Wish DS would shut up about his gfs ex career

[LyndieLoula]

DS is 25, he’s intelligent and generally I get on really well. About a year ago he moved abroad, he seems happy with this choice and about 6 months ago he started dating a new girl. His ex wrecked him (cheated, lied and was generally very manipulative) so I was happy to see him happy. However every single time we talk he cannot help but mention that his GF used to model. Which is true she did used to model and walked in some shows at fashion weeks etc. She quit and finished uni got a degree in Literature and Philosophy and is now building a career.
I do not care that his GF used to model and DS always says it in a very smug way, it makes me wonder if he is with the girl because he likes her or if he just enjoys saying his partner is an ex model. It’s infuriating and it really makes me view him quite poorly! My younger DS said that sometimes if he shows his brother a picture of a girl he’s going on a date with he replies “yeah she’s alright, I feel like I’ve been spoiled dating an ex model” which is beyond sickening to me.
AIBU to be really infuriated and disappointed that this seems to be something he can’t help but mention?? I’ve told him we know she used to be a model and that’s great but we’d much rather hear about what she’s doing now but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears!

No, because being a paralegal or a teacher involves hard work and self-discipline.
Modelling is a matter of being the right look for the current era and is pretty much down to luck.

but in the same vein yes I would be annoyed if one of my kids said to their siblings whose partner say worked as a cleaner in a school (nothing wrong with that this is just the example), oh she works in a school as a cleaner, well my gf used to be a teacher etc

Thanks for the reminder re Papa Starmer the Toolmaker ... loved that.

OP there are dozens of creative ways you should be ripping the piss here. His little brother sounds more mature than him!

See it’s not this and I think that’s quite unfair. I have actually spoke to his GF about her time as a model and for part of it she was doing it alongside uni. While it’s certainly more glamorous than many careers it’s not as simple as luck and genetics, clearly an amount of confidence and presence is required, plus the casting calls, rehearsals, and her description of doing the fashion weeks back to back is that she was doing multiple shows per week and some would end late the next start early, plus fittings etc.

So it’s not that I don’t think modelling is a career to be proud of, it’s that I don’t think he’s saying out of pride for effort or skill but rather “oh my new girlfriend is so attractive”, while she objectively is a beautiful girl, she also has a degree from a top Paris uni, and is doing a masters so she’s much more than just that!

He sounds very much like the flatmate of a friend of my then boyfriend.

This was back in the late 60s early 70s when female cabin crew, 'air hostesses' as they were officially known (also labelled 'trolley dollies') were required to look a certain way; in fact it was all about how they looked, and the job was considered rather glamorous.

It was known among this flatmate's friends that he only ever dated air hostesses. Everyone knew because he never shut up about it.

He came across as a complete and utter knob tbh. Every week he would be waxing lyrical about yet another new air hostess he'd met and he'd go on and on at great length about what she looked like.

He never spoke about these women's personalities, it was literally just about how amazing they looked, how they moved etc.

He wasn't a stupid man, having qualified as a doctor, but he was horribly arrogant, shallow and misogynistic.

Pps have suggested you make a joke of it every time your DS brings up that his gf was a model but joking about his obsession with air hostesses didn't stop the flatmate going on about each new gf's looks so it very likely won't work for your DS.

Have you ever met a 25 year old bloke?

I imagine most that age would brag about bagging an ex model. Irritating, but hardly the crime of the century.

It sounds like he has put her on a pedestal I wonder if he does this with his girlfriends. Hence his exs bad behaviour. Or maybe he can’t believe his luck. It’s a shame he seems to see her looks more than her brains I think I would tell him that.

If he was proud of her surely he would be talking about her NOW. Not what she did 5 years ago. All. The. Time.

this is creepy

My response to "She used to be a model" would be along the lines of "Oh, really? And what does she do now?" Because that's what's interesting about her.

OP if he ever says this in her presence you should roll your eyes and turn to her and ask if it does her head in that whilst having a great brain and working towards her masters, all DS keeps banging on and on about is that he was a model 5 years ago.

He's being daft, but he's probably feeling defensive about his choice of partner and trying to sell it to you in the only way he knows how.

I speak as someone who inflicted the most vile and ludicrous choices of "DP" on my poor long-suffering parents, until finally marrying (DH#2) a lovely man. Even now, I try to sell him to them even though there is no need.

Positively, it could be his way of saying he’s proud of her. I guess he could be excited about her beauty? I don’t know, men are a mystery to me. Ask your husband?!

However, someone telling me the same thing 100 times would do my head in. You could tell him to change the record. He’s being a bit irritating but there are worse things ….

yes, but your son is not talking about that aspect, the hard work, he's talking about her as a trophy girlfriend. Does he mention the degree from the Paris university? And yes, somewhere it is a question of luck and genetics, to be tall enough, to be slim enough, to be photogenic, to have the face that fits the fashion. And he keeps going on and on about it.

I used to model as a teen many years ago.

Frankly, if I was to become aware of that incident, I'd dump the guy. I wonder if she's aware how he talks about her behind her back. There's guys that look to date models because they're models, amongst the ones that have half a brain as this girl seems to, they are considered quite sad and not relationship material.

It's a bit Alan Partridge.

She sounds like an interesting person from what you've said, it's strange that he's focusing on this, almost sounds like a self esteem issue.

God, he sounds insufferable. Smug is never a good look.

I don't think it's as bad as that.
He's just showing off, he's only young still. When I was younger I dated a slightly older chap and I probably would have gone on about that, had I had the chance. I felt very grown up!

And as an adult in my 20s a lot of my friends would have been crowing about snogging one of the 1st XV men on a Saturday night!

I'd echo what pp suggested, and just take the piss out of him for being insufferable!

Just tell him he sounds like a total tit. Like name dropping. No one gives a single fuck.

This is also the strategy I would take!

Imagine how current girlfriend feels poor girl because he won't be quiet on it I guarantee

Ex-model here turned Medical Physicist.
I had an Ex BF who used to do this. There was never any mention of my career - it was highly annoying! I also felt like I had to live up to this elevated version of myself that he kept touting, or I feared that people would be disappointed when they met me and realized I was just a rather slight plain Jane.
I wonder how the GF feels about this.

I think the crux of the matter is that…it wasn’t really a ‘career’ as such and anyway, it’s over!

So all he’s really proud of is that he’s pulled a hot chick (or whatever ghastly terminology might fit his mindset). It’s basically “I bet you wish your girlfriend was hot like mine” stuff. Tiresome.

Can’t you just be blunt and tell him that you are tired of it? Tell him it’s disrespectful and that he will lose her if he continues to focus on her past and her looks v her brain.

Play the 'Flight of the Conchords' song 'Part-time Model' to him... 😄

"You're so beautiful
You could be a part time model
But you'd probably still have to keep your normal job
A part time model
Spending part of your time modelling
And part of your time next to me
And the rest of your time doing your normal job..."

I’d say “bit of luck she wasn’t a model for specsavers” that’d shock him 😆

Or I’d keep asking him ‘what did your partner used to do again?’ I’d do it to the point it wound him up then tell him how ridiculous he sounds.