Female Dopers: The "My boyfriend. . ." name drop

In My Humble Opinion
21

Hmmmm. I haven’t been hit on in years, but I will try to save this knowledge for my next life.
I never meant to be insulting, apparently I just never thought it all the way through.

Hypno-Toad, Is there any non-insulting way to deal with this situation?

edited to add: Anaamika, I have a theory (a bad, broad-brush theory)“men” never bother to talk to women they aren’t sexually attracted to, and that’s why the SO-name-dropping happens so quickly in these situations. As you suggest, I suspect many women have been trained to see hitting-on happening when it’s not.

22

When a person is an integral part of your life, it’s not uncommon to bring them up in everyday conversation. Notice how long it takes parents to mention their children in conversation. What’s on your mind can often wind up in the conversation.

23

Yeah, try to work it into the conversation casually. It’s the jarring non-sequiter that makes it so obvious.

But remember, I’m speaking about my own experiences. Other guys have almost certainly been informed of a womans unavailability more smoothly than I have.

24

I, for one, appreciate it.

25

Seconded. If I was hitting on her, that gives me an easy out. If not… meh, what’s the diff?

26

This is perfectly stated. There are plenty of guys who think nothing of asking a girl out who hasn’t even spoken a word to him or made eye contact and they seem to have made it a bit rougher for the guys who wouldn’t do this.

27

I have noted the phenomenon.

It does tend to be amusing when it isn’t applicable, but I do appreciate it.

I have known men who hit on anyone they spoke more than a word to- it’s too bad that women feel the pre-emptive strike necessary, but it has worked like a charm on the occasions where it was warrented.

28

I think that depends on how much finesse, and timing, is applied in bringing it up. “Oh, my husband says that all the time” when you’ve just said, “I really like Margaritas” is a little obvious. “My husband just sold one!” in response to, “I just bought a Mazarati (I can’t spell it or afford it)” seems a little more smooth and apropos.

29

The move has never offended me, but there was one occasion where it was so out of left-field given the circumstances that it stuck me as amusingly bizarre.

As a Brit abroad, I was living in an apartment block in Chicago when the fire alarm went off at about four in the morning. Automatically pull on trousers and a top as I get out of bed, before looking out into the corridor. Which is filling with smoke. Shut the door. No sign of flames and I’m only one floor off the ground - this is serious, but I’m not trapped. I am going to have to leave the building and it is the middle of a Chicago winter. Grab a coat and put it on.
Reopen the door into the corridor. Smoke thicker. Girl runs past towards the fire escape dressed only in her underwear. Smoke is less thick in that direction, so follow her. The pair of us thus find ourselves standing alone together in an outside car park in the middle of the night during a Chicago winter. Me more or less fully dressed, her in bra and panties. Having fled a burning building. Chivalrously hand her my coat with some comment that she needs it more than I do.

Took her ten seconds to duly signal that she had a boyfriend. I would probably have tried to hit on her under other circumstances, but - given that both our apartments were in dire immediate danger of burning down - that prospect wasn’t at the forefront of my mind at the time.
In the event, the fire was fairly localised and the damage was minimal.

30

Most men haven’t really given a lot of thought into developing subtle strategies to avoid being offered unwanted sexual opportunities. We save our mental efforts for higher priority issues like which sports car we’d buy if we win the lottery or what we’d do if a genie gave us three wishes.

31

bwhahahahahahaha! Men do this all the time.

32

Whenever someone drops the girlfriend/boyfriend thing I just tell them that while the three-way they are hinting at sounds nice, I’m not into it. :smiley:

33

I’m not denying this can be a preemptive strike tactic, but you might also be surprised how many women define themselves by the men in their life. Maybe go-getter Doper women a bit less so, but for women with less self esteem it is more common. Kind of like they see you, recognize that you are male, and their mind just goes to the relevant male in their life. Like if you were a kid, they’d mention right away they have a kid your age.

I do this sometimes. I’m so married that when I meet a guy, I mainly think of him as potential friend/networking material for my husband. So I might seem to come out of left field with a mention of him, but the idea that you might have been flirting with me never crossed my mind. My husband’s just a really nice guy and I figured you two might get along …

34

I’ve been on the receiving end and have also dished this out. If done with tact and proper timing, I think it is fine and warranted. I think it is also expected, and over the years an unspoken dynamic between men and women (or men and men, or women and women) has evolved.

I don’t see anything wrong with throwing some clarity into a situation that is by definition always a little ambiguous. Dropping it out of nowhere and out of context does come off as a little weird, paranoid or even rude.

35

Sometimes if the girl doesn’t mention anything then I act proactively to find out if there is a SO.

The first stage is when I ask where did she go to school/college and where she lives now and for how long and stuff like that. There’s a good chance she will mention a SO or lack thereof. If these questions produce mixed messages or no messages at all then I go to stage 2 where I will say something like “What does your husband think about…” or “I’m sure your husband…” or something similar, depending on the circumstances.

Stage two always works but it also makes it obvious to the girl that you are interested.

36

I think it is a sense of superiority or ownership ( nee insecurity) that many of women (and some men) do this.

My mom never did the husband name dropping, but she was a widow fairly young so it was either out of awkwardness or maybe manners. Probably both.

I was about 16 and pretty shy around my peers, but around anyone 30+ years older then me I never had any issues.
So I was at this old lady party ( again) and was the youngest person there by 40 years ( again) for the 300th time of my life.

I sat at a table with a one old lady ( in her 50’s or early 60’s, which was ancient.) complete commandeer the conversation and always bring it back towards herself and talking about “Ty”

Her and Ty going on vacation.

Her and Ty remodeling.

Her and Ty going to fabulous restaurants.

Ty this and Ty that.

No one could get a word in edgewise.

We had made it through soup, salad, dinner and most of the dessert and all the conversation was was Ty. When you are older, your patience is a little more honed, when you are 16, I’m surprised I didn’t just slink away unnoticed, as i was especially good at.
I knew who Ty was. He was her husband and I knew that she was bragging about her fabulous life. (Her wedding ring!!! I still recall it.) But she assumed that all the women at the table knew who he was. And I knew the other women did not know this women because I knew the old ladies at the table and everyone was exchanging glances at each other because of her referring to TY all the time. She was a FOAF.

I looked over at this lady and just asked as dumb and nice as a kid can, ( and I did it because I knew that none of the other ladies would even make an attempt to change the conversation at all.) " Who’s Ty?"

For some reason, it shut her up for the rest of the night. my mom later told me it was rude of me to ask because anyone with a brain could figure out who Ty was, but one of my mom’s cousins patted me on the back for saving the table talk.
( Confliction, i gots it.)
That brief moment in my life, possibly a hour and a half total, taught me two valueable life lessons: Name dropping is really annoying and don’t commandeer the conversation. (And don’t assume everyone knows who the hell you are talking about or that they actually want to hear about it constantly.)

37

Maybe you’re less subtle than you think you are?:stuck_out_tongue:

I’ve only really noticed it when I was trying to make the moves or at mixers where there would be an assumption people are trying to meet.

I generally found it nice to know they weren’t interested. There was one woman who mentioned her boyfriend about 15 times in a conversation. That was annoying. WTF? It was just a get-together and I assumed we were just talking. Did she want me to walk away or something?

38

Wins with me. I appreciate it when girls do that; it keeps me from doing something awkward that isn’t going to work anyway.

39

As a gay guy who has not the slightest interest in hitting up a woman but who will smile and say hi I can tell you I get the “boyfriend” comment or the stuck up :rolleyes: telling me to back off their precious self. Women have their barriers and levels of comfort and ways of dealing with it.

I love women who are confident and can handle mens’ various ways of being friendly. “Oh, my boyfriend likes that movie too” is fine with me. When I come back with, “my boyfriend likes it too,” fun usually ensues.

40

That’s beautiful.

Sorry to say, but your mom was wrong on this one. You were the perfect person to shut her up, and by “expressing interest in the topic at hand,” you were technically being polite. That’s why playing dumb is sometimes such a good strategy. And as the dumb kid in the room, you were the right person to do it.