sambear and I spent many hours yesterday gaming and just hanging out with a delightful friend who we don’t see nearly often enough, and her houseguest. I’ll call the houseguest R, and our friend F. I’m not identifying them more specifically because this isn’t really about them as much as it’s about my reaction to R. Since I don’t know R other than through Sam and F, I’m not addressing any of this to her.
Both R and F have been involved with Sam to some extent in the past, well before I met Sam. F is, in fact, on our “yes list” pretty much permanently. I adore her and would have absolutely no problem with Sam being involved with her if both of them decided to go forward with that.
I’ve heard a bit about R, but that’s it. She visits F every year and they go on holiday somewhere together. R and Sam had a “con fling” almost a decade ago. I don’t have any negative information about R and want to make it clear that I don’t have any negative feelings about her now, precisely.
Anyway…
It was very clear that R was very much interested in Sam. I mean, she was puppy-dogging him in a big way. She gave him the “I’d rather have a kiss than a hug” look in a HUGE way when we arrived and left. She took advantage of absolutely any excuse to touch him, down to bringing in a damp towel and carefully cleaning his hands of chocolate from a cake mishap rather than letting him clean himself up. She was very solicitous of him, constantly watching the level of water in his drink and hopping up to refill it as soon as it got low.
(Nothing dreadful, by any means. If she’d acted in some way that was overtly out of line, Sam or I would have spoken up immediately.)
I was quite relieved to know that Sam noted her behavior, too. I’m not going crazy (in that respect, at least). Yet.
She seemed very uneasy when F jokingly said something that made it clear that I knew that R had been Sam’s lover in the past. She didn’t say anything, but sort of cut her eyes towards me and didn’t respond in any way I’d consider “normal.” In fact, she made very little eye contact with me at any point during a 6+ hour visit.
I do want to point out that the fact that she behaved the same whether or not I was in the room is reassuring. If she’d done otherwise, I would be very pissed off right now.
I have no idea whether or not R is polyamorous or monogamous. She has no contact with Sam other than through F, so he doesn’t know, either. The only information she’d have about our relationship would be that gained from F. I don’t know if she assumes that we have an “anything goes” arrangement as he had when they had their fling, or if she just doesn’t care.
While I find it completely reasonable that someone would be very much attracted to Sam, and even more understandable for someone who has been his lover before to want to repeat that experience, I am not accustomed to having anyone throw herself at my SO (in person) without checking to see if that’s okay.
I certainly don’t own the man. He isn’t property. I’m not even jealous or possessive in the traditional sense. I just consider that kind of check-in to be polite.
I started to say that I wouldn’t behave that way without such assurance that it was acceptable, but honestly, I don’t think I could behave that way. I need to be pursued, so throwing myself at a man is not something I could/would do.
Am I being unreasonable? What would you think of someone behaving that way towards your SO?
