Based upon what you have written, you sound insecure and jealous. I know you don’t think you are, but you come off that way, and I’m not surprised that your girl sees you that way as well. She sounds a bit more mature than you do. Relationships are about trust. She and you do not seem to be on the same page with regards to that. So either you’re going to have to change and trust more, or your relationship is not going to go very far.
Not helpful.
I don’t see how anyone of sound mind could think that I am ravenously jealous given my post.
I think you might be trolling me anyways.
It is trivial that anyone can be made to feel jealous, etc in a relationship given the right stimuli, so it is a matter of what is and is not appropriate jealousy.
In fact, if someone behaves rudely or inappropriately, then getting upset isn’t really jealousy to me at all. It is simply a rational reaction.
So, you kinda skipped over the explanation and just gave some pronouncements on my head which as I said, is not helpful.
Well clearly your girlfriend feels this way. Maybe not ravenously, but those are your words, not mine. I guess you consider her thoughts on the matter “not helpful” as well. What does she say about that?
Your initial response to her behavior is more rooted in jealousy than I think you are willing to admit. As I said, it appears that you and your girlfriend are at two different levels of maturity.
Don’t expect to come onto a message board asking for advice and have everyone agree with you.
For Doctor Who, I’d give her a pass this one time. 
At the minimum she was being rude. Still you should give her a second chance especially after she knows how you feel. If she does it again, it could mean that she just doesn’t care all that much about you. Since you aren’t too far along in the relationship, breaking it off early would be less painful.
I’m struck by the precision of your writing down to the decimals in the times. Could there be something in your personality causing problems with the relationship? I’m not trying to blame the victim (you) here; but, just suggesting that you two may not be compatible.
Seems like some pretty consistent feedback here:
I am a very good judge of time, have an excellent memory, and was paying attention to the interaction. For me, once I saw the interaction unfolding it was natural to glance over every 5 minutes and to keep tabs on what was going on (e.g. make sure he didn’t have his arm around her trying for even more).
I don’t think it is odd that someone knows that they were at a bar for around 3 and 1/2 hours and that her conversation with Mr. X took up at least 1 hour of that time. I know what time we got there and what time we left, etc.
But larger point taken, thanks for the advice.
I apologize, but you came off as overly terse in your summary.
I disagree that this comes down to maturity. Otherwise, the most mature people would be swingers or appear to care nothing of what their partner does.
I think Omar nailed it. Re-reading the OP, I don’t see that the girlfriend did anything wrong. The OP, however, comes across as petulant, jealous, and controlling. And at the end he years her away from a conversation she’s enjoying.
The purpose of a bar is to encourage random encounters (the innocent kind) with whoever might be there. If you expect to hold the attention of the person you went with, you don’t go to a bar.
And the detail on the clock-watching comes off as creepy and controlling.
Agreed about your being a good judge of time and all. If she isn’t, it could be difficult for you.
My wife’s entire family has no concept of time it seems. Schedule a family get-together and they may all arrive after only being an hour late. Drove me CRAZY. I had to take extreme measures to get my wife to respect things like deadlines and appointments. For example, if we were 5 minutes late to a function like a church service, I refused to go in. We’ve been married 37 years now. However I don’t ever remember her being rude to me in such a manner as your GF.
Hmm…it seems that this thread divides folks pretty strongly.
I think what I’m getting out of this is that the word “wrong” is well wrong to be used here.
She didn’t totally betray me or commit a crime.
What she did is do something that I feel she should’ve known would cause an issue or send the wrong impression. This is from my perspective and it seems a lot of people, but not everyone. The bottom line I suppose is that either the behavior changes, I change, or it will be a common problem.
I’ll ju jitsu you and state that if her behavior can’t be considered strictly wrong then neither can my reaction to it be considered wrong.
Personally, I think she was extremely rude and dismissive of your feelings. I don’t think you’re wrong at all. But that’s just me.
I’m a big time introvert if I don’t know people. My SO is an ambivert (although he claims to be an extrovert, he has to turn that side on really to be like that). In our relationship, we’ve set some boundaries and have voiced expectations. I hate being left alone at a party or his family’s gathering unless there are people I know. And he respects the fact that I could be made really uncomfortable, so he stays by my side and will privately confer with me if he wants to go off on his own.
However, if we are hosting a party or are at a party where we both know people, we can do our own thing or not. Last party we had, there was about 1.5 hours when I hadn’t seen my SO.
Expressing those expectations and concerns and talking through them, especially before the situation, are important.
However, your position seems to be different. It doesn’t seem to be about being left behind:
[QUOTE=sjmesf]
I do not think I am being jealous. I think I am responding in a very common way to someone transgressing a boundary most people know exists (that when you are with someone you don’t chat up in an intense way a member of the opposite sex in a 1 on 1 scenario for an extended period of time especially when said member of the opposite sex is not someone like a family member or trusted friend).
[/QUOTE]
I’m assuming that if this person was of the same sex, you wouldn’t have a problem with it?
[QUOTE=sjmesf]
I walked over at around the 15 minute mark and introduced myself to the guy as her boyfriend.
[/QUOTE]
In other words, you pretty much peed on her to mark your territory.
You seem to be jealous of her talking to someone you see as a threat. It’s not altogether a bad thing. But it’s something you need to recognize. The issue, at least how you’ve explained it here, doesn’t seem to be the fact that she left you alone, but for whom she left you alone. The best thing you can do is understand that part of yourself and talk to your girlfriend about it.
Frankly, if you have these feelings, going to places where singles tend to mingle might be a bad idea anyways.
FWIW, I agree completely with Omar’s take on this. Was it rude? Debatable, I can see either side. I’ve gotten caught up in a “intense” conversation before and didn’t realize how much time had passed. It can happen. This isn’t about her being rude, though. Someone being rude once in a 7 week period doesn’t generate this kind of angst, even if they don’t agree. IMHO, this is about 2 things:
- Your feelings got hurt and she didn’t give you the sympathy you think you deserved, and
- You don’t trust her
The first happens to all of us. Even after 30+years of dating and marriage I can still get pouty if my wife spends too much time (as defined in my mind) with someone else and doesn’t include me. The difference is that I recognize this as my problem, not hers. To tell her that her interactions with others are limited by my mental time frame is horribly unfair, on many levels. Understanding that is the maturity of which Omar speaks.
The second is much more ominous. A relationship without trust is not much of a relationship at all. She has, from your telling, given no indication of breaking (or even bending) your exclusive dating arrangement or abusing your trust in any way. The only infringement has been in your own head, in scenarios that you make up and enumerate in the OP. This too is your issue, not hers. I’m a jealous SOB. I know this. My wife has given me no reason to not trust her, so I recognize that the issue is mine and deal with it. Forcing an SO to deal with your insecurities usually turns out badly.
I hope you realize the fallacy in that statement. If not, you may not be ready for a serious relationship.
I get your point. However, knowing her I’d assume I was being spared boring talk about advertising (her field), religious discussion, or her getting info for a surprise party/gift/etc.
You’re at a bar with a group of people you both know, she becomes involved in an interesting conversation she is enjoying. Her behaviour indicates she’s assuming you’re secure enough to handle it. But the truth is you’re not. She didn’t do anything wrong, in my opinion. Your view, that her actions would send any reasonable person into a miff are completely mistaken.
If you’re feeling slighted by her innocent actions then end it now, do everyone a favour and avoid a lot of grief for you both. Because there will be more of the same ahead, and you’re clearly not okay with that. Hey, people are different, just own your stuff and move on, this ain’t the girl for you.
Let me ask you this, you’re a grown ass man, did it even occur to you to join in? Maybe make a joke about feeling left out? Because if you’d spoken up, or interjected there’s a chance she’d have provided you a little reassurance, which may have made all the difference in your take away here.
Perhaps you didn’t do so out of an instinctive sense of appearing insecure and needy? Because doing so would have made you appear less so, at the moment, by orders of magnitude, than doing so afterward does.
I repeat, this ain’t the girl for you, let her go.
Is there any chance she was talking to this guy about something that’s none of your business, kind of personal, and otherwise no big deal to your relationship? Suppose he’s in trouble at work for doing something stupid, or he’s having girlfriend problems of his own, or his dad treats him like shit. Your girlfriend may have used Dr. Who as a cover for taking the time to talk him out of an awkward situation, and it could be that what they actually talked about is no threat to your relationship and none of your business.
Correct. I wasn’t left behind with no one to talk to. I was with the friends that we met there and knew, but was spending most of my time with her. She left us to enter a private conversation for an extended period with someone she barely knows. It just seemed highly out of place given the relative newness of the relationship and how most people interpret focused long conversations from the opposite sex where other options of people to talk to exist. I’m still perplexed that people don’t see that this is like 80% of hitting on people.
Not as much. It would still be rude and her absconding away strangely, but it would not add in the obvious other elements. I feel odd now feeling odd about not wanting guys hitting on my girl! I must be a real caveman with these feelings.
I wanted him to be aware that he was talking to someone that had a boyfriend in the room. I don’t see that as insane urination. It was actually a nice thing to do so that he would know his social context.
Can the OP clarify something for me? Did you go to the bar with friends, or just the two of you? Because if it’s the former, then chatting with other people, even for an hour, really isn’t a biggie. But if you were there alone, on a date, she was very rude.
So, which is it?
We went there with friends. He was not one of these friends. She and I spent most of the evening talking to each other and other people in the usual way. She then did her thing with this guy that happened to catch her ear.
It was not the fact that I was left alone. I wasn’t. Although that would have added to the rudeness. To me it is simply that you don’t do that. You don’t leave your boyfriend and go spend an hour with another guy and come away thinking that he won’t have an issue with this.
She wasn’t simply chatting with other people here and there. It was an intense conversation they both seemed lost in that lasted an hour. That isn’t something like working the room for a bit in my eyes.
It’s not just you. I think you nailed it.