Letters to the Editor
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Enough with the Thought Police already.
Either your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife wants to be with you or they don't. Either you love and trust your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife or you don't. If they don't or you don't, then end it today and find someone who does.
Jealousy has nothing to do with the significant other or with his/her mental/fantasy life. It's about you: the person experiencing the jealousy, completely and absolutely about you.
How dare anyone think they have the right to tell another person what he/she should look at or think about?
(When he's masturbating – which is far more often than you think – he's never, I repeat never, thinking about you. Should you be able to dictate those images and imagined situations, too?)
Evolve. And, enough with the thought police already.
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Doesn't the Game Playing Get Tiresome?
I don't understand why a woman can't tell her (supposed) boyfriend, "when you stare after other women when you're with me, I find that rude and disrespectful. I understand your noticing an attractive woman now and then, but your compulsive unthinking habit really makes you less attractive to me."
Women will be treated the way they allow men to treat them. If a woman accepts or plays into a man's objectionable behavior, he won't take seriously that it's offensive to her. She can lighten up a bit when he notices someone and even agree that the other woman's attractive, but over all a man should have enough respect to keep his attention on his partner and let her know that she's the apple of his eye.
I'm 54, my BF's 55. When I know a man really loves me, I have no need to be or feel jealous. In fact, I'm usually the one who says, "Oh, I think she's nice-looking, or I think [an acquaintance] is very pretty." He knows that he can comment about another woman without my going into a frenzy.
However, when we're out in public, he only has eyes for me, and he'd never think of checking out or staring after other women. He doesn't find them more attractive than I am, at any rate. And we can certainly mix and mingle at a party or social event without hanging on to each other--we encourage each other's socializing as individuals, especially as we don't have trust issues.
So--old-fashioned, fuddy-duddy, call me what you will. I say that a boy can't become a man until he understands what it means to be a gentleman who can keep his attention on the lady he's with, without sniffing after every female that passes by.
If he continues to do that, maybe a rolled-up newspaper would come in handy.
Tell him he can't be special to you until he demonstrates that no one can take you out of the limelight. If that's too difficult for him, then perhaps you should look for a man and cut your losses with the boy.
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right on the money!
Since I was so rude about a Cary Tennis answer last week, I felt if appropriate to say how clever and sensible today's advice is.
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Beauty
Beauty in all things, be it a sunrise, a child or a fabulous set of hips, is something to be enjoyed. It is a natural response and a joyous action to share an object of beauty with someone close to you. It is a fact that girls are simply prettier than boys, but my wife and I enjoy glancing together towards those sexy guys that cross our paths as much as we do the girls. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, it is far more perturbing to come across a person who can't or won't look at pretty people. If I couldn't enjoy witnessing the human form in my fellow man (or woman), how can I possibly be comfortable in my own skin, which brings us, I believe, to why women get upset about their husbands/boyfriends/etc looking at other women, be it on the street or in a "dirty" film. They have been taught to be in competition with each other. A competition that begins aesthetically- when your boyfriend checks out a pretty bird, there is a sense of defeat. But there shouldn't be. Instead, you could be enjoying it together, the same way my wife and I enjoy the sparrows hatching in our carport every year or the neighbor out for her evening jog in short shorts.
It is a sad irony that there is so much cultural baggage attached to that which we should most enjoy together. Men are not all sexual predators and women are not just sex objects. When I see a great looking girl or the bookish cute boy that gets me going, I don't want to have sex with them. I just want to enjoy watching their sunrise, and if my wife is by my side, then all the better.
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So what do I think? -3
I've checked out this advice. I give it a -3. It has a junior high schooler's ignorance of the female psyche and betrays an old fuck's attitudes about a women's value.
Yep, just what the world needs is more and more morons "rating" each other's body parts.
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appreciating beauty is fine but...
I think it depends on how much the boyfriend checks out other women. Is he glancing in their direction or is he staring with his eyes popping out? The advice to join in the gaze and make a game of it is fine but if the boyfriend is doing this so blatantly that she notices, then I like the advice someone else gave about her indulging in glances/smiles with other men in front of her boyfriend! No, you cannot police another person's vision or thoughts, but if the other person is doing it in a rude enough manner, then it makes you wonder how much that person cares about his or her partner.
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do you want to check out guys and gals with your boyfriend?
Cary's advice is completely reasonable but won't work for everyone. If you feel confident and lack the tendency toward jealousy then by all means follow Cary's advice. It's more or less how I live my life and I must say that it is fun. However, if you aren't up for it then perhaps you should try a more direct approach. Tell him how you feel. Say, when you check out other women, I feel "whatever you feel" maybe it's ugly or unloved or insecure or jealous. And then say what you want, "could you be more discrete?" or "after you check out someone can you check me out too?" or whatever it is that actually addresses your need. Maybe you want him to actually tell you what he's thinking so you know it's just an appreciation of beauty and not a desire for a relationship. Maybe you want him not to do it in your company.
Maybe he can't give you what you need but maybe he can meet you halfway.