AIBU to see his reaction to being called boy as a red flag?

[Poppies2222x]

I’ve been seeing someone for a few months and something happened this morning that has made me question whether he’s got an ego problem that could be a cause for concern.

Me and three friends (all in our late 20s) booked a woodland lodge for three nights Thursday to Sunday for a weekend away and my boyfriend has come with us.

This morning after breakfast we were relaxing around the hot tub and my friend told BF “come on, get the drinks poured, boy” not in a rude tone but in a funny ‘let’s get this party started’ kind of way. She’s very bubbly and didn’t mean anything by it. He poured the drinks with a moody look on his face and a few minutes later however he said he really took offence and said he wasn’t a boy, he was a man, and that he found it disrespectful. The mood changed quite quickly and afterwards he was still annoyed about it.

I asked him why it bothered him so much and he said that being called a boy was belittling. I found this extremely cringy and fragile on his part and I’m wondering why he would view this as belittling? To me it seems he views boys as below him and I don’t want a partner with a fragile ego who thinks men are superior to everyone else including boys.

I was just discussing this with my friends whilst he was on a walk and they all found it off putting and embarrassing on his part.

AIBU for seeing this as a bit of a red flag, or is it reasonable for him to want to be referred to as a man rather than a boy?

OP was not the person to call him 'boy', the friend did, could he not have put it aside for her sake?

She's not the 'guilty party' here, remember.

At the very least, he's not prepared to put his feelings aside temporarily so that somebody else can enjoy themselves.

So, @QuintadosMalvados would you tell a woman to put her feelings aside when her boyfriend's male friend puts her down in front of her boyfriend? That she should put up with that so that her boyfriend and his other male friends can enjoy themselves?

Good grief.

Nah, I’m calling bullshit. If it was some men who said “come on girl pour the drinks” then MN would self combust.

I often socialise with a group of friends who love a hot tub. I absolutely do not want to get in a hot tub with them and their DPs.

So I always offer to get the drinks on these occasions. It’s quite usual for me to hear “two more beers serving wench!”

It is obviously light hearted banter. The DP here sounds like a sulky bore.

Yes, but these are your friends. You know it's banter. The guy in question here doesn't know the women, they're not his friends, so it's a different situation. You would feel different if strangers referred to you as wench!

I think it's weird to take you bf on a girly trip to get to know them

It was light-hearted banter. How many more times does that have to be pointed out.
The lack of imagination to picture the scene as presented by the OP is astounding.
It's not a boardroom. It's a party.

This is not a flip the gender thing, as men are not usually expected to serve women.drinks.
Even now women do more domeatic labour.
How can you not see that?
How can't you see that flipping the genders does not always work?
To fully answer a question posed earlier put forward to me earlier by @AutumnHazel :
From what I can see, they weren't demanding he constantly serve him drinks.
Yes, I'd be pissed off if I was expected to serve drinks ALL The Time.
As a one-off, let's get this party started comment, not an issue.

@QuintadosMalvados.I am reminded of the contestant chucked out of big brother for using the term ‘wigga’ during light hearted banter. It was a ‘joke’. Racism is never light hearted. It makes people uncomfortable . At school, teachers fought hard to get casual sexism and homophobia treated in the way that racism was treated. Calling people ‘gay lords ‘ and worse was described as ‘banter’. Some boys routinely called girls ‘bitches’. Teachers fought so hard to stop this supposed banter. Anything like this is not casual banter. It makes people uncomfortable. Saying it is banter to call a man ‘boy’ is not banter. Neither is it banter to refer to girls as ‘bitches’. It is demeaning and designed to belittle. I remember when terms like Taffy and Paddy were casually used as nicknames for Welsh and Irish members of staff. Light hearted banter. Only it is isn’t light hearted for the person on the receiving end. The male victim here did not like being addressed as ‘boy’. It was out of order and makes me wonder if the posters defending it would still be using racist and homophobic terms if they could get away with it. I suspect they would if they could.

Well you assume wrong.

Calling an adult white man boy is not comparable to the things you mention.
As has been said many times, if he were a black person it would be different and I'd be on his side.

Not comparable.
No white man is 'oppressed' on account of him being called boy ffs.

It's not a f*cking slur on his sexuality, ethnicity, or background.
'Male victim'. Lol.

It doesn't have to be any of those things to be unacceptable.

Calling someone you don't know well - and who is the newest member of the social group - "boy" and ordering them around is rude, impolite and extremely poor social etiquette. It's designed to belittle them and make them feel like an outsider. It's the opposite of making them feel welcome. It doesn't matter who's doing the calling; if this was an all-male group we'd see it for the bullying it is, especially when justified by "it's just light-hearted bants".

As has been explained many times to you - and you continue to ignore this - it also has classist and servant/staff connotations regardless of race.

But the -isms and historical connotations aren't actually that important. What it comes down to is that it's rude, belittling behaviour - and standing up for oneself in the face of that is not "whining", it's to be commended for having normal boundaries.

They absolutely would.

I'm mixed-race and I recall very well several events where 1) stereotypes were made about my race and I was told it was just a joke when I objected, 2) someone was outright racist but I was told it was OK, I wasn't like "the rest of them" whatever the fuck that was meant to mean (presumably being middle-class and speaking fluent, unaccented English).

I also remember a party where the only Black woman there was told "jokingly" to "get up and do some R&B dancing". She left very shortly afterwards. I didn't have time to check if she was OK and I didn't know her well enough to have her contact details. I told the woman who'd made that comment she was out of order, and she said "it was just light-hearted". I left very shortly after that too.

He didn't speak out though. He was whining to his girlfriend about it after.

Why on earth didn't he say to the person that offended him that they had offended him, if he is the man he is claiming to be?

Your friend was rude,if you have only been dating a while, presumably your partner wouldn't be aware she was being jokey. My DH was called boy in his 30s by an uncle, and it was meant as an insult, talking down to him. I have a friend with a rather unpleasant son of 41, she excuses his terrible behaviour and rudeness says ",oh,these young boys". I reply "he's a middle aged man.

On top of your weird ideas about what a man is, you don't seem to have much reading comprehension.

Try reading the OP again. He spoke up in the moment, and then replied when the OP asked him about it later. This is not "whining" by any stretch of the imagination.

Is your friend from Cork by any chance OP?

People call each other boy and girl a lot there, as you can see in this clip from The Young Offenders:
www.facebook.com/share/r/19Dj4L6KLT/?mibextid=wwXIfr

So now it's reduced to being merely impolite.
Yet this man has such a low tolerance for perceived slights he has a hissy fit over it.

You and other women here are projecting how you'd feel at being called a girl onto white men being called a boy.
Which is understandable as women have historically expected to serve men in the domestic sphere.

It is pure solipsism.

You are doing, in my opinion, the
rather childish thing of flipping the genders and because you'd feel offended you're assuming a man would feel the same about being called a boy at a social (not professional where it could be a power play) event with women.
(It could be argued that it could be a power play if another man called him boy, too. I get that).

He really f* ing wouldn't unless he's a complete drip.
Or just abusive.
"Don't you dare call me a boy, bitch."
Andrew Tate springs to mind.
That's who I imagine with this guy, not that he's a victim.

If you're going to get personal about this, I'm going to suggest that you are incapable of not being solipsistic.

I can’t believe how many people are coming up with the “banter” excuse straight out of the misogyny playbook. Being called “boy” has tones of slavery and it’s so offensive - ask any black American man. It’s a huge red flag - for him.

I've said this before but you're doing a LOT of imagining, and embellishing. And ignoring - are you going to acknowledge that white male servants and staff have historically been - and in fact still are - called "boy" by their employees as a means of reinforcing the social difference?

There was no hissy fit. The man did not say "bitch". This has fuck all to do with Andrew Tate. You don't know what the word "solipsism" means.

Solipsism - not being able to comprehend that other people may experience things differently to you.

Thus whilst I'm sure that the women who disagree with me can indeed appreciate that other people experience things differently to them, in this instance they cannot as they believe that as they'd perhaps justifiably feel offended in these circumstances if the genders were flipped a man would automatically feel the same.

He is a young white British man, they are young white British women.
To bring slavery into it is ridiculous.

In this context notions of slavery are absurd.
If he were a black or mixed race man, I'd be on his side.

And it's obviously not a quote from OP's boyfriend it is an imagining of what Tate might say.

Did @Poppies2222x bring him along to wait on friends. Depends how she said it. You might think it's 'funny' but others might not. I find some of these 'fun' girls pretty immature personally.

Lots of 'girls' together drinking can behave badly as lots of men together drinking can. Seems strange for you to want him there when the 'fun' girl and other/s didn't have any partners, boyfriends etc. Strange mix.

"Calling someone you don't know well - and who is the newest member of the social group - "boy" and ordering them around is rude, impolite and extremely poor social etiquette. It's designed to belittle them and make them feel like an outsider. It's the opposite of making them feel welcome. It doesn't matter who's doing the calling; if this was an all-male group we'd see it for the bullying it is, especially when justified by "it's just light-hearted bants"."

This comment from another poster @Poppies2222x can you really not see this perspective at all?

I was going to ask about this. Anyone questioning why this is being raised is truly fucking ignorant. Things like ‘boyo’ are completely different.

Even if it doesn’t apply he’s not a dick for not wanting to be called boy.

It sounds like school kids with all the talk of bantz. I bet the OP and all the other minimisers and defenders of using terms to belittle and undermine would never do it in a setting where they would be held accountable. I gave an example upthread of guests at posh hotels calling middle aged male members of staff 'boy'. It is unacceptable. I am shocked by the posters who dismiss it and I am sure they also dismiss other forms of discrimination as 'bantz'.

This thread is a good example of why men still hide their feelings.

As for red flags. No that you and your friends know that he doesn't like it will you still be using it?

Because still calling him "boy" would be a red flag.

This is the most useful comparison - indeed it's not a comparison, it's the actual point of the "joke". They're treating him as staff or a servant. Of course it's meant to be belittling.

In fact gender is a bit of a red herring because you can imagine the exact same thing happening if a group of men wants to pick on one particular man who doesn't fit in.