Is your jealously justifiable?

Dear Lady and The Scamp,

Recently, my girlfriend was invited to a work event that was very important to
her: she told me a lot about how interesting she would find it and how "inspiring" she found some of the people who were going. She said she was attending - but didn't tell me she was inviting a gay man friend of hers. The truth only slipped out about a month later, when she was staying at my house (taking a lot of hospitality from me, as usual) and showed me a video of the event which showed the two of them together.

Do you think I should end a relationship in light of this? I'm trying to convince myself that I should carry it on but surely if I was important to her she would have invited me first, not her gay friend, or at least been open and honest with me about what she was doing. She's taken a lot of hospitality from me and I usually pay for most things, so shouldn't she have given me first shot?

Howard

Kevin says:

I don't want to cause trouble here but first things first... was this friend really gay? Or did you catch her canoodling with a mystery hunk on youtube and she just claimed he was "gay" to hide the fact he's boffing her? Because if he wasn't gay, that would explain why she never mentioned him.

But if you're confident this man is a homosexual, then fine. Ignore this bit, and I apologise to you — and the man — for suggesting otherwise.

Now, this "inspiring" work event. I can't help but think you weren't fussed about attending until you found out someone else had gone. If your girlfriend was banging on about it so much it sounds like she was trying to persuade you to go, rather than snub you. It's more likely she just thought you weren't interested. Probably because whenever she brought it up, you'd start droning on about "hospitality".

What's that all about? Do you live in a private box at the O2 Centre? It sounds like you feel a sense of entitlement just because you provide nibbles when she comes over for sex… but it doesn't work like that. No one's making you provide nibbles.

It's also possible she didn't invite you because she didn't want to introduce you to her work friends (perhaps because you'd bore them with stories of all the nibbles you'd purchased).

Whatever her reasons, it doesn't sound like a dumping offence. Being a control freak is though… so watch out!

Christine says:

To be honest, if you moan like this normally I'm not surprised she took her gay best mate and not you. I think she made a sensible choice. Work dos are often a nightmare. Really, you should go on your own, so you can carry on the façade that you're a grown up and know about sales figures. Your evening is taken up by laughing at your boss's jokes while trying not to say anything to offend anyone in HR — it's not a great place to take someone. Certainly not someone you will need to chaperone all night in case it ends in a row - you know, someone like your partner.

Men and women can be separated into two categories: people that can look after themselves at a party by making light-hearted conversation with strangers, and people who can't. We've all been out with someone who can't and even if you really love them, you might think twice about taking them to certain events. Unfortunately, you sound like a man who likes to keep a list of anything nice he's ever done in a lever arch file, so he can refer back to it as and when.

You keep piping on about this wonderful 'hospitality' you're so kindly offering your girlfriend, but so you should, that's just called 'being normal'. You sound like you run a bed and breakfast and have got confused. Maybe she wanted to take someone she knew wouldn't be a threat to you, but also didn't keep reminding her who paid for her drink. Who knows? So ask her. But instead of getting in a mood because she took a gay friend to her work do, perhaps you should have think about why she wasn't so keen on taking you…

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