Man shocked when friends call his GF creepy; 'We can't tell if she's a secret psycho or trying to physically hurt you.' AITA? UPDATED
When this man is concerned that his friends think his new GF is "creepy," he asks the internet:
"All my friends think my (22M) girlfriend (21F) is 'creepy.' Are they right? AITA for dating her?"
I (22M) started dating my girlfriend, let’s call her Alice (21F) about 7 months ago. We met while working on a group project for one of our college classes.
From the moment I met her I felt an instant connection. She was beautiful, smart, and we shared a bunch of common interests. Long story short we flirted for a few weeks before I finally asked her out and we’ve been happily going out since. Now here comes the problem.
About a month ago my friends and I were planning to hangout and I invited Alice. While me and Alice are from the same home town we met during college and a majority of our relationship has been during the school year.
While we know each other’s college friends we’d never met each other’s hometown friends. I know that Alice has really bad social anxiety so I was hesitant to invite her at first, but when I did ask she seemed nervous but really excited.
The party seemed to go really well. Alice was smiling and laughing the whole time and even got to go on a rant about a topic she really liked.
When it was over she even told me while I was taking her home how much she liked my friends.When I asked my friends what they thought of Alice they all said she seemed nice. All except my best friend “Ruben” (22M).
When I asked him, he told me that he hated her. I immediately questioned why. Hoping it was them not mixing well, as I can acknowledge that Ruben and Alice are complete opposites when it comes to interests and personality, but Ruben told me he hated her because of how creepy she is and I was better off dumping her.
Now this threw me off as I had never once considered Alice creepy. She’s actually the cutest girl I'd ever met and I’ve never felt more comfortable around someone as I do around her.
Before I could even ask what he meant he went off on a rant about how uncomfortable she made him and started citing stories I told him about our dates during college.
Stuff like how she’d stare at me without staying anything and just “enjoyed looking at me”, how she eat the same meals whenever we went to dinner, how unjealous she was when a girl came up and flirted with me, or about her deep knowledge of poisons and love for murder mystery’s and true crime.
Both of which she could talk about for hours but neither of which she actually talked about at the party.
He said that while he wrote them off before since they didn’t seem to bother me, which they don’t, but that after meeting her in person and seeing how weird and flighty she was, he can tell that she’s a secret psycho and will end up either breaking my heart or physically hurting me.
I tried to explain to him how any weirdness was, probably just because she was nervous about meeting them for the first time, but he insisted that we’ve had friends SOs have anxiety before and it was that she was plain weird.
I blew him off at first cause he sounded fg crazy, Alice isn’t perfect but she’s far from creepy, but after two weeks of him telling me to dump her and me getting tired of telling him to drop it.
I reached out to a few of our friends to prove him wrong, but to my surprise they all agreed that Alice was creepy.
Most of them said that the way she spoke really threw them off, which is fair since Alice can be weirdly formal sometimes but I didn’t notice her doing that at the party at all And typically it’s much more funny then unsettling.
Most of my friends told me it wasn’t enough to break up with her since they still genuinely found her sweet and fun to be around, but I did have one other friend say it was worth breaking up over and he was just too embarrassed to tell me at first.
I have no plans of breaking up with Alice because all the stuff they’re calling creepy I find cute when she does, but are they right? Is it creepy she does that stuff? Should I talk to her about it?
Should I just tell my friends to f off and ignore there concerns? I feel bad for even questioning about this but with all my friends agreeing it’s starting to gnawing at me, and I just need some clarification If it’s actually creepy or if they’re just being dramatic.
Before we give you OP's update, let's take a look at some of the top responses:
holleringcorgan writes:
I was thinking ADHD. Like, Alice has ADHD and OPs friends don't like her because they value conformity and fear social rejection.
I have ADHD. I've been told I speak formally in casual conversations. I'm just trying to get the words out without wasting time picking and choosing the "coolest" way to say something.
My SO and her two best friends love true crime. Apparently it's very popular with 20-40 year old women. Like, they listen to Lester Holt to go to sleep... and they're neurotypical.
It honestly sounds like his friends are boring fucking assholes who are making up reasons to exclude someone who doesn't fit their narrow view of how people should act.
I honestly think less of people when they cave to (or even care about) peer pressure. It's so weak and off-putting. Like they're small and contemptible.
If my SO brought this up with anything other than a "wait till you hear this stupid shit" attitude I'd bail. That's one of the ultimate red flags, imo. It screams weakness and I don't date chameleons.
terrorpale writes:
Your "friends" sounds insecure. To me it sounds like your GF is knowlegable in the things that interest her, which aren't necessarily "Girl approved". and that this knowlege creeps your friends out. Maybe because a woman isn't supposed to know this much or maybe he is just intimidated. i think its the latter.
Nothing you described of her behaviour screams creep. it does however scream of someone who loves to share what they're interested in and that they sometimes just love to be quiet and "look" at the things they love and like in quiet contemplation.
I challenge you to take a good hard look at your friends who think she is creepy and really analyze their behaviour. behaviour with their friends, with their partners and so on. I wanna bet that you find behaviour from them that is "creepy" as well, but thats being accepted by the group because its "boys stuff" or something of that sort.
algebab writes:
Maybe I'm weird too, but I don't see anything strange in the things listed above. She stares at you without talking? Wow, I do that too with my boyfriend, sometimes I find myself staring at him but I'm just thinking about how much I love him and how beautiful he is.
She wasn't jealous? Well, maybe she saw you didn't flirt with that girl, so she knows she has nothing to worry about. She likes true crime and murder mystery? It's a common interests nowdays, I like it too because I love the psychological aspects of these stories, but I assure you I'd never hurt a fly.
Honestly, your girlfriend seems absolutely normal to me and someone I'd like to be friends with. I find it stranger how invested your friend Ruben is in this matter.
In the end, the only thing that matters is how YOU see your girlfriend. Fortunately, your friends don't have to be with her. Do you find her creepy? No. Do you love her and want to be with her? It seems so. Then I see no problem at all here.
certainsock writes:
Well, Ruben is a prick. First time of meeting and he HATES her!? And then he’s bugging you over weeks to dump her?! WTF dude, does he secretly fancy you? Or her? That’s an incredibly extreme behavior under the circumstances.
So called Friends can get jealous, know that. They see you happy and a “crabs in the bucket” mentality can emerge. Plus group think. You then go to other friends in the group and they tell you the same thing, maybe because Ruben is a strong personality. We already know he’s capable of extreme behavior.
Ultimately though it’s up to you. Your GF sounds a bit awkward and eccentric, maybe even neuro-divergent but if she’s sweet and nice and intimacy is good and there’s no extreme controlling elements or co-dependency that’s fine.
I’ve known a bunch of women like that (Female Engineers) and they are typically excellent wives and girlfriends. Super loyal and giving to a guy who can appreciate their vibe.
Question. Does SHE have a friend-group? Close family? Those are important observations. If other people like her, why shouldn’t you?
sanderson writes:
Op, please look up hyper fixation and autism. If she is autistic, it will help you understand just how passionate she can get about certain subjects. For the past two years, my son has been so fixated on Greek mythology that not only can he tell you everything there is to know, but it is also currently his chosen religion.
Some of the other things he has fixated on would probably appear creepy to people who didn’t know him. It doesn’t matter what your friends think, especially after knowing her for just a few hours. You’ve known her longer and all that matters is how YOU feel about her. You find her idiosyncrasies cute, and that’s great.
You said she’s from the same hometown? It makes me wonder if there isn’t a different reason your friend Ruben doesn’t like her and doesn’t want to say. Like, maybe he got shot down or something? Any chance he knew of her or had seen her around?
boobell writes:
If you like her, you should date her! You’re the one in the relationship, and it only matters how you and Alice feel. If you really don’t see anything creepy about her, maybe your friend just needs to spend more time getting to know her, and eventually he may find her to be as great as you do!
With that being said, I do feel like it’s worth mentioning that sometimes we can have rose tinted glasses on when it comes to people we have feelings for, and not see things clearly for what they are.
If my best friend was this weirded out and concerned about someone I was dating, I would definitely hear them out, because if they are your real friend, they’re being honest with you and have your best interest at heart.
Especially if multiple friends agreed with this sentiment. Idk what your friends are like and if they’re just being jerks, but if this was a common opinion amongst my friends...
I’d probably at least be a bit more aware around her, and see if I felt like anything was truly “creepy” about her. But if your friends are usually jerks, maybe don’t put too much stock into it.
kumquatn writes:
You understand her on an intimate level because you’re with her. At some point, when it comes to adulting, you have to make the decision yourself to trust your gut.
You have access to a part of her she doesn’t show anyone else because you’re her partner. Not everyone has that level of access to her and you should feel special. They don’t know her like you do and it’s not a big deal if they approve or not: you’re happy!!
Also, what I’ve learned from previous relationships was unless my relationship is abusive and toxic, to only share nice things about my partner. Like you might forgive your partner for something, but your friends and family might not and might hold it against the person.
I’ve found through experience being vague and dealing with relationships things inside the relationship to be helpful in the long run.
You talk about her in a really sweet way and I think you should continue seeing her. She sounds awesome.
azerat writes:
It's fine to be a bit weird. There's a lot of people who don't get that, especially people who are completely "normal" a.k.a average in every possible aspect of life. That seems to be the case for your friends.
People who find it hard to socialize will sadly face this kind of a discrimination, that's why they usually end up in relationships with other introverted/asocial people because other people either don't get them, or their friends don't get them and for "party animals" the opinions of their friends are almost like a verdict in a court.
The opinion of your friends is a tertiary issue here. The real problem is whether you, as somebody who finds it easy to socialize and has a huge circle of friends (that's what I'm getting from this thread at least) can make it work with somebody who feels awkward around people.
I'm not saying it can't work, but it very often ends up being a problem.
And now, OP's update, 9 days later:
Wow thank you all so much for you helpful comments and validation. I’m glad y’all agree that the stuff Alice is doing wasn’t really creepy. Anyway to get into the meat of this update.
Since i posted originally I spoke with each of my friends individually and talked to them about what they said.
Pretty much all of them apologized and some even offered to apologize to Alice herself, which at the time I said no to since I didn’t really want them interacting with her, but we’ll get back into that later.
The only one who didn’t apologize, as I’m sure you guessed, was Ruben. I want to address some comments suggesting that Ruben could either be attracted to me or maybe even Alice.
I don’t think either of those are true as Alice is the first girlfriend Ruben has ever acted like this with even though I’ve dated plenty of girls, and Alice isn’t his usual type. He may still be attracted to her, I mean she is fg gorgeous but Ive known the guy since 3rd grade and so I know he’s pretty picky about the girls he’s with.
So I don’t think it’s that I think he’s just a major dick. I’ve known Ruben literally my whole life, since our moms were college friends and moved close to each other when we were young.
With so much history I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt by just asking him to drop it since I really didn’t care if he found her creepy I really liked her and he’d just have to deal with it if he wanted to continue being friends.
He didn’t apologize or even say he was wrong but he did agree to stop commenting on it. Which isn’t perfect but works for now as I consider if I really want to continue to be friends with him.
Yesterday I met up with Alice for a casual date it wasn’t anything fancy just a home picnic (I have really bad allergies so we couldn’t do it outside). We had some candles and our favorite foods and we watched movies and dissected our favorite tropes.
About half way through our third movie Alice brought up Ruben since she heared about an upcoming car show/auction her dad told her about and she remembered me saying that he loved vintage cars and suggested the three of us and a friend of hers who was also into cars could go together, so she could get to know him better.
It felt crazy that she suggested this days after mine and Ruben’s fight and it made me feel sick with how sweet she was being to such a jerk. I gave some weak excuses about how she hates car shows and doesn’t have to do that or how Ruben wouldn’t be comfortable doing that.
My girlfriend being the angel she was said she could tough through it or even just let me and Ruben go together if he wasn’t comfortable with her yet and she’d even pay for the tickets cause it was a private showing. This was the point I broke and told her everything that happened.
She took it really well just calmly listening while I rambled through my explanation and even ended up apologizing to me about weirding out her friends. I tried to explain it wasn’t her fault and she didn’t need to apologize.
As a lot of you suspected she ended up telling me how she believed she was autistic but since she hadn’t gotten an official diagnosis so she wasn’t comfortable telling people.
After a lot of guiltily back and forth between the two of us she told me she didn’t want me cutting off my friends since they did apologize and didn’t say anything cruel just pointed out her neurodivergent tendencies which aren’t an insult to her...
but I put my foot down that I for sure won’t be bringing her around Ruben anymore and plan to distance myself from him and my other friends for the time being which she agreed was fair.
She also wants to meet up with my friends who want to apologize to her since they seem genuine in there regret. Overall things turned out pretty well and thank you all so much for your input.