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What the fuck do I do here?
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I sleep with a t-shirt and nothing else. Have for years.
The iPhone thing is weirding me out now. Is it possible that it wouldn't lock on its own if left overnight? He normally has a password set, so would forgetting to lock it cause it to stay unlocked? I know my own iPhone "locks" itself and you need to swipe it on after a few minutes.
On a lighter note, we were in line at the pet food store and a huge Great Dane came up behind her and sniffed her butt and startled her. I leaned over and said, "now THAT was intentional." Luckily, she laughed.
So the possibility of him waking up right before her, running into the bathroom to set his phone to record, then running back to bed, has lessened. She asked me not to bring this suspicion up to him because it will make her "sound crazy."
Well yea, because assuming someone's phone is in the bathroom to video you peeing is crazy. And then picking up the phone and finding it not recording and instead of realizing you're being silly you instead tell all your coworkers about it is a crazy thing to do.
Art is not an abstracted ideal, and does not exist for its own sake in its own world.
My social group went out to a local bar for drinks and revelry, and my best friend brought his then-fiance along. Apparently, in my attempt to be friendly and make her feel welcome in our group (which was all guys on this particular evening), she somehow got the impression that I was "flirting" with her.
At this point I should stop and say that I don't find my friend's now-wife at all attractive. She's actually slightly unattractive to me (in a purely physical sense). As in, a 4/10 (standard bell curve). And at the time I found her rather oversensitive nature to also be off-putting.
So no, I was not in any way, shape, or form flirting with her. To me, being friendly and making jokes is not flirting, especially when absolutely no physical contact is involved. When I'm flirting with you, you know that I'm flirting with you, dammit. This right here is a no ambiguity zone.
Ahem. At any rate, my buddy calls me and says, "Hey dude, I know you didn't mean anything, but she thinks you were flirting with her, and it made her feel kind of weird." To which my response was, "Hey dude, I totally wasn't flirting, but I apologize if I made her feel uncomfortable, and I'll try to watch whatever it is I'm doing to make sure she doesn't feel like I'm being too "friendly" in the future." I wasn't exactly thrilled with having to apologize for something I didn't feel I did, but hey, that's what you do for your friends and their (now confirmed batshit) wives. (PS guys, make sure the person you are marrying isn't fucking crazy before you marry them.)
Anyway, as others have pointed out, this is something that will probably take time. You may need to let your friendship lay low for a while. He might need to come to terms with the fact that it will take a lot of effort and a lot of sensitivity and a lot of pride-swallowing on his part to make this work over the long term. And really, you have to come to terms with the fact that she may never come around, and you may very well have lost a friend. Hopefully things smooth over after some time, but it might not.
If she's going to be your life partner, you will have to learn how to accept her feelings and judgments, even if you disagree with them vehemently. If there is someone in your life she doesn't want you to be around, then don't be around that person. That's not to say that you can't try to work through it and have her come around, but there's nothing you can do to force the issue. Not adhering to her wishes in the meantime is a recipe for disaster.
At the same time, though, if I were in your situation I would ask her not to complain about things in your relationship to the people at work. I have no idea why this is a socially acceptable thing. If I were in your position, I'd feel incredibly awkward and uncomfortable at any possible future work-related Christmas parties or anything like that. My wife and I have a strict policy of not talking about any disagreements in our marriage with anyone from work. Friends, especially mutual ones, are different, and can often give a new perspective especially if they hear both sides, but the whole coworkers bitching to each other about their spouses thing just breeds pointless negativity.
This is a valid thing to discuss with her. I mean, maybe not right now, but when the dust settles a little.
Awkward.
I have had friends get in the way of relationships before, and relationships get in the way of friends. In my case, it's the friendships that always worked out in the long run. I hope that, given time, things will cool down to at least such a point that she accepts having Bill in your life, if not hers. Then again, maybe your friend really is a secret Slider?
Parting thoughts:
I would never sleep naked where anyone might see me, because I have a tendency to kick the sheets off the bed. Doesn't mean everyone has the same worries.
What's a little wang between friends? Non-sexual nudity is about as small of a deal as anything is. I've changed in front of other men, and I'm sure I'll need to do it again.
This over everything would be why she is upset. You are not supporting her you are trying to fix the problem.
I do it often but it really is the wrong thing to do. In a situation like this you listen to her, if she cries hug her. And at the end of it you either do what she says or you ask her what you want her to do. Despite your best intentions trying to fix the problem will make things worse.
I know this because I try to fix things by doing things and just upset her further when I don't listen to her.
Personally I found the messages weirder than the recording.
Regarding the phone. I highly doubt the phone would have been unlocked all night, the battery would be dead.
Even if it was set to record I would be surprised if the battery wasn't dead after half an hour.
If I had to guess what happened is that he left the phone Unlocked to see the naked pictures he mentioned. If the nudity was done for exhibitionist proposes this would be furthering that.
Satans..... hints..... I'm a mo bro!
This.
Also, two things:
- It is my belief that women are biologically predisposed to recognize the odd, sexual shenanigans of men. (intuition!) I have very little difficulty believing that there is at least a kernel of justified concern in Sally's assessment of the situation.
- I know damn well if my penis is even marginally exposed. The chances of accidental exposure, though existent, are tremendously low. I call absolute bullshit on it occurring innocently twice, during the same sequence of dramatic social events, and only while in a one-on-one environment with Sally.
It's not about believing Sally. What she said actually happened, I'm sure. It's about whether or not Bill was purposely exposing himself in some odd fucking behaviour. If I say it's out of character and I can't imagine he would do that on purpose (We've all been friends for over a decade. They've hung out on numerous occasions without me there) that doesn't mean I don't believe what she is saying or that I don't understand why she feels that way.
It also doesn't mean I'm taking Bill's side or that I'm saying she needs to let it go. I'm just saying I'd like to get to the bottom of why it happened.
I don't think you understand. An "unlocked" iPhone simply means that when you press the button, the screen comes on to the dashboard instead of the "slide to unlock" feature. The screen is still off the entire time.
Trying to get to the bottom of it will make her angry.
Dont get me wrong I understand completely why you want to do this.
Your fiancé does not want you to do this. She just wants you to support her. She feels that she already knows the truth. She already sees this as an open and shut case, you wanting to discover the truth implies you do not believe her.
Satans..... hints..... I'm a mo bro!
I don't agree with this, and I'm the one who has had discussions about it all day with her.
Me not agreeing with the intention aspect of the situation has nothing to do with whether or not I believe it happened. We're not talking about Bill waving his dick around and laughing hysterically, me saying I don't believe he waved it in a menacing way. We're talking about exposure in a specific pose at a specific angle, the second time when I was 12 seconds away and was actually on my way down the stairs before I decided to veer off into the living room to check something I was working on. I just don't understand why anyone in their right mind would think, "He's going to be down in a few seconds, but now's a good time to show my dick!"
If this were a stranger or someone I had known for a short time, I'd be more inclined to believe he was just bat shit fucking insane. When it's someone we've both known and trusted for 14 years or so, it's harder to believe. She feels that it was intentional and I respect that. She knows this.
You know what sort of message you send if you genuinely didn't want people looking in your phone? You say, "Hey, did anyone go through my phone? Please don't look at the shit on my phone."
You know what sort of message you send if you want to make sexual advances on someone? "Glad nobody saw the sexy naked pics of me fucking women, hurr hurr hurr."
Without the message, I could assume this was an accident. But the SMS was pure, 100% flirting. Maybe he was emotionally messed up due to the breakup. Maybe he's had his eyes on Sally for a while. But that message was pure sleaze and in no way accidental.
Support your fiancee.
Your fiancee is clearly troubled by the situation, and I would suggest that trying to fix her problem by deducing whether bill was trying to hit on sally is the wrong path to take. Instead, when sally is ready, talk with sally about the situation and where the relationship stands with bill (most likely she is going to not like bill from here on). Then you will have to make a choice, stop hanging out with bill, come up with restrictions for hanging out with bill, no restrictions for being around bill (including allowance back into the home).
Some other things you should do in the conversation: Make sure any future convesation about the issue is about listening to her feelings on the subject and you taking those concerns into account. Telling her that you don't think he did it, isn't going to get you much purchase. Also telling her flat out, "You know lets just not hang out with bill anymore" isn't going to work. Talk about what emotions she has regarding bill, and ask her what she feels is appropriate in the situation.
Here is the main of it: you only have the above three solutions: No bill, some bill, all bill. These being your options, you may be forced to make a decision of hanging out with bill to the extent you'd like, and your fiancee (Thats a relationship, some people you just don't get to hang out with as a result of being with your SO). It sounds like you aren't willing to completely distrust what bill has to say, but trusting bill isn't the issue: If your fiancee doesn't want bill around anymore, it is a wise idea to stop hanging around bill.
Others have said your fiancee isn't always right, and with more evidence showing that sally could be wrong, I might say you should take different action BUT: as it stands you have a situation that, sounds really sketchy at best, and extremely creepy at worst. Even if this is an honest mistake by bill, you should get ready for Sally saying she is no longer comfortable being around bill and bill is banned. If you don't like that outcome, i don't know what after that.
Sally is definitely overreacting, sure she's allowed to think he did it on purpose and dislike the guy. But that should not be a reason for you to not hang out with him (but maybe not in your house).
The phone-recording thing sounds ridiculous and makes me doubt her story as a whole. I can't help but think she's siding with jill to get rid of bill. Even if there was accidental penis exposure; what's the big deal? I refuse to believe a guy you know for so long and has been a normal sane person would somehow think showing his penis to a friends fiancee would somehow be profitable.
You said she kept talking with him for several minutes while she was aware of the allegedly exposed penis. What the hell were they talking about so casually? If I were to show my penis with the intend of seducing, surely there would be a lot of implying to getting down and dirty throughout my words.
Let him lay low for a while, than just start hanging out with him at a pub or his place. no reason to cut him out of your life over this.
How soon is the wedding?
Also, theres the fact that Jill is the maid of honor and obviously close to your fiance. Those two clearly spent some alone time talking about what happened and why Bill and her are splitting. If you didnt get that same side from Bill it leaves you with an information gap.
Not saying your fiance isnt right or that you shouldnt support her. But there is a chance her views are being swayed by what Jill said, which you should probably find out. Theres a chance Jill could have told her some truthful stuff about how Bill acts or what he said about her before. Or theres a chance Jill could have made up untruthful stuff about the same thing. Or theres a chance Jill has nothing to do with this and your fiance is reacting simply based on what happened.
Still its odd this split happens then this happens. To me theres likely a correlation there somewhere between why they split and whats happening now.
tl;dr:
Do you agree with the following sentiment: "Bro's before ho's."?
If no, read ceres's comments and follow them.
If yes, prepare for single life with your friend Bill.
Finger cuffs dude
I think she needs to stop listening to the people she's working with. You don't need to "step up and take care of this" because, at least to me, you already have by speaking to both her and your friend about the matter and making sure Bill knows that at least right now, he won't be coming by your house. I mean, this isn't a Clint Eastwood movie; you're not going to go over there and punch his lights out for makin' a move on your woman. What the hell do they expect you to do? You're acting like an adult, as far as I can see, while tempers are flaring around you, and that's really all you can do.
It's probably hard for Sally to calm down about this, because as much as she might know in her heart that she's overreacting, she has a bunch of goissiping old hens telling her you should be doing more somehow and she was OMG VIOLATED AND MEN ARE PIGS and when you have someone validating your emotions, it's easy to keep giving in to them. Plus, she's also probably already feeling a little weird about Bill because of his recent breakup with your friend.
My best advice would be to stop overanalysing this, such as how much was hanging out or what position he was in etc etc. It's picking at a scab, getting emotions fanned all around, and just giving you one big headache. Not knowing Bill, as weird as the whole situation is to me, I think it sounds like a comedy of awful errors helped along by him not being in the right state of mind.
I would tell Bill, "Look, you say it was unintentional, and I'm not saying I think you did it on purpose, but Sally's really upset right now and it would be best if you didn't come around for a while. I know you're going through some shit right now, and I'll still be there for you if you need to talk, but you need to be more careful because obviously if something like this ever happens again we will not be cool."
And I would tell Sally, "Look, I love you, and I'm so sorry that what happened happened and made you so uncomfortable. Bill wants you to know he's so sorry, and he never intended to make you uncomfortable or scare you, but he respects how you feel and he won't come around until (when/if) you feel you're okay with that."
I think that's a reasonable response on your part. Also, seriously, again, she needs to stop talking to catty women who, from the sound of it, are probably treating her as their own personal prime-time soap opera. This was probably the most interesting gossip they've had in a long time, so I bet you anything they're feeding her anger/hurt so that she'll come back with even more to tell them. Women can be like this. (I am one, and I've worked with so many like this it makes me crazy.)
1. Have your wife's back no matter what while you deescalate the situation.
2. After the emotions have settled, analyze the situation as a team and decide on a course of action.
You had a good learning experience on this one that you can't do both of these at the same time, and your relationship will be better for it. Way to stay cool!
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
If you have a threesome and don't do DP you're only...
HALF ASSING IT.
I wouldn't dare try some half-assed attempt at armchair diagnosis of a person I don't know the first thing about, but people are capable of some very strange things when suddenly they find themselves in positions of vulnerability and even self-loathing - for instance, out the end of a very long relationship.
Him sending Sally a text about the pictures on his phone are only concerning to me because of the other events. Normally, him bringing up that he had pictures on his phone for Jill wouldn't be weird. It's hard for someone else to believe that, but it's just not that weird of a thing to mention between our circle of friends.
"Shit, I've got naked pictures of myself I was going to send to my girlfriend on my phone and it was left unattended all night when you had people over. Close call."
And something I may not have clarified so well in all this is that Sally and Bill are close friends. They aren't just friends because he is my friend and Jill is hers. We all went to high school together over a decade ago.
But I also think the whole thing is sort of ridiculous. Over-reacting. If it wasn't for the wedding crew issue now being akward, what's the big deal? He's a friend, she's your woman and you love her. Give wide berth to Bill and move on/enjoy your relationship?
Unless... you do not like how she's handling this?
And he wasn't just talking about naked pictures on his phone for fun under friendly, joking circumstances with the group. It was right after his breakup, a text sent directly to her phone, and after two prolonged eyefuls of wang. Yeah, it could have been two separate accidents. Yeah, a lot of people don't know how phone cameras work. This comment, for me, is what tips the scale over into creeper territory. There was absolutely no reason for him to send her this message.
My honest opinion on the whole thing? He was feeling crappy and started flirting with (or messing with) someone he saw as "safe", who he thought would laugh him off, just to make himself feel better. Only he fucking sucks at it, and the whole thing made her terribly uncomfortable and (in my opinion justifiably) upset. When called on it he acted embarrassed because he was embarrassed. He got caught. If this scenario is what's going on here, I don't think he meant any harm, but it was really stupid and, regardless, he did harm. The probable consequences of it are that you won't be seeing him for a while.
I largely agree with what Ceres is saying here, though it might even have been a cry for attention (in the form of some out-of-character, sloppy behavior) as opposed to some godawful form of flirtation.
The underlying factor I'd be curious about if I were in your shoes is the conversation between Jill and Sally about the breakup. I would imagine that Jill and Sally talked about why the breakup was happening. I'd say it's very likely that Jill said some things that didn't reflect well on Bill. After Sally's calmed down from her (justifiable, in my opinion) emotional state, you might ask if something was said that put her on edge around him. This could come off as you questioning the legitimacy of her discomfort and feelings, so you may decide it's not relevant enough to pursue. I'm mostly mentioning it as something that I think put her on alert about him and could've helped her to jump to some harsh conclusions.
It's no secret that Jill lived a very sheltered life and is therefore not very independent. She has complained to him that he isn't very romantic and is too "hard" with his feelings.
That's the basis of the argument, but Sally and I had suspected for several weeks that Jill was going to end it. Judging by how Jill is handling things, I don't think she was planning to now.
It's happened to me. Hell, the fucker sometimes jumps out of my boxers when I'm walking down the street.
Art is not an abstracted ideal, and does not exist for its own sake in its own world.
Did it then happen again a day later to the same roommate? If this was just once I very much doubt it would have been an issue... but a whole slew of comments about the one time one of you guys accidentally showed off your junk doesn't even begin to address what actually happened here.
And whether or not he really did it intentionally isn't even the issue anymore. The issue is the fiancee thinks it was intentional, so what actually happened doesn't even matter at this point.
For the record: I KNOW if my junk is hanging out. Especially if there are people around.