Man warns 'slow' girlfriend against being friends with two men, receives mixed responses online
Is it okay when your girlfriend has male friends? What if those male friends want more than just a friendship but your girlfriend is oblivious about it. The very same thing happened to a man who posted his situation in the popular Reddit group 'AITA', where it received close to 13,000 upvotes and almost 5,000 comments.
In a Reddit post titled 'AITA for telling my girlfriend that I told her so after one of her male friends tried to get with her?' the man wrote, "My girlfriend and I have been together for about a year now. My girlfriend has more than a few guy friends, and I'm not one of those guys that thinks men and women can't be friends."
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'Women tend to be a little slow regarding things like this'
The man wrote, "However, with 2 of these guys, it's very clear that they want more than just friendship from her. Like clear as day to the point where I don't get how she doesn't see it. If I can notice just by the weird energy they try to exude when I'm present, she should be able to get too right? Wrong. Any time I have pointed this out, she gets upset with me. She tells me that I am being jealous and reading into things, that aren't there."
"I argue back that I'm just letting her know and as a guy, I can probably tell much better than she can since women tend to be a little slow regarding things like this. So 2 nights ago night, she was hanging out with her friends and this guy was present. From what she told me, they were all drinking and he said some things that implied he'd want to be with her. She was made uncomfortable by this and the night ended shortly after," he added.
The man continued, "Fast forward to yesterday morning. She got a series of texts apologizing for what he said, and then backpedaling and saying he would treat her so much better than me and she's wasting her time with me. She of course said no and was upset with him. After she told me, I just read the texts and simply said, 'Wow who could've seen this coming' a bit sarcastically. This set her off and she got mad. She said that I was being such a huge a*****e to her and she had no way of seeing this coming. She's been pissed at me since."
More than 4,000 people commented on the post. One user sarcastically wrote, "Wow, as a woman this was extremely revelatory. Now I know that whenever I need to determine if something a man says to me is just a sincere, harmless compliment vs. him subtly hitting on me, I can just ask someone with a faster man brain to help me out. Yay! I learned something today! YTA."
Another countered them, saying, "No, that's a double standard. Men CONSTANTLY hear from women that we're dense, never pick up hints, and don't recognize flirting, but the ONE TIME a man implies that women have the same trouble, it's misogynistic and he's sexist. And don't even pretend yall haven't heard this kind of language about men dozens of times. It stands out here because it's the opposite of the norm. Women are always allowed to criticize men as a whole, but a throwaway statement about men understanding other men better is sexist? Get out of here with that. Unless you also speak up when a woman says the same thing about men, which again happens all the time."
A third chimed in, saying, "Funny, (as a women myself) I read it as him saying that people from the same sex are better at decrypting that kind of thing from other from the same sex. Not as « I know better than you » But he could have phrased it better and if he told that to his girlfriend she probably took it like you," while another agreed, saying, "I don't think he meant 'I am smarter than you so I know this better than you', it comes off more along the lines of 'I'm a straight man so I'm more familiar with what this behavior from a straight man means'."
Another user shared, "Did you ever think that maybe your gf did pick up on it but was hoping it wasn't true? I've had SO SO SO many guys I was close friends with who then stopped talking to me abruptly when they found out I wasn't interested. Do you have any idea how hurtful that is? I'm good enough to have around if you can f**k me, but not good enough to have around as a literal humanbeing with a personality and thoughts. I always had a suspicion but was always always hoping that this time it wouldn't be true.
And every single time it happened, it was just as upsetting and hurtful as the last time. It's dehumanizing. Maybe you should be less of a self-involved, I have to always be right type of a*****e and try to be empathetic towards what your gf is going through. Otherwise, you're kinda acting like one of those d***s you have a problem with, you just happen to be on the other side of the equation.Try to be the exception, not the rule. YTA."
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