'AITA for confronting my BF over his female friend's weird behavior?'

"Am I justified in being weirded out by my boyfriend's female friend? WIBTA if I confront him about it?"

My (28F) boyfriend (26M) (together for almost 4 years) has a friend who I will call Sarah. Sarah is a rather new friend in his life, I’ve only been hearing about her for a few months but something just feels off.

Let me get some context out of the way first (I promise this is relevant). Me and my boyfriend have been long distance most of our relationship. I moved across the country for a really amazing job placement opportunity pretty much right when we started dating.

After a year at the placement I moved back home for a few months and then received another offer. After a long convo with my bf he encouraged me to take it. This placement was much closer, only a 2-hour drive, but it was for 1.5 years. However because we were closer we would be able to visit all the time, the 1.5 years flew by. I moved back last year and my bf just moved in with me a month ago.

Okay on to the girl. My bf is just finishing up his education degree and he recently started talking about this girl in his class Sarah. They had known each other over the years, and have played on several intramural teams together.

I had heard her name before, but just as like “oh yeah this girl Sarah got hurt during our game” or things like that. However on their most recent basketball intramural team apparently Sarah and Tyler became better friends and I started hearing about her more.

I want to preface this by saying I am not a jealous gf. I am a firm believer that I don’t need to stress about cheating because if someone cheats on me our relationship is just done. I know I am worth more than that. And my bf has a ton a girl friends and I genuinely like most of the ones I know. But my spider senses are tingling with Sarah.

My bf tells me Sarah describes herself as “one of the guys” because she likes sports and hates makeup and says she “is not a girls girl because girls are too much drama”. These are the things I said in high school when I was desperately trying to get a boys attention. I just got a weird feeling, and I will say at this point I had not met Sarah, but there were some red flags going up.

Recently Sarah’s family threw a bbq for her graduation. My bf was invited (i was not, but neither were any of their friend group partners) and so he went. When he got back he was telling me about the bbq and was saying he met Sarah’s mom and they chatted for a hot minute.

I asked what they were talking about and he told me she was asking a lot of questions. Most of them were pretty basic. “Where are you from”, “What’s your plan after grad” those kinds of things. However my bf told me about a portion of their convo that made me feel weird.

Sarah’s mom specifically said “Sarah tells me you have a gf” to which my bf said yes and told her how we met and about being long distance for so long. Sarah’s mom apparently than kept saying things like “why would she not stay here with you?”, “why did she chose to leave when she could have just worked here and been with you?”

Eventually Sarah came up to them and when she learned that they were talking about me she jumped in saying, “oh his girlfriend is SO smart and so pretty. Mom she just works so hard at her job and she’s climbing that ladder”. Her mom than went on this long rant about women not doing what women should do anymore, and how sad she was to see women pick their careers over family.

My bf said he eventually got a little uncomfortable and just kind of ended the conversation and went to talk to his friends. The second circumstance that has weird me out came when Sarah subbed for my bf and I’s rec basketball team.

We needed an extra girl because we were short and in coed you have to have at least two girls on the court at all times. So my bf suggested Sarah sub and I agreed. I wanted to meet her and we needed a sub so why not.

At first Sarah was fine, she came in my bf introduced us and all was well. But throughout the game at at drinks after she said a couple things that were weird. During a play my bf made a mistake and bounced the ball right off his foot and out of bounds, he did so in a way that was really funny. Everyone on the court laughed and we carried on.

At halftime (which was right after the foot thing) Sarah came up to me and said “Your bf is such a goofball. Did you know sometimes when he is frustrated he picks at his nails?”

I thought this was a weird thing to say considering 1. This is rec league basketball and a small silly mistake doesn’t really matter and 2. It just felt like a weird thing to bring up because my bf wasn’t frustrated. I replied saying “I know his quirks don’t worry we have been together for three years” and Sarah said “wow three years that’s impressive” with a weird smile on her face.

I kind of just shook it off and moved on. We ended up loosing the game by a good chunk, but I think we all had a pretty fun time. My bf went to change and Sarah came up to me and said “I’m so sorry I couldn’t bring in a win for us. I know how competitive your bf is and I really wanted to give you guys a win”

I said it was no big deal, everyone likes to win but it’s rec league and it really doesn’t matter and the end of the day. To which Sarah said “don’t you care about your bfs feelings? If he likes to win you should work to make sure he feels good at the end of the day”

I was so shocked I didn’t even say anything, and a couple of my teammates walked up and asked if we wanted to go for beers quickly, and so the subject changed. My bf and I ended up not going because I had to work early the next day but Sarah did go. One of my closets guy friends plays on the team and his girlfriend was at the game watching and she also went for beers after.

She texted me while they were out saying that Sarah was weird and she kept saying how she wished my bf could have come out because than she would have a familiar face but his gf made him go home. I asked a couple other of our teammates (all guys) what they thought of Sarah and they all said they liked her.

I’m not concerned about my bf cheating, 1. Because of my views around cheating and 2. Because I know my bf loves me and wouldn’t do that to me. He also hasn’t really said or done anything to make me worry. However, Sarah makes me uncomfortable. I don’t know if I can feel justified in being uncomfortable or if I am reading into this too much.

I also normally would talk to my bf about this however my bf’s ex was very emotionally manipulative and was VERY jealous of ANY girl in his life. So much so that she made him cut a lot of his friends out of this life. When we got together he told me he would never let a partner dictate who his friends could be again.

Because of his ex I don’t want to bring this up if I’m overreacting or reading too much into things. And I don’t want to upset him, I also don’t know if I would say “don’t be friends with Sarah” I would probably land more on “Sarah makes me uncomfortable here is why” and hope that he makes the decision to spend less time with her out of respect for me.

AITA for being weirded out? Or am I just overreacting? WIBTA if I brought this up? I don’t want to cause my bf any trouble, and I really don’t want to come off as an @$$hole if Sarah gets wind of how I feel.

What do you think? WIBTA for bringing this up? This is what commenters had to say:

Gold_Knee_5182 said:

She's dog whistling. It's a way to take jabs at you without being overt. "Dog whistles use language that appears normal to the majority but communicates specific things to intended audiences. They are generally used to convey messages on issues likely to provoke controversy without attracting negative attention."

Talk to your boyfriend about you distancing yourselves. BOTH of you. If he says he doesn't notice anything, there's a reason she's being so subtle. Girls understand girls just like boys understand boys.

Willing_Board_293 said:

So I think you tell your boyfriend about the comments and how it makes you uncomfortable with how she acts around others and comments she makes which seem manipulative to you. Clarify you are not asking him to choose but that for awareness of the situation.

Daddy_thick_legs said:

Sarah is a pick me, id have a conversation with you BF regarding comments she has made and how that makes you feel. Maybe you guys should start distancing yourselves from her. its obvious she wants your man.

Ok-Patience-4764 said:

Yeah the passive aggression is weird. I would sit down and have a deep convo with your boyfriend. You can explain all the weird instances and what your teammate’s gf said, but he’ll probably brush that off.

I would focus on your views on cheating (that if it happens you’re gone and also that you trust him etc), and I would also repeat that you know how manipulative and controlling his ex was, you don’t want to be like that, and therefore you did not come to this decision lightly.

I would also reiterate that you’re not a jealous gf (he should have thorough proof of that, you being chill about female friends for 3 entire years), and that you don’t and have never had any problems with other female friends… but that this one makes you uncomfortable. Unfortunately that’s kinda all you can do.

And if he keeps choosing her after knowing how uncomfortable she makes you, well you’ll have to make a decision after that. But hopefully after years of being with you and knowing who you genuinely are as a person and gf, it doesn’t come to that.

Batwoman_2017 said:

1.) Tell your boyfriend that Sarah's trying to trash talk in a way that makes you doubt your relationship and that you will not be tolerating it. You will not mind distancing yourself from her.

2.) Next time she takes a jab at you being a less than ideal girlfriend, just respond in kind about how some girls cannot keep their noses out of other people's relationships. Or something along the lines of "well I am not making a play for someone else's boyfriend so i have all the time in the world to work on my own relationship"

3.) Sarah's mother can go eff herself.

And OP responded:

There’s also this weird rhetoric about her being a teacher and me working an office job. The girl who texted me also mentioned that when Sarah was getting to know the group she kept saying she wanted to be a teacher because it felt like one of the only jobs left that let “women be women."

She seems to tote this weird like conservative view of womanhood that her mom clearly does. I totally get we all have different views, but my choice to work (and work hard) seems to be something she likes to jab at.

We'll keep you posted on any future updates!