I'm in a bit of a difficult situation, 're jealousy from friends' partners.

[Appalonia]

this is a bit of a long tale, so please hear with me. I'm single and I've been doing a hobby for the past 5 years. During this time I've become friends with 2 guys whom I've met through it.. I became friends with one guy as he used to give me a lift home afterwards, as I don't drive and he lived on my way home. The three of us often went for a drink after, we all got on great, just as mates.

However, recently it's all got rather complicated, all behind my back

So, in June, one of these guys, let's call him Pete, told me that his girlfriend
( whom I had met 7 times, and we'd always got on great ) had banned him from seeing me outside the classes/ group that we went to, as she was jealous of me. I was really shocked as I had no idea she felt like this. He only told me as if asked him if he was interested in going to an event related to the hobby and he was being a bit non committal about it. He said he was starting to feel controlled and suffocated by her demands. It just felt so stupid to me, as there was never anything between us, at all. It almost broke them up, but eventually they did reconcile. She admitted she had trust issues, due to her having been cheated on before. I've tried to be a good friend to him and help him work through it, but tbh I feel pretty pissed off with her for affecting our friendship, over nothing.

So tonight, we went out for a drink and he tells me that the wife of the other guy in our hobby group is ALSO jealous of me. This shocked me even more, as this is the guy that used to give me a lift home. Apparently, she didn't like the fact that other people in the pub that the 3 of us used to go to, would see him with another woman, which is the reason why she then started joining us in the pub after our weekly group.

I've just never experienced anything like this before, I've always had male friends and to me they were just mates. I now feel in a really awkward position knowing how the partners
both feel about me. I don't want to give up my hobby and I'd like to somehow sort it out with these women, but I don't know how.

I've never flirted with these men, as I said, I never saw them as anything more than mates. This only came out tonight as if found out the 4 of them had gone out for a drink without me, whereas before, we'd all have gone out together. Pete very reluctantly told me about how this other woman was feeling about me and then it all made sense.

I feel upset, excluded and most of all, feel like I'm being penalised but I haven't done anything wrong! I don't know how to make this situation any better. I have no romantic interest in these men whatsoever, I like them as people and they're the only people I have to share this hobby with, which I don't want to give up.

I don't really know what I'm expecting from this thread, but any advice would be gratefully received.

@gannett

But I think you’ve actually highlighted the precise distinction I’m talking about.
If you’ve known someone for 20 years, have an established friendship, share an industry or hobby, and occasionally go to gigs together because you have a mutual interest, I don’t think most people would find that remotely remarkable.
But that’s an entirely different dynamic from the OP’s situation, isn’t it? She hasn’t known these men for 20 years. She hasn’t grown up in the same friendship group with their partners. In fact, she apparently hasn’t even met the partners at all.

That’s not remotely comparable to your Erykah Badu example!!

Likewise, I don’t think every man I meet needs to become my independent friend simply because we’re capable of having a conversation. Sometimes you get on brilliantly with someone; sometimes you don’t; sometimes you like someone perfectly well but have no desire to go for coffee with them. That’s hardly a social pathology.

I am a natural introvert so I really have zero desire to add more people to my social obligation list anyway 🤣

I think we’re also overlooking the fact that not everyone has the same appetite for socialising.

You clearly enjoy having a very broad social circle and lots of independent friendships, which is absolutely fine.

But some of us are introverts and don’t want to go to a different gig with a different person every night of the week. 😂

Your list of lunches, drinks, gigs, dinners, work trips and various other social engagements honestly sounds like my idea of a very exhausting punishment.

I don’t see a pleasant person and think, “Excellent, another potential social obligation to add to the calendar.” 😂

I like my friends. I like their partners perfectly well. I can chat to them, laugh with them and enjoy their company. But I don’t necessarily want to develop an independent friendship with every one of them - and that doesn’t make my social circle “strange” or “regressive”.

It just means I have a lower social battery than you do.

And frankly, I’m quite happy with that. 😂

Agree

Life drawing ... cinema-going .... ballroom dancing ... YOU NEVER KNOW WHEN SEX MAY HAPPEN

True. All these things can involve accidentally tripping and falling onto someone’s penis. Dangerous territory indeed.

Yes, absolutely. And I feel really bad for the straights who do believe in friendships etc because you apparently never know when one of your mates is going to get some new partner who'll decide you can't possibly handle being near her Gary without being overcome with lust and trying to mount him in the middle of a post D&D club Wetherspoons pint or something.

And the other half just seem to not want to have meaningful friendships or a support structure outside of their romantic/sexual relationships (maybe a few strictly same sex friendships, as long as their same sex friends are also very straight, I guess).

It just seems quite isolating.

Oh god. As I said upthread, my repeated experience has been that striking up solo friendships with men does in fact almost inevitably lead to them overstepping a boundary at some point. If that hasn’t been your experience, fabulous. But it has been mine.

So I don’t strike up friendships with men I don’t wish to shag as I’m not interested in the drama. I’m not afraid to trip and fall onto a penis. Please stop making my utterly reasonable life choice that is based on extended experience into some kind of joke.

Well it sounds quite isolating when you exaggerate and dramatize it to the point of silliness like that. Why do you feel the need to do that?

And some of us already have more than enough lovely friends in our lives that we aren’t so desperately short of companionship that we’re thinking, “You know what would really complete my social calendar? One-to-one drinks with Gary at the local Wetherspoons.” 🤣

Gary really isn’t the friendship prize that all of us are apparently fighting to win. 😂

If your idea of social isolation is “I don’t regularly go for one-to-one drinks with my friends’ husbands,” then I think we’re using the word “isolation” rather creatively.

How would you feel if you had a husband and he became friends with a woman at a local hobby and was giving her lifts home and going to the pub with her??

No, you're right. I was using hyperbole and that wasn't fair. I suppose it was all the people talking about how single women shouldn't be friends with men, and they would never be alone with a man in a relationship, and that was how affairs start. And it wasn't a very relatable stance to me, and so I was sarcastic but that wasn't helpful.

I do agree with this, I’ve had male friends when I was younger where the friendship has gone sour due to blurred lines/lack of boundaries. I then made friends with someone at work I really got along with and mentally installed a lot more boundaries. It worked as we both then met partners but still all meet up together as a 4 and I love his wife!

My husband also has female friends from his school days but due to them having solid boundaries when they were younger it now means he still gets to still see them 20 years later! We recently had a baby and his female friend came up with her husband and bought me round lots of really sweet, thoughtful bits! She messages me more than she messages him and we went on each others hen dos.

Basically if you get on with them enough to want them in your life then you need to make more effort with their partners and install more boundaries. If you're not that bothered about their friendships then don’t worry though!

As one of those people, for me it’s not necessarily because it’s “how affairs start”, it’s because I’m utterly fed up of the awkward situations created when a straight man starts overstepping boundaries. I have just had it happen too many times to want the potential drama any more.

Obviously I know there are men out there who aren’t going to start flirting once we’ve spent enough one-on-one time or complaining about my friends (their partners) in inappropriate ways or making ambiguous comments, but it happens often enough that one-on-one friendships with men just aren’t worth taking the chance.

That’s leaving aside the possibility that a man might be completely platonic with me but have a track record of inappropriate behaviour with other women and his friendship with me is causing his partner anxiety, even if nothing’s going on from my point of view. Honestly, why bother, there’s very little you can get from a one-on-one friendship that you can’t get from one in a group setting. One-on-one friendships are where more intimate conversations tend to happen; I don’t want intimate conversations with men and I don’t even want to make the effort of having to stay conscious of steering conversations away from rocky territory.

But yeah, people seem to get real mad when you decide to decentre men to the degree of not wanting independent friendships with them.

But yeah, people seem to get real mad when you decide to decentre men to the degree of not wanting independent friendships with them.

Indeed.

Some of us have simply had enough experience of men overstepping boundaries, making inappropriate comments, turning innocent conversations into relationship therapy sessions, or eventually developing feelings that nobody ordered -and decided that, frankly, the admin isn't worth it.

I think that's a perfectly reasonable personal choice.

Likewise, I don't particularly want to spend my limited free time cultivating independent friendships with my friends' husbands even regardless of the above.

Not because I'm worried I'll suddenly lose all self-control and attempt to seduce Gary over a pint of lager 😂, but because I already have plenty of lovely friends.

Somehow, though, there seems to be an assumption on this thread that Gary is a rare and precious social commodity and we're all terribly deprived if we don't secure our own independent friendship with him.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass on the Gary experience. 😂

And the irony of being told we're apparently terrified of wanting to shag Gary while simultaneously being told we must want to cultivate a meaningful independent friendship with him is rather delicious.

What’s wrong with life drawing? 🤔

Don't know about MN generally, can only speak to rock climbing

When you say the 4 of them went for a drink without you, do you mean the 2 couples? That's called a double date, so they wouldn't necessarily want a random single tagging along.

And I say this as a single woman! Sometimes couples want to do couple-y things with other couples.

Or do you mean there are 5 of you that do the hobby and you were the only one left out of a social drink? Because that's not fair, if the guy(s) isn't 'allowed' to see you socially then he/they don't go to drinks.

I agree. Don't have statistical data to support but I would expect opportunity and availability would have a lot to do with infidelity

As far as I'm concerned this is a nothing burger. Two guys chose their partners' feelings first. How unusual lol. There's nothing to figure out. You are just Hobby acquaintances. If My husband's Hobby acquaintance contacted me to try and make some nebulous thing right, I'd ask her why she was bothering me. Be cordial while at the hobby place. That's it.

Some of us have simply had enough experience of men overstepping boundaries, making inappropriate comments, turning innocent conversations into relationship therapy sessions, or eventually developing feelings that nobody ordered -and decided that, frankly, the admin isn't worth it.

Have you never experienced the first three from female acquaintances? I bloody have. (And of course I've experienced all four from men. Being open to friendships with men doesn't mean I can't or won't set boundaries with inappropriate people of either sex.)

Somehow, though, there seems to be an assumption on this thread that Gary is a rare and precious social commodity and we're all terribly deprived if we don't secure our own independent friendship with him.

Sorry, who is Gary now? You seem to have invented a hypothetical potato-like man who no one wants to socialise with. Of course men like that exist but this thread is about men who are good social company, that's sort of the entire premise.

I don’t know one single woman in real life who would be ok with their partner going alone to a pub with a woman they didn’t know, unnecessarily I might add- they’ve presumably just spent time together at the hobby anyway, and then giving her a lift home too. Just no.
Argue all you want but that would not be happening.

Agreed. I mean, I'm not in the habit of befriending anyone who oversteps boundaries, is over-invested in the friendship, or treats me as a relationship therapist etc, and that's whether the person is male or female. With neither sex friends do I tolerate someone being, or becoming, awful. But then the single most mysterious thing on Mn for me is the whole concept of 'friends I don't actually like, and who don't appear to like me that much, either.'

And no one wants to befriend, or indeed marry, Potato-Like Gary, anyway. Other than the fact that there are married Potato Garys all over the place, so someone sees past their potato-ishness or loves them for it...?

And I don't know a single person who would regard it as necessary to bring a chaperone in case they became overcome with lust while having a pint in the Slug and Lettuce.

For the avoidance of doubt, Gary is the hypothetical husband of the best friend that we're apparently all supposed to befriend lest we become "regressive, socially isolated women". (literal things said in this thread) Do keep up!

He doesn't need to be a potato. He can be charming, funny, intelligent and excellent company and, shockingly, I still don't have to want a separate friendship with him - because I already have my fill of interesting, witty, lovely friends. How very dare me to reject Gary eh? 😂

And yes, of course women can overstep boundaries too. I never suggested otherwise. The point was simply that some people have had enough experiences of one particular dynamic that they don't think the potential hassle is worth pursuing. That's a personal boundary, not a declaration that all men are inherently problematic. Its my life and I will do whats best for me, thanks.

You seem to be arguing that because you enjoy developing independent friendships with your friends' partners, anyone who doesn't is somehow missing out on a vital source of social enrichment. Which is rather an odd assumption, isn't it seeing as everyone is not you.

I'm saying some of us genuinely don't feel we're missing anything. 😂
You have your Gary. I'll keep my perfectly adequate supply of non-Garys. 🤣

Oh darling, this is such a spectacularly clumsy attempt to argue against something nobody actually said but bless your heart for trying. 😂

Nobody is suggesting we should tolerate people who overstep boundaries, become over-invested or appoint us their unpaid relationship therapist - male or female. Obviously not. That isn't the argument but I appreciate its hard for you to get.

The point is considerably simpler: I don't want to cultivate an independent friendship with every perfectly pleasant person who happens to wander into my social orbit. Including my friend's husband.

I can find Gary charming, witty, intelligent and perfectly delightful company and still have absolutely no desire to spend my Tuesday evening drinking Rioja with him while he tells me about his childhood. These things are not mutually exclusive.

And I must confess, I am still utterly fascinated by the idea that declining to befriend Gary somehow constitutes social isolation. 😂

Nobody is persecuting Gary. Nobody thinks Gary is a potato. Gary is simply a hypothetical perfectly pleasant man whom I have no particular desire to add to my friendship portfolio and really, whats wrong with that? does that make me a heartless bitch?

There are millions of married men who are someone's beloved Gary. I'm delighted for them. Some woman has clearly looked at her particular Gary and thought, "Yes, I'll have that one."

I am simply not shopping in the Gary department.

You have your Gary. Cherish him. Take him to the Erykah Badu concert. Put him in the WhatsApp group.

I'll be over here with my perfectly adequate supply of non-Garys, wondering how this became a referendum on my social wellbeing. 🤣