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Hi, my (23F) boyfriend (26) is a streamer on YouTube. He has almost 10k followers, and when he streams people love him. But sometimes I get jealous because even though I join his streams to support him, I’m jealous that other people have his attention too (even though most of his subscribers are male & he’s confirmed that he is 100% straight). I’m also jealous that he has a community of people that love & support him & are like friends to him & care about what’s going on in his life & I don’t have that.
I’m jealous that he has a good YouTube side career (as well as a great real life job as a video editor, making more money than me). I want to be a streamer like him but this is his thing that he’s been doing for seven years. He wants me to find my own thing but I don’t know what to do. I never had any interests. I was jealous of this one girl who’s always on his stream but he reassured me that he did meet her in person once at Comicon and she just physically wasn’t his type. He reassures me that it’s okay for him to have his own thing & for me to have mine but I don’t have anything. No interests or hobbies. I just moved to a new state so I have no friends. Didn’t get into the school I applied to so I can’t make friends there. So he’s all I have & when other people also have his attention, I get jealous. But he wants me to find my own thing so I’m not so hooked on him & feeling sad when he’s busy streaming.
I don’t know what to do. All I can do is trust that even when his attention isn’t on me, he still loves me. Is there anything else I can do to not feel so jealous because my boyfriend is a (somewhat) well known streamer?
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This is an interesting letter to cover, LSS, because of how people get envy and jealousy wrong on many levels.
For one, people will often conflate or confuse jealousy and envy. Envy is when you covet what someone else has, while jealousy is the feeling of being afraid that someone is going to take what you have. To give an example: Iago is envious of Othello’s success and stature in Venice as a successful general and feels that he’s been unfairly passed over. Iago creates jealousy in Othello by convincing him that Cassio is sleeping with Desdemona, Othello’s wife.
For another, we also tend to treat jealousy and envy as things we should feel bad about experiencing; we see it as a sign of insecurity or covetousness, of not having enough faith and trust in someone or an indication that there’s something wrong with us.
In reality though, jealousy and envy are more akin to the “check engine” light in the car. When we experience them, it’s an indication that we should examine the source and try to identify what the issue is. Sometimes it’s minor – the relationship equivalent of needing to tighten the gas cap – but other times it means that maybe there’re issues that need to be addressed before it goes from “pay attention, something may be off” to “nope, shit’s fucked” and now your car’s engine is smoking like it’s in the last lap of Le Mans.
I bring this up because your letter is a remarkable example of all of this. In your case, you’re experiencing both envy and jealousy over the same person. You’re envious of his success as a streamer, his having his community, his interests and these things that he has that you don’t. At the same time, you’re jealous of the attention he gives to his audience and community – including this woman he met at Comicon – because it feels as though it takes away his time and attention from you and your relationship with him.
At the same time, experiencing those feelings is serving as a check-engine light for you – you’re feeling them because you are feeling this lack in your life, and that lack stand out all the more starkly against the background of your boyfriend’s social and professional success.
Well, as the joke goes, “Doctor, Doctor, it hurts when I do this…” “Well, stop doing that.” You know what the issues are; you just need to resolve them. In this case, the reason why you’re experiencing envy is the same reason you’re experiencing jealousy. Your boyfriend has all of these things in his life, whereas you only have him. Because he’s the focus of your life, the things that he gives attention to that aren’t you feels like a threat to your security and stability. You have nothing to fall back on, nothing to occupy your time and attention and so the seeming loss of his attention feels that much more existential.
The answer is: start finding your interests and finding your community and reaffirming your identity as an individual, rather than just as part of a couple.
Part of what I think you should do is take stock of how you feel and do some self-searching about what, exactly, you’re feeling. Do you actually want to be a streamer as well? Or is that the easiest thing to reach for because there’s an example of it right in front of you? For that matter, is this something you want to do because it aligns with your interests and personality, or because you can look at what your boyfriend has and say “Well, I want that too”, and streaming seems like the easiest path to it?
Intellectually, I’m sure you know that the reason why he’s doing decently as a streamer is because he’s been doing this for seven years and grinding away to create his audience, rather than achieving overnight success. Emotionally… well, that’s a different matter. You don’t say how long you and he have been together, but based on your respective ages, I’m gonna guess you weren’t there from the beginning when he was streaming to an audience of maybe 5 people on a good day and didn’t see the amount of time, tedium and work it’s taken to get where he is. Streaming is a lot like other content-creation jobs, including ones like starting an OnlyFans; it seems like easy money until you start doing it. It’s only after you begin that you realize that it’s actually six different jobs in a trench coat – you’re a content creator, a community manager, a marketer, an accountant and more.
(As an aside, I can also understand why he might push you to have your interest. Leaving out the feeling that you’re trying to ride his coattails on the way to becoming his competition, it also can feel like the sort of thing you’re doing because of him. It runs the risk of feeling like Lucy demanding to know why she can’t be in Ricky’s show, with the attendant trouble of having to explain why it would be a bad idea… not the least of which being that if you fail at it, it can be damaging to the relationship.)
I think a better path forward would be to – as he said – find your thing. I understand that you feel like you’ve never had A Thing before, but this situation is the precise reason why you should start looking for one. Granted, you don’t necessarily have the easy starting point – the pre-existing community of fellow students, for example – but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be trying. But in some ways, you’re at an advantage. If you don’t know what you might be interested in, then you have a blank canvas to play with. The possibilities, while not limitless are certainly vast, with many different and varied things that may end up being your particular flavor.
I’d suggest starting by engaging your intellectual curiosity and finding out more about what’s around you and available to you in your new home. You didn’t get into the school you applied to, but maybe you could audit some classes that sound interesting. You might look for some interest-based group activities that strike your fancy – tabletop gaming, amateur sports leagues, book clubs, or bird watching even. Get on the subreddit for your town, read the local alt-weekly (if you have one), check local resources for what’s happening in your area this week or this month and try literally anything that seems like it might be interesting or diverting. Have you ever wanted to learn mixology? Now seems like a time to give it a shot. Is there a class on learning how to DJ? Give it a try. Is there a blacksmithing or glass-blowing class? It’s a bit out there but you might discover you love the rhythm of “heat, beat, repeat” and having something physical when you’re through. If it seems to tickle your fancy even slightly, then it’s well worth your time to try it out and give it a fair shake.
I would also recommend looking for opportunities to get involved in something that’s bigger than you. This is an election year, in one of the most critical elections in American history; perhaps it’s a good time for you to go get involved in some political campaigns – especially on the local level. Political candidates always have a desperate need for volunteers to phone bank, knock on doors and do all the jobs that keep a campaign running. This would give you a sense of purpose and put you in a diverse group of people all working towards the same goal.
If politics aren’t your thing, then there may be other volunteer opportunities – assisting the homeless or the elderly, animal shelters or community improvement; these are all areas where not only could you find like-minded people, but where you can feel like you’re making a difference for people who desperately need it. That sense of making a meaningful contribution to this world and leaving it a little better than you found it can be immense.
The thing that you need to keep in mind is that community and social circles aren’t built overnight. Whether you’re building one from scratch or finding one to join, it is going to take time and deliberate effort. It takes an investment of your attention, care, time and energy to not just find Your People, but to go from strangers to acquaintances, from acquaintances to friends. Just as your boyfriend built his success and his community over time – and almost certainly lost some and had to rebuild – you will have growth in fits and spurts and times when it feels like everything has stagnated. But if it’s something that you honestly want and are willing to work towards, then the best thing you can do in those moments is to grit your teeth and white-knuckle your way through.
You may have find some false starts and dead-ends. You may meet people who are only part of your community for a little while or where the mutual investment is lopsided to one direction or the other. You may get down the road and discover that perhaps this interest isn’t necessarily what you want or that hobby wasn’t quite what you expected. That’s ok; nobody’s expecting you to get it right on the first try.
But there’s one more important part of having your own circle of friends, your own hobbies and interests outside of your partner’s: they’re yours, not his. If something happens to your relationship, you aren’t left with nothing; you have your own life, your own social circle and your own hobbies and interests, regardless of anyone else. That’s no small thing… especially as someone who moved to a new state and had to start over from scratch.
Take the time to see what’s available to you and give things a try. Find the things that speak to you and the people who you vibe with. When you do, I think you’ll find that those feelings of jealousy and envy will fade. Right now, he’s the sole focus of your world, but you’re not the sole focus of his. Once you have your own world, you won’t feel the existential threat of him having interests and community outside of you.
Good luck.
Hi Doc! I (female, American, lives in the US) have developed a flirty friendship with a guy (German, lives in Germany), whom I met at a conference about a year ago, when neither of us were single, but now we both are and it’s pretty clear we’re crushing hard on each other. I am going to be visiting him in the next month or so, and I’m planning to stay for a week, and I would like to let him know (assuming the chemistry + feelings of emotional safety are still there in person) that I think he is wonderful and adorably hot and I would be very touched if he wanted to be something more than just friends.
But! I am planning on staying in his tiny apartment, and I really don’t want to make him uncomfortable or feel like he can’t get away if the answer is no and he needs space for a bit, and I don’t know what the most comfortable way to bring this up would be for him?
Also, I am an adorkable demisexual nerd with only one prior relationship under my belt, which I did not initiate, and the idea of saying ANYTHING is making me want to bury myself in a giant hole from lust-filled shame. Help?
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If I’m being honest FA, I would’ve wished that you had your own place to retreat to for this. While I can appreciate all the reasons why you’re staying with him – hey, getting a hotel is pricey, staying with a friend frees up money for fun times! – it can make things a little (or a lot) more awkward if things go wrong.
I say this because I have been there, done that and had shit go wrong. Having stayed with a friend I had feelings for, but who didn’t have feelings for me, meant that I found myself in the profoundly uncomfortable place of needing to get away from it all and not be dead-bang in the middle of an emotional situation that I really didn’t have the tools to manage at the time. It was entirely down to my discomfort (and thanks to the the transitory property of discomfort, her feeling uncomfortable because of how I was feeling), but it still wasn’t a pleasant experience. Not having a place to go to let things burn off, even just overnight, made it all a lot harder and ultimately I ended up cutting that leg of the trip short. If I’d had a place to go so I could at least spend a night ugly crying and get it out of my system – and not leaving my friend in the position of feeling (incorrectly) responsible for me and my baggage – it would’ve made things easier to bounce back from.
Now having planted that seed in your already anxious brain, let me point out that my crush was very emphatically one-sided and I was aware of it at the time. My staying with her was an attempt at a Hail Mary pass, the wish that I could make shit happen through sheer force of will and desire and got smacked by the gods for that particular bit of hubris. I’ve also had the opposite happen: a friend came to stay with me and now we’ve been married for twelve years. It can go both ways.
You have a mutually flirty friendship and apparently a mutual attraction. That plus close quarters is a pretty solid setup for something to happen. What does happen is going to depend on the two of you. And what I would suggest is that, rather than leaving things up to fate, you should grab fate by the ears and actually try wrestling it in the direction you want to go. Which is a very poetic way of saying “FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT’S HOLY, DON’T WAIT UNTIL YOU’RE IN A FOREIGN CITY WITH NOWHERE ELSE TO GO TO SAY SOMETHING TO HIM.”
Here’s the thing: part of the reason why you’re worrying about this is because everything is currently unsaid. You’re pretty sure, but not 100% sure that this is a mutual thing and you’re hoping that something will happen but the idea of saying anything makes you want to jump in a hole and pull it in after yourself.
You know what makes that a thousand times more awkward? Trying to have that conversation face to face, with no preparation, and when the stakes are a lot higher.
If you were someone who was confident enough in yourself and your game that you were willing to roll the dice and take your chances – as I was with the friendship that lead to marriage – that’d be one thing. But you’re not. So I’d suggest that the best thing you could do is stop leaving things unsaid before you get on the plane. Do yourself a favor and call the question NOW. Lay it out for him so that you two won’t have to deal with any possible fallout that would take away from your mutual enjoyment of the trip.
Write out what you want to say first, so that you aren’t trying to freestyle it at the worst possible moment. Knowing what you want to say in advance makes it so much easier, and writing it down helps get your thoughts in order and keeps your brain from running three steps ahead of your mouth.
It doesn’t need to be flowers and poetry. In fact, I’d recommend keeping it fairly simple and straightforward. You want something along the lines of:
“Look, German Friend, I’ve been crushing on you for a bit and it feels to me like you feel the same way about me. If it’s the case that you’re feeling about me the way I’ve been feeling about you, I’d really like to explore the possibility of something between us while I’m in town.
If I’m entirely off my nut, and it’s certainly possible I am, that’s absolutely fine; I love what we have now and I wouldn’t want to give it up for anything. But I wanted to bring this up now so that if I am wrong, we can power through the awkward now and we can focus on just having a good time while I’m there.
So that’s where my head’s at. How about you?”
Then you give him that message. If you’re both better at text, then email it to him and do your best to not break your finger refreshing your inbox. Yes, you want to email it rather than text it or send it via DM; the last thing you want is to see either the read receipt of those three dots just bouncing for hours.
If you’re better at expressing yourself verbally, give him a Skype call without video so he can’t see how hard you’re blushing.
Will it be awkward and embarrassing to bring this up now? Probably. But it’s a lot easier to do awkward and embarrassing when you have an ocean between you and days to weeks to get over any potential embarrassment and turn that into excitement, than it is to have those bottled up feelings churning in your gut while you’re 30,000 feet over the Atlantic.
And here’s a little secret from someone who’s been there and done that: it’s uncomfortable now because you’re not used to expressing yourself like this. But speaking your truth instead of keeping it bottled up gets a lot less awkward the more you do it and your confidence in doing so goes up with the practice.
Trust me: getting into the habit of expressing yourself instead of keeping things inside and just hoping that it’ll work out by magic will make this and any future relationships a hell of a lot easier.
So do yourself a favor. Bring it up now when the stakes are lower and you’ve both got time to push through any awkwardness – and you can push through it. As a certain general once said: “be afraid, but do it anyway”. Then you can let those butterflies go from “oh god what am I going to say, what’s he going to say” to “Ooooh what are we going to be doing?”
And then send me a postcard and let us know how it all went.
Good luck.
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