Well, I’m stumped. As background to this question, this summer a friend of the family from abroad was in town, and my very close cousin had asked if I’d mind showing her around town for a day. My cousin being very dear to me I of course obliged, met up his friend and gave her the tour, along with dinner and drinks with some local pals of mine in the evening. We all had a grand old time, and I ended up trying to set her up with one of my buddies.
My girlfriend, who was invited for the whole days festivities, was sadly booked for the whole day and missed out. Yet when my newfound friend puts up pictures of her stay on facebook, there are several pictures of me holding her around the shoulder while posing for the obligatory skyline shots. Now from my point of view, this was the equivalent of a hug. It was for the picture only, and we didn’t at all walk around town hand in hand. My girlfriend, on the other hand, saw these pictures and is now in a slight rage. I don’t feel that I did anything wrong, as this wasn’t any more contact than I would have had with a male friend, or my mother for that matter.
So, almighty dope, where do ye stand? Did I cross an invisible line, or is my significant other overreacting?
Disclaimer: We have had an official talk about appropriate contact with the opposite sex, and agreed to draw the line at semi-nude contact (no undressed massages other than with professionals) and lip-to-lip-contact.
I don’t think there are hard and fast rules. Just depends on the couple, and maybe for her, that kind of physical contact isn’t cool, whereas for others, it is.
I did have a question:
This made me pause. Would this ever come up? I mean, will you have that much semi nude contact with opposite sex friends? It just doesn’t seem like something you’d have to plan around. Well, outside of that Questionable Content strip where a half naked Marten talked Faye down from a panic attack, resulting in rage from Dora…
She’s overreacting based only on the circumstances you described, but there may be other factors at play leading her to feel insecure about your relationship and/or her interpretation of your physical contact with the visitor or someone else.
Well, no. More along the lines of:
“So, what kind of stuff wouldn’t be cool with you?”
“Hm…like you getting massage from somebody without your shirt on? With shirt isn’t a problem though.”
“Oh, agreed and likewise.”
I can imagine situations where semi-nude contact comes up with plutonic friends. Does a swimming suit count? How about naked hot tubbing? Someone ends up sleeping on the couch, because they drank to much, and weren’t safe to drive home. They end up sleeping in their underwear, and wandering to the bathroom?
To the OP - Your GF is reacting to seeing pictures of you where it looks like you are snuggling with another woman. If all is as you described, she is over reacting.
And I think you have taken a smart step, in deciding on a what kinds of contact you are comfortable with. There may be times when you accidently cross that line (ie. walk into the bathroom because it wasn’t locked, and someone else is already there). You might be best, in cases like that, to lightheartedly let your SO know they happened, before it comes out wrong. (I feel like such a dope. I just accidentally walked in on Xxx in the bathroom.)
Yeah, that was probably not your brightest move ever. That’s the standard “couple” picture pose, assuming the other person in the shot isn’t of your non-preferred sex or related to you. Taking that sort of picture your mom or your guy friends is very obviously platonic. Taking them with some random girl you just met is…not obviously platonic. And you’re taking not-obviously-platonic pictures with some girl your GF has never even met, much less seen how you interact with. And then those pictures are getting posted on FB for all of your mutual friends to see and gossip about how not-obviously-platonic they are.
By western standards yes, she’s overreacting, but since everyone brings baggage to a relationship it’s important to know where her lines are (and yours) whether rational or not. In that sense, the best thing to do here is have a frank discussion about those lines, and it sounds like you already have. Working this sort of thing out is part of having a long-term relationship. If it bothers her then you should take some care in the future to avoid appearing in situations that, if photographed, would bother her. If something like hugging a cousin or other relative as part of a greeting or farewell (as an example) is important to you, though, she needs to understand that as well. Working out a compromise and/or ground rules for these sorts of things can usually be done provided all parties are willing to speak honestly.
Putting those type of photos on facebook can send the wrong message. How long have you been dating?
In your shoes, I would apologize for being thoughtless and take the photos down. If the GF didn’t think that was good enough, or continues to be mad about the simple fact that you were touching another girl’s shoulder, I would mark that down as something to be discussed, and possibly a factor to consider in whether I wanted to be with such a person in the long term.
We’ve been in a steady relationship since June of last year, dating since last April. During this time we’ve been on a couple of vacations together, and she’s even met my family from abroad. She has herself a rather high level of freedom; she parties pretty hard at the university, and has even been on vacation with her ex and their common friends (they still LARP together) without me batting an eyebrow.
Also note that I didn’t upload the pictures myself, but my cousin’s friend.
If this is true, on the face of it I would say she is insecure and therefore overreacting. So I think a frank talk about boundaries, what is acceptable and what is not, and what you expect from each other is in order.
Dime-store psychology theory might say that if one partner is overly-jealous, that means they themselves cannot imagine or be capable having a truly platonic relationship with someone of the other sex and are thus not that trustworthy themselves. I’m sure this isn’t necessarily true in all, or maybe even most, cases.
THAT said - if I knew both parties well - my boyfriend and the woman - and was comfortable with the relationships, I probably wouldn’t be concerned. If I didn’t know the other women that well (or was feeling insecure about her being hotter than me, or about my boyfriend’s committment) - I wouldn’t be really thrilled. Her being a cousin would mitigate that feeling a little bit but perhaps not completely.
This doesn’t make any sense to me. There’s nothing even remotely sexually suggestive about putting your arm around someone’s shoulders or back for a picture. It’s the standard “two or more people in a picture” pose. He should have, what, just stood awkwardly and refused to touch her? If anything, guys are more likely to be physically affectionate with female friends, simply because they’re more huggy. I hug my female friends hello and goodbye all the time, but I only greet a few close male friends that way.
Is your girlfriend mad that you had your arm around this girl, or that the pictures are up on facebook? Either way, I think she’s way overreacting on this, but facebook has some interesting effects on public acknowledgement of relationships and the assumptions that people make about them that lots of people (me included) haven’t really figured out yet, so I’d give her more of pass on the latter.
You should be able to do write some comments on the various photos that make it more clear to your facebook aquaintances what was going on (especially the mutual friends of you and your girlfriend). Like “It was great meeting cousin’s friend” “This is one of my favourite places to take visitors” etc. This may mollify your girlfriend a bit as she won’t be having to explain that these are not pics of you publically cheating on her.
“If I was fooling around, do you really think I’d have posed for photos that are going on Facebook?”*
This would be a good response if she’s feeling insecure and jealous.
That said she may be feeling humiliated in front of her peers, FB being a public forum. In which case I have no suggestions - maybe a variant on Springtime’s, though worded in a more subtle way.
*Didn’t apply to an ex and the dude she cheated on me with, however.
It depends on the people within the relationship, obviously. I try to avoid insecurity and needless jealousy as much as possible. My boyfriend is very physically affectionate and hugs his female friends all the time, and I see nothing wrong with that. To me, your girlfriend is overreacting.
I would block the girlfriend and force her to do her spying the old-fashioned way. That way if she comes home and says “I saw a picture of you snuggled up to a pretty girl on Facebook!” you can squish her right back with “Ah, using our mutual friends to spy on me, are we?”
I have no patience for insecure people who use Facebook to validate their irrational fears.