To ask how you feel about phones/flirting

[crochetmonkey74]

I'm single at the moment, so don't know if it's clouding my judgement.

I've just been on an after work dinner with colleagues and I really noticed how much instagram messaging and what's app messaging was happening. These are all people in relationships but they were messaging other colleagues all night.
They are young men with wives and kids messaging women but it's constant back and forth.
They are all younger than me, so I could just be totally out of touch but some of them must be sitting in a room with their spouse and kids constantly messaging someone from work. Is it me being over jealous? Is it an age thing? My close friend (male the same age as me) said he found it strange and his wife wouldn't be happy but we were wondering if it's because we grew up without phones as part of our teen development.
I sort of feel jealous of the excitement of it as I'm single with no flirting going on anywhere. Am I being an old grump?

I think it all depends on frequency (andI suppose down to the individual relationship)! I think it’s fine to text colleagues of the other gender from time to time but it’s when’s it’s persistent (eg every day, most days) that it crosses a boundary. Because if you spend all day with them in work I just can’t see why you would need to be in constant contact outside of it. That suggests something could be missing in your outside life. So I think it’s a perfectly healthy boundary

But what’s flirtatious about it? Are you reading it as flirtation only because it’s an opposite-sex situation?

I'm your age OP.
I'm friends with some colleagues and during the working day we're generally too busy to chat in person or online, and so in the evenings/weekends, we gossip, share memes, jokes. We're a mixed bunch, some male, some female, diff ages and home lives. Sometimes people don't respond if they're busy, doing other things, and nobody gets offended by that. It's never compulsory to respond to a ping on WhatsApp

Sometimes there'll be a group of us out, but one or two haven't been able to come out so we might message them throughout the evening to include them in some of the gossip.

No disrespect ever intended or caused to families/partners. No flirting. No drama.

Yeah get the group chat thing but this isn't that. This is two individuals pinging messages back and forth

Yes, it's not always group chats. Sometimes group, most of the time it's one-on-one. Still nothing more than chatting with friends.

If you're out to dinner with a person or persons then it is certainly ill mannered to sit there texting colleagues. Irrespective of what the colleague may be doing at home and whether the colleague at home is ignoring anyone they are with.

But people on this forum tend to fall short on manners so I'm not surprised that calling you names is the response to your query.

I'm actually really surprised by this. So people with partners, if while ypu were sitting watching a film, the entire night messages were going between him and a female colleague, it wouldn't rankle at all?

It would really depend.

If we had specifically arranged a “date” type night where we chose a film we both wanted to watch specifically, then I’d be annoyed at him texting anyone, regardless on what genitals they had. And he would be annoyed at me in the same circumstances.

If we were sat on the sofa mindlessly flicking through to find something to watch for a few hours before bed, then it wouldn’t matter, we don’t consider that quality time. Also, they might not have been sitting watching a film. Ops partner could have been doing their own thing too.

not ops partner, the person they were texting a partner.

So if it was your bloke messaging Barry all night about the football you'd be okish altho a bit rude but if it was Natalie that's interested in football that would be crossing a line?

See that I don't get. I have nights when my friend and I text on and off over the night. Not every night or even weekly but we have the odd night. We don't live near each other tho so maybe that's the difference, we can't just go to the pub once a fortnight for a natter. Their sex is immaterial.

No your not I’m a 00s teen so probably the same generation as them
and would be really annoyed if that was my husband,

You made a very good point about landlines puts it in a different perspective

I work in a small team and we all have to travel. Sometimes together sometimes alone. We have a group chat and do talk to each other out of hours. It’s normally about something funny we have seen or something funny that’s happened.

If someone’s gone to a group event and there’s one of us missing we would message them during the event so they were included too.

When I’m home it’s my free time too and if I want to talk to friends I will.

You see no I think you’re wrong. She doesn’t sound insecure. It is absolutely rude above anything else to be constantly messaging other people in front of your partner for WHATEVER reason - a few funny texts, a message or something here or there sure - constant messaging no! Why?

Sorry that was in reply to Cherlloyd…. I would say raise the bar…