hey. I’m a guy in a new pretty new relationship (2 months) and my girlfriend has lots of other guy friends. Most of them have known her longer than I have. I’m not a jealous person in the first place, but I’m especially careful because I know how much her guy friends mean to her. I know what happens when a guys friends don’t like his girlfriend, so I try to be extra cool about it, and I actually get along really well with a lot of them.
But I’m starting to have a problem with this one who leaves these comments on her facebook all the time. He says rather perverted stuff to her about her that I wouldn’t feel comfortable plastering on the internet, and I’m her boyfriend. She laughs and writes back stuff like “lol”. I know she doesn’t like him that way and nothing is going to happen, but it still gets to me. I’m a little scared to say anything because I don’t want to look jealous, but I feel like punching something whenever I read that shit. What can I do about it that won’t make me look jealous?
Your letter strikes a real chord with me, as a student of life. I’ve seen a lot of people do exactly what you’re afraid of doing, and people who act like bitches because they’re afraid someone is better than them are pretty pathetic. I know personally I'm hyper-conscious of any feeling I have that could be taken for jealousy, and about what those feelings are making me do and say. If I suspect I’m jealous of someone, I think about it a good long time and try to figure out what that person makes me hate about myself.
HOWEVER, being annoyed with the lack of respect people are showing your relationship is not really the same thing as being jealous. You for example, uh, know you’re hot, I guess, and you don’t seem all that concerned that something happened, is happening or will happen between your girlfriend and this ‘charmer’ (perverted, eh?). Sounds like it’s not just on you that you feel this way, sounds to me like you're quite justified in being irritated, sounds to me there is some degree of inappropriate behaviour going on here.
If he's aware that your girlfriend is in a committed relationship (that is, if you’d both consider the relationship to be committed. Two months is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s not, you know, three months, or six months, or a year) he's either not at all considering what his comments could look like to anybody, especially you, and that's pretty dumb, or he knows exactly what they look like, and that makes him a dickhead, annnd I'm a little pissed on your behalf.
And, regardless of his awareness or intent, if she allows it to happen -- not discouraging it when it does happen, or creating and perpetuating a situation in which it happens in the first place -- she risks sending one of or many several potentially bad messages to you. That she doesn't care about your feelings, that she doesn't like to make it clear to others that you are the only one for her, that she doesn't get the nuances of being in a relationship with you. The horrific possibilities are endless.
In my (HIGHLY SPECULATIVE) brain, it's most likely that she feels weird about correcting the unsophisticated social networking website behaviour of others. I guess I'm not clear on her attitude towards this pathetic flirtation – ‘lol’ is a bit of tired acronym nowadays – but based on the little that I know here, this guy could be a socially disabled acquaintance from her past and she's just ignoring an embarrassing, uncomfortable situation. Who hasn’t thrown away a ‘lol’ on something that didn’t really deserve it while under pressure to not look impolite in the heartbreaking world of Facebook?
Shouldn't it not matter what others think? Shouldn't the most important thing be how he treats you when you're alone? A relationship shouldn't be for show? UH WELL most of us don't date in a vacuum, and the common romantic relationship is in huge part conducted in the minds of others. There are lots of people who don't like mushiness or public displays of affection, there are lots of people who don't need their partners to demonstrate their feelings for the benefit of the outside world… but if this is not you, it is not you, and it's understandable because I'm relatively certain it is not most of us.
You’re well within your rights to want to talk with her about this, and that’s what I’m telling you to do. If you're willing to believe she might not be encouraging Turd Ferguson’s behaviour or liking it for a suspect reason, make that clear to her, because you don't want to risk being dismissed as ‘just jealous.’ If it's possible she just doesn't know or just doesn't yet understand how you feel about such things, give her the benefit of the doubt and explain that you’re kind of offended by this guy’s apparent lack of regard for you and your relationship with her. Just let her know how you feel and what’s behind it, and don’t demand anything. There’s offended, there’s jealous, and then there’s unbalanced. Just be your apparently self-aware and considerate self.
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