimately, it's up to her to work through the trauma of her previous relationship — and it's not his responsibility to violate his own boundaries if she's unwilling to compromise.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.