Friends are an integral part of life that affects one’s behavior and mindset. The saying, “show me your friend, and I will tell you who you are,” shows just how deep this influence runs. Most times, there’s also the constant need for validation from them, no matter what or who is at stake.
Here, OP’s boyfriend suffers the brunt of it, while OP wants to know if she’s wrong for letting her friends make jokes about his intelligence.
Birds of Same Feather
It was the first time OP introduced her boyfriend to her friends who came to visit. First impressions matter the most, they say. So, you would expect that OP would bring his best foot forward. Far from it. Now, there are her friends.
She met them while she was studying. They all share similar academic backgrounds and now work in similar fields. She admits they may come across as pretentious when together, which stems from a feeling of insecurity and a history of being socially awkward.
Insecurity rears its head in many forms. It may show up in some really ugly ways. For instance, making people feel awful only to make yourself feel better.
With OP and her friends, they hide behind walls of intellectual superiority to disguise this, but OP states that she doesn’t believe she’s better than anyone else. But no one ever truly sees their own shortcomings, do they?
Unlike her pretentious set of friends, her boyfriend is more…reserved. Picture Joe Goldberg and Beck Guinevere of You. Only in this case, her boyfriend isn’t as perceptive as Joe to see her friends behind the facade. OP also says he’s like no one she’s ever dated. “He’s kind, sweet, funny, not to mention being exceptionally good-looking,” she says. Again, sweet, sweet Joe. There’s where he differs from the movie character, though.
“He isn’t the most intellectual person in the world,” she says.
She doesn’t believe he’s stupid, but she acknowledges there are plenty of things he is not good at. He has a manual job and has difficulty reading and writing as he’s not well educated. She also mentions that he can barely spell and is ignorant about many things considered “general knowledge.” This was why she was initially scared of introducing him to her friends.
Gentle reminder: you should always be proud to show off your partner. You could really hurt their feelings when you make them feel you aren’t proud of who they are and can plant thoughts like you’re dating them out of pity.
OP does decide to introduce him to her friends.
Meeting Her Friends
“At first, it was going well,” she wrote. But then, her friends asked about his career and education, and a little awkwardness crept in. He also didn’t seem to understand most of the conversation.
There’s where she should have pumped the brakes when they started asking questions about things that didn’t concern them.
“I admit I did make a few little jokes at his expense to break the tension,” OP says.
She probably forgot that there are questions whose sole purpose is to “break the ice.” An example would be, “What’s your all-time favorite TV show?”
She mentions that it’s normal for him to be at the receiving end of jokes. He never seemed to mind and was taking it well, even with her friends. However, her friends joined in on the jokes, and it started feeling mean.
If she, his partner, who should boast about him, was making jokes instead, they probably thought it was okay to do the same.
Although he tried to hide it, OP saw that he was getting flustered, especially when he started stuttering. But that didn’t stop them.
He also couldn’t understand the rules of the games they were playing, rules he could have understood if he had been less tense.
OP said she didn’t ask her friends to stop because she did not want to create an “uncomfortable atmosphere” and didn’t want the evening to end. In my opinion, she prioritized her friends over him when she did this.
Throughout the evening, her boyfriend acted “friendly,” so she thought it wasn’t that bad.
“However, he made excuses not to stay over after they’d left, and he’s seemed more distant since, so I’m concerned it really hurt his feelings,” she shares.
Deal Breaker
Redditors are not pleased with OP on this one, understandably so. They all share the same opinion — she messed up.
“YTA. Now your friends think your boyfriend is fair game because you started teasing him, and you didn’t stop them when they piled on. Way to go. If I were your boyfriend, that situation would be a complete deal breaker,” u/Charming_Surprise_19 says.
“YTA. Your boyfriend probably has more emotional intelligence than you and your friends,” someone adds. However savage that may sound, it’s probably true.
u/FluffyOmen85 calls it another example of being book smart but very everyday stupid:
“My thought exactly. Another example of book smart but everyday stupid. You can have all the PhDs and Master’s degrees on your resume, but it won’t change the fact you have absolutely 0 social skills or tact. I hope you end up single after the dust settles, maybe it’ll humble your ego around your ‘friends.’ YTA.”
One can easily get carried away when they’re with friends, losing sight of everything else. OP wanted to introduce her boyfriend to her friends, but it’s possible she was more interested in pleasing them.
What are your thoughts on this? Do you, like me, think there were more creative ways for her to break the ice than making jokes about him?
Read the full story here.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Boloere Seibidor, fondly called B.S. is a Nigerian-based writer and poet. Her favorite topics to cover include music, especially Hip-Hop, film, lifestyle, and fashion. She’s been published by Feral Journal, Fantasy Magazine, The Temz Review, and most notably, Wealth of Geeks. She enjoys romantic dinners, movie nights, and touring new sites. When she’s not writing, she’s delving back in time to the underground world of Hip-Hop, watching TikTok, or visiting the cinema.
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