Been hurt? Warn others on the Net

Getting dumped is the worst. Especially when the person who dumped you is, well, the jerk in the situation.

But imagine a place you could go to work out all your frustrations. Let others know about your ex-creep. And warn people to stay away.

That place exists – online, anyway – for women. It’s a Web site called www.dontdatehimgirl.com.

Part soap opera, part public-service announcement, with a dose of a therapist’s office thrown in, DDHG exposes men who have done us wrong. Supposedly there is a companion site, dontdateherman.com, to be launched soon.

Felony records, pornography addictions, hidden families, fake illnesses – these guys cheat, lie, and don’t care about it. Some of them crisscross the country doing it, too.

On the surface the site is meant to be a kind of warning system. You start dating a guy. You head to the site to check him out. Either you don’t find anything, or you find more than you bargained for.

With an average of 200,000 hits per day and more than 900 men profiled, according to the site, DDHG was founded by Tasha Cavelle Joseph after watching her girlfriend discover their significant others’ infidelity.

To be sure, there are lots of bad guys on this Web site, and if I ever suspected a guy of anything fishy I would probably go right to DDHG. That, combined with the good old Google search, would likely unearth lots of dirt.

But read enough of the Web site and you get the feeling that women aren’t posting just to help their sisters in dating. A few profiles in, it starts to feel a little like “General Hospital,” or a free therapy session. Although I have sympathy for these women, I don’t understand why they stayed with these cheaters, why they loaned them money, why they took them in.

And with no rebuttal from the men – many of whom are posted with their full names and photos while women go anonymous – you start to wonder if everything the women write is true, or if there’s some vindictiveness involved.

To me, the most depressing thing about the site is that many of the men are in the military, although who knows what’s true on the Web site. It must be easy to move around to maintain different relationships in different towns, with women who presumably won’t be able to find each other.

Of course, when you look at a Web site such as DDHG your

curiosity grabs hold of you. The first thing I did once I got to the site was a search on “Maine.” I got five hits, but only two guys who actually have anything to do with Maine and only one who lives here. He’s in South Portland, so if you go down there, beware. I think. At least I’m happy to report I didn’t see anyone I knew on the site.

There’s a way for men to respond or tell their side of the story, by the way, via e-mail to the Web site. But either not many men are choosing this option, they’re not aware of the site, or all the bad stories are true. Of all the profiles I looked through, just one had a rebuttal. It was pretty mean-spirited. But who knows if the initial posting was right on?

In the end, the whole Web site is a lot of she-said. And that doesn’t solve anything.

Jessica Bloch can be reached at jbloch@bangordailynews.net