His friends are naked insta models half his age

[Newtothisanddonunderstand]

OLD: I’m early days, non exclusive, with a nice guy, early 40s. He’s not conventionally attractive but fun to be around and I do fancy him. We see each other every week/couple of weeks.

He has lots of female friends of all ages, and lots of them are young gym instagram model types who put endless videos of themselves in nothing but thongs in bed, or thong bikinis. He goes for dinner with them or takes them on his yacht and tags them and him together in photos, they put photos of them looking nice at the restaurant or the yacht but don’t put him in their photos (!)

He also goes for dinner with much older women friends. He asked once why I was jealous of his gym friends and not his octogenarian friends once. It was a good question! I think of myself as a feminist and I am (was?) fairly confident about my body and my looks, but I find myself really judging these women using instagram as their own personal page 3, and feeling insecure about his friendships with them.

Is that a stupid reason to cut contact with him!? I can’t articulate it “because you’re friends with hot people!?” sounds insane. Thank you MN!

This is exactly my question! That surely it isn’t okay for me to be uncomfortable with him being friends with beautiful woman who show as much of their bodies in sexy ways as instagram will allow. When I am comfortable with his friendships with elderly women and fitness model men?

im surprised that I’m being told that yes I should cut it off, I honestly thought I was being unreasonable to him, because he would say they were all his friends and I’m only assuming he’s perving because they are women and therefore I’m sexist.

im sorry if I’ve been rude, I’m trying to be factual. It’s not holiday snaps. As an example, one post is a video of a lady lying on top of a bed in only a g string captioned “brrr February in London”

I think the main red flag is that he knows these young women are basically using him and he's ok with that. He likes this superficial and vapid Instagram fantasy where he's chilling on his yacht with young hot girls.

It doesn't mean he's necessarily a bad guy but I wouldn't personally date someone like that. I would think he's superficial and a bit sad with probably some messed up ideas about women.

What is his relationship history like, has he ever been married?

Who's taking the photo - herself or are there other people (other than your friend) there doing it.

I didn't realise it was that bad, I thought it was them in skimpy gear on deck or something.

Not really, his last gf (I met her) was lovely, normal, nothing like the “yacht crew!” I don’t think the models are at fault, I want to know if I’d be at fault for walking away because of it!

the yacht isn’t cool enough to be a swanky matchmaking thing I don’t think. Most of these ladies are gym buddies. He took me to the gym once, it’s very much like that! (I go to the cheap gym and we don’t socialise in mine!)

So you haven’t seen this yacht. You haven’t seen these woman in RL. There is a high possibility that he is faking the whole thing, including hot male friends. Apparently some men do this

OP I think you're struggling with this because you've accepted his narrative, i.e. they are his friends and it's not ok to judge his friends just because they are beautiful women who like to show off their bodies on SM.

But you've said in your own OP that it's not really that simple. They are clearly using him, they are not real friends. He knows they are using him and he doesn't mind. That is what makes the whole thing icky.

Also it's ok to be uncomfortable with the extent to which women are sexualising themselves on SM. It's not about telling them to cover up, it's about a bigger problem of women basing their self-esteem and identity on how attractive they are, on making this their primary way of interacting with the world. I don't personally judge women who do this but I do hate the social pressures that encourage them to do this, and that can absolutely be a feminist critique.

Why are you judging these girls (young women, at 20?!) And not your idiot partner? Bizarre.

Ohhh this would be a twist!!! But I’ve met some of them and I can see the bloody yacht moored from my office window 😂

he took me to a rock show with some of his friends at the weekend and they were so nice, normal people, they joked they hadn’t been on the yacht either! I really really like that side of him, but AIBU to chuck him because I really don’t like the yacht side…?

If he recognises that they are gold diggers and are just using him then his continuing to wine and dine them at his expense shows him as being a needy and vain individual who needs his ego stroked.

Are you capable of having your own independent thought?

You're either being very disingenuous about women or just a bit stupid.

Coming to MN talking about models and yachts and asking whether to call it off while being awful about other women and not questioning your boyfriend.

Weird.

Why are they gold diggers?

You have to ask. Your reaction is human and normal.

Dump.

@WildUnchartedWaters not my partner, slow down! This thread is to help me work out that i have a good enough reason not to want him to be.

And in answer to your other question- I recruit. I wouldn’t employ them because work with teenagers and I’m constantly fighting a losing battle to make young girls believe they have a value beyond their sex appeal!

@WildUnchartedWaters what exactly is awful that I’ve said about them?

and I don’t know why he called them gold diggers. He’s not remotely well off. Only thing I can think of is that english isn’t his first language, or maybe he means with other men, not him. It was a throwaway comment, I didn’t press him on it.

You wouldn't be at fault at all for walking away from a guy who does stuff you aren't comfortable with. You need to have similar values and I suspect he is rather superficial given these "friends". Sounds like he's a sugar daddy, but also potentially has sugar mummies with the octogenarians 😁 I wouldn't like it either, strange all round. I don't think it's being unfeminist to feel bikini instas aren't particularly doing much for women. Personally I think they are playing to the male version of what a woman should be/look like and profiteering from it at the expense of women in general. It saddens me that we haven't progressed from this.

You have heard of yachting, haven't you? Exactly what you describe. Older men giving young women money to party on yachts....and if they do more they get more money. Have a Google!

In response to people saying that he knows they're using him and lets them.abc it's icky etc.

Maybe they supply free advertising & promotion for his yacht/business.

Maybe it's two way.

*Sounds like he's a sugar daddy, but also potentially has sugar mummies with the octogenarians 😁

So he's a sugar daddy & sugar baby simultaneously. This thread is entertaining, that's for sure

I would wonder a little myself what goes on on the yacht with the posey gym bunny Instagram models and whether it's only taking photos.

I think the fact he describes the bikini clad tribe as gold diggers and he wouldn't want to be with any of them - yet takes them out on his boat and spends time socialising with them and taking them out for dinner speaks volumes.

If he thought they were so superficial as to be gold diggers, why on earth is he socialising with them? What exactly does a 40 year old man have in common with young bikini clad 20 somethings? And its not just one woman, its a tribe of them.

The answer to that is because he enjoys it. I mean a day on a yacht with bikini models half his age. he is hardly going for the fishing. Of course he wants a nice sensible girlfriend, not someone who he thinks is a gold digger!

He has his older more age appropriate (and clothed appropriate) friends, hence he also has in his circle women older and more his age. But he spends time with his bikni clad friends simply because he likes being in the apparant gold digging, shallow company. I'm guessing the bikini's and fit young bodies have a large part to play in it. So much so that he loves splashing the fact all over his social media....

That there is what gives me the ick. He is shallow and laps up the ego boost he gets from women half his age. While not actually wanting to date one.

I couldn't be with someone like that. Different if he was genuine friends with them and their outtings didn't involve them wearing very little and him buying them dinners.
And he hasn't taken you on his yacht yet and splashed that over social media......... Why not?

So many prejudices and insecurities coming out here OP, many young women I know made a lot of money from instagram/onlyfans/social media and become successful entrepreneurs. Paris Hilton became a millionaire thanks to a home made blow- j-ob video. Putting down these young women because they have an insta account with bikini pictures on a yatch shows prejudice. You don't know these women from scratch. Apparently your boyfriend finds them interesting enough to be around them and have them as friends but you don't like this, it makes you insecure, that and the fact their bodies are more toned. It's just too much to deal with I guess.

This is making me laugh, whatever happens with him!

Trying to balance not drip feeding with not being identifying!

we live by the sea, I have a yacht license, although no yacht. Mind you, the yacht isn’t actually his, it belongs
to his sugar daddy! 😂 I helped him get his captains license so he could charge to take customers. So up to now he’s not been allowed to make money from it, and he does use their photos in the airbnb listing. He thinks it’s an impressive yacht business but it’s a 5 seater glorified powerboat really. It wouldn’t be impressive enough for yachting, the girls are quite careful not to include the actual boat in the pics, just the sea/views.

do you think what he means by gold diggers is that they’re not rich enough to keep him in his lifestyle and he’s not rich enough for them. If he had more money he’d use it to hook an Insta girl but he doesn’t ? Are you more financially secure than him op?

Paris Hilton became a millionaire thanks to a home made blow- j-ob video.

Haha, really? OK then. Being an heir to a 14.2billion dollar company didn't have anything to do with it then? or her teen modelling career? Or her reality TV stints? But yes you are right, she made millions simply from giving some bloke a BJ, before that she was just an ordinary girl from a 2 bed semi. Seriously 🙄

@Sandra1984 thats a lot of assumption! My body is pretty amazing thank you, certainly no less toned! Also he is not my boyfriend, just someone I’m seeing and thinking about whether or not to be more serious with.

what makes me insecure is the shallowness of that whole… world. I liked the rock show version of him.

Yuck. To the whole thing.