Or are all men like this?

[pando]

Have NC for this one. This weekend DP left his text messaging app open on his laptop & I saw a couple of texts (shouldn't have looked I know, stupid me) that made me uncomfortable. I don't know if I am too sensitive (admittedly I have low self esteem, PND, anxiety) or if this is normal for men. They were to a colleague of his saying "have you seen the new starts? That girl with the dark hair is lovely", then "need to find out who she is", then a few days later saying another colleague had added her on facebook & DP was "jealous". Then I saw he was texting her (no name saved initially so he must have given her his number) with just general chat & now I see they are friends on fbook too. Am I overreacting to be upset about him talking like this about other women? Would love some perspective.

[Solina]

Or maybe he is just friendly? She may work in the same team the OP didnt specify this. And if they will be working with each other why cant you be friendly? I am friendly to everyone I work with attractive or not and I am fb friends/text to quite a few of them too.

[Followyourart]

I wouldn't call outright fancying her and discussing with his mates the fancying of her - "friendly" I'd call it massively disrespectful. He's either being a "lad" I.e the only way to converse with lad mates is to discuss the latest fittie / who won the footy, the usual unbelievably dull and juvenile stuff.. Or, he actually wants to start something with this girl. Personally I think it's the former.
Doesn't make him less of a twat though.. You don't have to put up with it op, you are so much better.

[roundaboutthetown]

This is patently not someone who works on his team, what with him saying he needs to find out who she is and all... She is a new intern he has seen, fancies and wants to go out of his way to meet up with and get to know purely because she is attractive.

[Followyourart]

He'll realise soon enough what he's lost when you leave, Op. But by then you'll have already moved on. You only have one life.

[roundaboutthetown]

If I rated new male trainees on their levels of physical attractiveness and tried to compete with my friends to be the first to get their Facebook details, I seriously doubt my dh would be happy about that, and I would fully expect to have a reputation as a sleaze-bag at work.

[Justaboy]

roundaboutthetown Yess, but the male mind works at a simpler level;!

[pando]

Justaboy I think it is just him trying to keep in with the lads at work, "banter" but it's disrespectful to me (& the girl at work!) & it makes me sad to think he has that in his personality.
Solina Obviously normal to find other people attractive, that doesn't bother me, it's more of a question of where you draw the line when you're in a relationship.
The thing that scares me is the idea of him actively pursuing a friendship because he's attracted to her, as LaConnerie said.

[pando]

Woah no idea what has gone on with that last post! My phone is obviously as tired as I am.

[MinecraftyMum]

No not all men are like this, obviously. I'm pretty sure that DH isn't. I can't imagine it of him.

However, I know and know 'of' some serious fucking creeps in work. Including a group of 5 male managers, all married 30-something's, that recently had disciplinary hearings after they got caught in a bet as to who could shag more of the female staff (this isn't hearsay - I was in the hearings, taking minutes). Outwardly they're nice enough blokes, not overtly pervy or slimy.

I've met three of their wives. Lovely women. Two are FB friends after I met them at a function a few years back. Lots of happy family pictures of them, their hubby, kids etc on fb.

Pretty sure that if they were on mn they'd probably be of the 'your dp is a knob, my dh would never disrespect me so' persuasion. Scary shit.

[UnderTheGreenwoodTree]

roundaboutthetown Yess, but the male mind works at a simpler level;!

Rubbish - no such thing as a 'male mind' and very disrespectful to men to say that. Gender is a social construct.

[shovetheholly]

There's always a group of women who say 'All men are like this out of earshot of women'. It's an interesting way of trying make the issue completely and utterly empirically undecidable - you basically make the situation so that no woman can ever really give a valid empirical observation. And, in the process, you let those men off the hook by saying this is some kind of 'male nature' and 'boys will be boys'.

It's just not true, though. Just as there are weak women who will go along with all kinds of female bullying and pack behaviour, there are weak men who will do the same. And then there are stronger types who can stand more independently. You don't need to be an observer of all-male groups to know this: you can see it in attitudes in mixed groups. (Also, I used to work in the kind of bar where there were extensive amounts of stag dos - sometimes an entire room full of men with no women except the staff. And I can tell you, there are blokes who come in for a drink to be courteous, who don't participate, and who leave as early as they can).

Also, let's face it, the behaviour of the men who do this is scarcely so subtle that we can't pick it up in ordinary life. I worked for a disgusting late 50s boss who ranked and rated every female employee out of ten, and spoke extensively to the only other male colleague (years his junior, and one of the most utterly weak and pathetic specimens of masculinity I've ever had the misfortune to encounter) about us as objects. We all knew it was happening. Pretty sure his wife must have realised that he perved over everything in a skirt too - the same as every woman who's even been with a guy with a wandering eye has felt the humiliation as he looks at another woman with interest.

Not all men are like this. You don't have to put up with any of it, from the laddishness to enduring those glances at other people.

I also think there are a LOT of different male cultures. In some workplaces, you're far more likely to get this kind of behaviour - in others, where awareness of issues like gender is more central, you're perhaps less likely to find such overt discrimination. (Not saying there's no discrimination, just that this kind of neanderthal and unreconstructed behaviour is less common, because it would be seen as a kind of incompetence and a kind of unreconstructed gaucheness).

[roundaboutthetown]

I don't think the male mind works at a simpler level at all. The male mind knows perfectly well it is setting double standards and being inappropriate when men gang together to rate female employees for their attractiveness and compete to get to know them better! The general rule is, if you wouldn't like your partner to behave in such a twatish way, you know perfectly well it is entirely wrong to behave like that yourself.

[SohowdoIdothis]

Yess, but the male mind works at a simpler level;

Seriously? I find that really offensive , and very sexist.

There are lots of inadequate people in the world but to generalise using gender is unbelievable backwards.

[AnotherEffingOrangeRevel]

The whole Diet Coke Break advertising campaign is premised on groups of women "acting this way".

[roundaboutthetown]

Yes, and it's a bloody stupid advert, too... Although it isn't based on a group of senior female managers perving over a new trainee - it thinks it's on safer ground picking on a workman on the outside of the building and a group of young, apparently single women who don't expect ever to have to work with him; or a group of apparently single young women and a gardener in the park. Something tells me an advert about a woman with a partner and kids at home who comments in an e-mail to a colleague about how attractive a male intern is and how she must get to know him, would not be a smash hit.

[AnotherEffingOrangeRevel]

I'm not sure, round. You don't think the whole "cougar" thing would have selling power? Or characterisations like Dorian in Birds of a Feather? Yes, all a bit tedious and silly, but certainly a part of popular culture and perceptions of women.

[Frika]

The whole Diet Coke Break advertising campaign is premised on groups of women "acting this way".

No, it isn't. That campaign works off an ironic reversal of the usual scenario of male labourers/road workers/windowcleaners shouting 'look at the tits on that!' at a random woman passing by, minding her own business and getting aggressive if she doesn't respond. But in fact it alters the parameters/power relationships considerably to make it more acceptable and less challenging - a realer scenario would have had a bunch of ungroomed, conventionally unattractive women, including older women (no make up, body and/or facial hair in evidence, saggy breasts and ass cracks on unashamed show) roaring 'I'd fuck you into the ground!' at an obviously nervous young, good-looking man, and getting nasty if he doesn't respond.

Whereas the two Diet Coke break ads I can think of suggest the man being watched/lusted after is still the powerful one, not some kind of passive object - he takes off his shirt in a public place, he drinks unselfconsciously, and in the park one, he takes the attention as his due and walks off in command of the situation.

The ordinary-looking female office workers in the older ad are safely behind glass and not able to infringe on the builder's life at all, and the suggestion is that they're sad frumps getting a bit of vicarious thrill in a dull day.

The later one with the picnicking women in the park and the gardener is even more prettied-up and 'safe'. The women are all young and gorgeous - like a Benetton ad, one gorgeous brunette, one gorgeous blonde, one gorgeous redhead, one gorgeous black woman - and the gardener is perfectly happy with their flirtatious approach takes back control by doing a striptease, and making them a passive audience before he walks off having 'won', while the watching women are left open-mouthed.

Basically the park one is a male fantasy of what it would be like to have the body of a Greek God and be leered at by a bunch of supermodels.

And let's not forget this is to advertise a calorie- free product aimed at women. The ungroomed catcalling 'male' women in the 'realer' reversal scenario wouldn't be drinking Diet Coke because they wouldn't be worrying about their weight.

[AnotherEffingOrangeRevel]

realer scenario would have had a bunch of ungroomed, conventionally unattractive women, including older women (no make up, body and/or facial hair in evidence, saggy breasts and ass cracks on unashamed show) roaring 'I'd fuck you into the ground!' at an obviously nervous young, good-looking man, and getting nasty if he doesn't respond.

You're probably right.

[roundaboutthetown]

AnotherEffingOrangeRevel - are you arguing that women are expected to want to emulate Dorien on Birds of a Feather? And that men are not supposed to find her laughable?

[AnotherEffingOrangeRevel]

No, I was just exploring the idea that women also behave in a sort of "group ogling/objectifying" way. Not saying it's particularly desirable in any case, but it's certainly not exclusively male. I agree with Frika that it does have its differences in how it's portrayed, though. OP has additional issues to contend with than these, though. Sorry, OP.

[roundaboutthetown]

? Who were you arguing with, then? I don't recall ever saying women were not capable of behaving like that, just that if you would consider it unacceptable for your partner to do it, then you shouldn't do it, yourself, because it's twatish whoever does it...

[oliviaclottedcream]

curren Yours is the only sensible post IMO.

[CallousAndStrange]

Disregarding the bickering going on above, sure, OP, there are men who act like this. The late teens and early 20's single men at my first job in a bar did. And that's fine. Once they have a long-term partner and child hopefully they grow up. It sounds like yours still has his growing up to do. A serious chat needed I think, he needs to get his priorities sorted.

[RoboticSealpup]

Brilliant posts, shovetheholly and Frika. Love the discourse analysis of the diet coke ad!

Pando, I've had an ex boyfriend who did this kind of thing (amongst other crap). Now I'm married to a "Ben". True story. You're not being unreasonable at all. I think you sound really measured actually, and the consensus seems to be that good behaviour is not cool. However, I think it's a very common defense from men who like to behave like this: "All men do it!" They really don't.

And please never ever think it's your fault because it fucking isn't. You are the mother of his child, you're the fucking queen of the family you're a really important person, and so what if you're not "fun" and prettied up all the time? How many caregivers of small children are? My idea of being dolled up for my DH these days is to put on a pair of sweatpants without baby stains. It's not forever, it's just a phase. A part of being a grown-up. But maybe he isn't one.

Sorry if I got a bit carried away there with the swearing and whatnot.

[RoboticSealpup]

*That his behaviour is not cool! ffs