Looking at other women on social media

Hurtandconfused

Just wondering if there's a male/female opinion divide on this, or if I'm just being particularly prudish.


Do you think looking through photos of other women (or other men) on Facebook, Instagram and so on is normal behaviour when in a committed relationship? Would there be a point where it went from normal (for example looking up the odd opposite gender colleague out of curiosity) to unsuitable (looking several times a day, or is that still normal)? Would it feel more or less OK to you if it was lots of different women, or the same few on more than one occasion? Strangers miles away, or people physically quite close to your location? No messages, friend requests or 'likes' to make it public, just looking through multiple photos

Proxima_Centauri

I don't understand why anybody would want to spend time gawping at the opposite sex on the internet, but that may be my age, rather than my gender.

PenguinOfDeath

Depends on what kind of 'photos', and how much time this activity is taking up

Mojisola

Hurtandconfused wrote: »

Would there be a point where it went from normal (for example looking up the odd opposite gender colleague out of curiosity) to unsuitable (looking several times a day, or is that still normal)?

I'd be concerned if my OH was spending a lot of time looking up pictures of one particular person who he worked with or knew socially.

Lily-Rose_3

Hurtandconfused wrote: »

Just wondering if there's a male/female opinion divide on this, or if I'm just being particularly prudish.

Do you think looking through photos of other women (or other men) on Facebook, Instagram and so on is normal behaviour when in a committed relationship? Would there be a point where it went from normal (for example looking up the odd opposite gender colleague out of curiosity) to unsuitable (looking several times a day, or is that still normal)? Would it feel more or less OK to you if it was lots of different women, or the same few on more than one occasion? Strangers miles away, or people physically quite close to your location? No messages, friend requests or 'likes' to make it public, just looking through multiple photos

Well just nosing through the odd female colleague or acquaintances facebook or Instagram seems harmless, but to look a dozen or more times a day - especially at the same one or two, (especially if he knows them) seems odd.

I don't think you have to be insecure or paranoid to think your man looking at other women or paying attention to other women is inappropriate and unacceptable. I'd question a woman who wasn't bothered by it. I don't think jealousy or insecurity comes into it; it's just not on. Many men wouldn't accept that behaviour from their wife/girlfriend.

I have a friend who I had to console for a couple of hours last night, whose husband is always being friendly and chatty with other women; never men, always women, from being jovial, smiley, and friendly to checkout operators and bank tellers, to spending time chatting to women (at length) at work, (I mean an hour after he finishes; helping them through their problems, like the superhero he is LOL!)

And yet he has a meltdown if she talks to another man for more than 30 seconds. She said 'if I behaved around men, the way he does around women, they'd think I wanted to sleep with them!' He is a good husband and father and doesn't cheat (AFAIK!) but he does insist on helping damsels in distress, especially single ones.

Result; one female colleague who he talked to over and over (as a listening ear,) about her marriage breakdown this year, went and bought him a Christmas present to thank him. She gave it him last week and he opened it Christmas morning, and I won't go into detail about what it was, but it cost £60-£70; it's personal to him, and it totally upstaged what his wife (my friend) bought him. Totally ruined Christmas for her.

And the 15 year old daughter seriously wants to know why this woman bought her father an expensive gift personal to him too. He just went a bit red and said 'I have no control over what she bought me!' Personally I think he should give it back, but he said that would be 'ungrateful.' I don't think anything is going on (for him anyway,) but this woman obviously likes him as more than just a friend. You don't spend seventy quid on a male colleague if you don't like him quite a lot!

So the OP needs to be concerned and monitor the situation IMO. When a man is paying attention to other women, he needs to be careful, to not take it any further than looking. Some men forget they have a wife at home who is getting very hurt. Many women won't say anything for fear of being called paranoid, insecure, jealous, and unreasonable, but many wives will only put up with so much carp before she bails. Maybe show this thread to your man 'hurtandconfused!'

fairy_lights

Browsing through a friends holiday snaps - normal.
Obsessively studying a strangers photos multiple times a day - not normal, regardless of gender.

seven-day-weekend

Female here.

The option I wanted is not there.

IMHO, if you are in a committed relationship, looking at pix of other women (other thsn things like holiday/wedding photos or similar) on social media may be normal, but it is not fine.

Lily-Rose_3

fairy_lights wrote: »

Browsing through a friends holiday snaps - normal.
Obsessively studying a strangers photos multiple times a day - not normal, regardless of gender.

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Female here.

The option I wanted is not there.

IMHO, if you are in a committed relationship, looking at pix of other women (other thsn things like holiday/wedding photos or similar) on social media may be normal, but it is not fine.

These 2 ^ :T

I just specified it with the man doing it, as that is what the OP was about.

Also agree it's not cool for women to do it to her man either.

Diary

Strange female opinion here..My husband talks a lot to women ' in real life' - helps out our widowed neighbour etc and is generally sociable. I have no problem with this as he's always been like this but I'd be bizarrely horrified if he did the same on facebook. He can't operate the internet so not sure if that's relevant.

Pictures on Facebook of strangers - not normal and creepy.

Sam_Fallow

Nothing wrong with it at all.

Until you get caught!

PasturesNew

Walking down the street and happening to spot somebody "a bit attractive" and having a look up/down is entirely normal.

Actively taking the time to sit down at a computer, in order to go to a website where you are choosing to just look at pictures of people ..... is, frankly, "a bit farquin odd".

OK, stumble across one once and look ... but to actively seek it out just isn't right/normal.

You have to then question the motivation; what's to be gained from it.... it could only end in tears.