One of my old friends knows this guy that she and her husband think I’d get along great with. So she, with my permission, gave him my email address. We’ve been emailing back and forth for a couple of months now. We’ll call him Kay.
He’s starting to creep me out a little. In the last email I mentioned that I was having a hard time photographing my kimono stuff and he said he could do it and I could be his “model and muse :)” I also mentioned that I went to dinner and a movie with a guy friend, Dave (who I had mentioned before, because, basically, I don’t have any other friends who live near me). Kay said he was a little jealous. He’s mentioned being jealous before.
I’ve never met Kay. We’ve talked on the phone all of once, for maybe fifteen minutes.
My friend is a great person, but I know she doesn’t always have the best sense (she was engaged to a jackass for years and years and didn’t break up with him until she was pregnant), but I think her husband has better taste. I don’t know him very well.
I’ve never dated. I wasn’t even vaguely interested until recently. Dave and Kay are both geeks, although Dave is more widely read (and, between the two, I think I’d rather date him, just for that reason.)
I could probably scare Kay away just by mentioning I’m agnostic, but I don’t want my friend to know that (it’s… I don’t want to get into it now).
So am I overreacting? It’s basically just the jealous thing, I suppose. I’ll admit I’m not always particularly good at reading people, but it seems really weird.
I vote for overreacting. I think this guy is probably just trying to be mildly and humorously flirtatious.
But, listen to your senses, not mine. If stuff like him commenting on being jealous makes you uncomfortable, tell him so and see how he reacts. If he refuses to stop doing something that makes you uncomfortable once he knows that it makes you uncomfortable, then you are right to be cautious of him. (I’m still not sure I’d label his behaviour creepy).
These sound like standard lines that guys use when they want to move things forward. “model and muse” (the way you wrote it, it seems like he was making a self deprecating joke) and “I’m a little jealous”. They’re both meant as non-threatening ways of saying he’d like to escalate things, say to the point of meeting.
He may be responding to outside pressure, your friend and her husband could well be asking him for progress reports, which in turn could be making him uncomfortable and that’s what you’re picking up on.
Now, back to your instincts - if you’re not comfortable, then go with that.
I don’t think he’s trying to possess/upset you, but you’re clearly not happy. It’s up to you whether you carry on and see if things feel better with time, or *gently * cut him away and carry on with your (apparently) satisfactory social life as it is.
I was going to say exactly what Eureka did in her first line. I took the “muse” bit to be him trying to flirt some (and maybe he hasn’t had much experience either in the whole dating thing) and the jealousy part to show enough interest so as not to be chalked up as ‘just a friend’ material. I think if he’s done nothing stronger than that, I’d at least keep chatting with him. However, sounds like maybe Dave is who could make your heart flutter.
I’m a little confused. Are you dating Kay? Thinking about dating Kay?
If the answer’s no to both, I too would be a little creeped out by him mentioning he was “jealous.” If he’s already getting possessive of someone who’s little more than an online friend, he’ll probably be really controlling if you ever develop a real life, romantic relationship with him.
“You know, the other day when you said you were jealous, was that ‘you are really jealous of my friend Dave’ or was that ‘flirty jealous?’”
See what he comes back with. If he comes back with ‘I’m just flirting’ then no it isn’t creepy. If he comes back with “It absolutely drives me crazy to think about a girl who I’ve never met in person going out for dinner with a male friend - and I start having violent thoughts about what I want to do with him for being around my girl. And once I have you in person, I’m going to make sure you never see Dave again…in fact, I’m going to make sure that you belong to me! me!!! alone!!!” - that’s creepy.
My advice: Get out and spend time with people face to face. It’s hard enough to learn how to interact with people when you have all the verbal and non-verbal signals to deal with. Leave the telephone/Internet stuff for after you’ve developed a sense of how people behave with potential romantic partners.
I’ve got a pretty sensitive creep-o-meter, but it sounds like he’s just testing the romantic waters. I’d only be wary if he keeps flirting without any encouragement on your end (e.g. pushing the muse thing. Why would you be the muse, anyway?). Or maybe you’re creeped out for some other reason you’re not conscious of, something he’s mentioned that didn’t quite register.
I’m not dating anyone. And I won’t put up with people manipulating me anymore, so I’m not real worried about that. But I don’t want a stalker or something (not that it’s anywhere close to that yet)
So, I’ve emailed Kay (actually I emailed him before I did the thread, because, well it was the obvious thing, right?). We’ll see how he responds. The fact that he was being kinda pushy but not bothering to spell kimono correctly wasn’t helping his case any.
I don’t know how much experience he has dating (my friend may have mentioned, but I don’t remember). I know he’s a giant geek, and a much more focused one than me.
To be perfectly honest, I wouldn’t mind meeting him, as long as he’s not going to be weird. I’ve hung out with guys that I knew were interested in me and it was fine.
I’d go with flirty, but there’s another possibility. It could be that he’s got this idea of a wonderful you that just doesn’t exist. Not creepy, but a bit misguided or sad. Maybe it’s time to either step it up or forget about him.
A couple months and you still haven’t met face-to-face yet?
What are you waiting for?
Unless you’re content with him being an eternal internet pen-pal but I don’t think he is.
I think he’s getting bored and pushing your buttons in a geeky way to see how you’ll react so he can get an idea if he’s wasting his time here or not.
Up until the “jealousy” part, I would have said the guy was trying to be flirty. Jealous and he hasn’t even met you yet? F*ck that. I’m not a subtle person, my response would be “Hey, Kay, FOADIAF – and lose my email on the way to the fire. Kthxbye :D”
Seriously, there is no excuse for jealousy in a real relationship, and even less in one that hasn’t even begun. YMMV, but the fastest turn-off for me is jealousy/possessiveness. It has come from the realisation (through personal experience) that those go hand-in-hand with abuse and stalking. Trust me, that is not a road you want to go down. Or go down on, roads are kinda hard to go down on, just sayin’.
I just haven’t had time to make it down there, between school and everything else. I haven’t called my friend in about a month either (although she’s got my phone number and my email address so she could contact me).
Spring break’s coming and I’d like to see my friend and her family.
They (and Kay) live about two to three hours away (I haven’t looked it up in a while and it depends on traffic of course).
IMHO you’re overreacting. If he was seriously jealous he wouldn’t have said “I’m jealous.” He would have expressed some sort of displeasure and/or disapproval of your actions. Or he wouldn’t have said anything and maybe given you the ‘e’ version of the silent treatment.
As for the photo stuff, the guy’s hinting that he wants to meet you in person. Really, how well do you expect to get to know someone without interacting with them face to face?
As others have said, the “jealous” comment is a little weird. Probably not on the level of creepy, but something I’d keep an eye out for in case more of that sort of talk appears in the future. Beyond that, it all sounds flirty to me.
And I also agree with the poster who said you should get out for more face-to-face time with folks in general.
I agree that he wants to meet you in person, but isn’t sure how you’ll react if he asks.
But to be honest, it doesn’t sound like you actually are interested in meeting him – given that you’re letting a 2-3 hour drive get in the way, and you’re already thinking of ways to “scare him off”. If that’s the case I think you should just let him know you’re not interested in a LD relationship or something along that lines, and spare him the awkward date that he’ll have to relay back to your mutual friend.
But if I’m wrong, and you actually do want to give it a go, then I think you should make plans to meet up and then set aside e-communication until then.
It’s possible he’s just inept at trying to sound smooth, but whether he’s genuinely creepy or not, it seems pretty clear that you know you’re not interested, so you shouldn’t leave him with any sense of ambiguity about it.
You also shouldn’t be afraid to tell your friend what you really think. You seem like you might be a little passive and socially timid. You should never be afraid to tell a friend that the person they’re trying to fix you up with doesn’t do it for you (friends should never to try to fix up friends in the first place, imo, but that’s another topic) and you should never have to feel uncomfortable telling them if you believe or don’t believe in God. Is your friend really that unaccepting and domineering that she won’t tolerate you telling her how you really feel about anything, or are you just super non-confrontational and you don’t want to hurt her feelings?
If you can’t share your honest feelings with a friend, then what good is that friend?
I think maybe he meant envious not jealous. I think he’s trying to let you know that he’d actually like to have dinner or something rather than reading your font all of the time.
You mentioned that you’ve never dated, could it be that you’re trying to find reasons not to go out with him out of anxiety?
