Dear Prudence,
“Sam” and I broke up about a year ago, but we are friendly with each other and chat on occasion. Throughout our relationship, a recurring source of conflict was his best friend of over a decade, “John”, and how he treats women. From what I can understand, his behavior was mostly run-of-the-mill, gross-but-not-illegal misogynist stuff, like pursuing college students as a 30-plus-year-old man or competing with friends to see who can sleep with the most women of different nationalities. But recently, I learned something about John which turned my stomach.
Many years ago, he was in a group chat with his college buddies where they sent videos they had secretly recorded of themselves having sex with women. According to Sam, John never sent any videos himself but watched the videos he got from his friends. I feel sick thinking about the victims and about how John saw no issue in participating in this. Now, John has been in a relationship with “Marie” for about a year. It seems they are really happy and are discussing moving in together. But I just keep thinking about how if I were in Marie’s position, I would want to know about John’s history regarding the group chat, even though it happened many years ago. To be clear, I don’t think Marie is in any danger, but I think she deserves to know what happened before she takes this huge step with John. Marie and I have never met, but I found her contact info through social media. Am I crazy for thinking about setting up a coffee date with her so I can tell her what I know? I feel wracked with guilt over this. On one hand, I would certainly want someone to tell me if I was her, on the other, I would be causing drama and conflict by meddling in a relationship I have no part in. Am I obligated to do something here, or should I let bygones be bygones and leave the issue alone?
—Feminist or Busybody?