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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/CatDaddyAnonymous on 2026-02-15 00:25:23+00:00.
I had a coworker that I'll call Cody for this post.
Cody and I worked together for a little over a year in an office setting and had lots of downtime to be able to talk. We would chat about everyday things, but majority of the time the topic of women and dating came up and he started to ask me for advice surrounding this subject. He would ask for tips regarding his confidence, how to better talk to women, and get around the inability to get a second date etc.
I would give him the normal advice like, approach situations with confidence, treat women like they are people and not just someone you're trying to get off with, and start working on yourself.
He started going to therapy, eating better, and hitting the gym over that year we worked together and began having better dates with the women he matched with on dating apps. I started to notice red flags when he decided to take a trip across the country and visit, "the one that got away." I asked him about how the trip went when he got back and he said that she had blocked him after he waited outside of her work, having tracked her on Snapchat maps. He didn't take the hint the first time she rejected him at his workplace and then decided to show up at her house. When he got to her house, a shirtless man answered the door and told him to fuck off.
After telling me all this I told him he needed to let this go before he started falling into harassment and stalking charges. I let him know that this wasn't a healthy way of going about finding someone and as far as I know he dropped it after a few more months of switching phones trying to text her and more pressure from me and other coworkers to drop it.
He started telling me that he was matching with more women on dating apps in a town an hour away from where we lived and would drive over there in the evenings after work and come back to town in the morning to get ready for work. He was doing this a few times a week and seemed pretty happy. I really didn't think anything about it and congratulated him on the newfound confidence and dates.
That was until he left our section of our workplace and started working in another area within the same company. We all get called into a meeting one morning being told that Cody was no longer allowed to access our section and if we saw anything suspicious to let a higher-up know right away. When we asked our management what was going on, they wouldn't elaborate further and left it at that. So another coworker and I got curious and decided to just look up Cody's name online. We ended up finding an article about a police sting involving Cody and multiple other individuals. Law enforcement had posed as underage girls as young as 14 years old to lure in predators. Cody had sent lewd pictures in this sting and drove up to the town to meet with who he assumed was a minor. The very same town he told me was constantly going to after matching with all these women on dating apps.
Cody was eventually removed from our workplace and arrested on charges surrounding the sting. He is currently in prison for 2 years, but may be awaiting another court date due to a hit and run that happened while he was awaiting the previous trial for the sex offender charges.
I know that I shouldn't necessarily blame myself because he was the predator and decided to do what he did, but I can't help but think that all that time spent giving him advice, I was basically giving him the confidence to meet with minors. Not to mention all the times he was going out of town prior to the sting operation. Was he actually meeting with underage girls that whole time? It just makes me sick to my stomach most days and I don't always cope with it very well.
TL;DR: Worked with a guy for a little over a year and gave him dating advice. He was later removed from our section and arrested for attempts to meet with a minor, leaving me to believe I gave him the confidence to go through with being a predator.