Auntie SparkNotes: My Friend Keeps Talking To My BF About Sex

Hi Auntie,

This year I’ve made a close friend “Sula” who lives in my building. Sula is in a long distance relationship and her boyfriend is unfaithful to her and it makes her miserable. Being constantly upset, she spends a lot of time with me and my boyfriend “George,” and I’ve often wondered if she might like him as more than a friend. While I don’t question George’s fidelity, I do struggle with trust issues. Sula often just talks to him when we’re together, making me feel left out. They share many interests that I don’t relate to. Anyway, my reasons for feeling uncomfortable are:

1. She often talks about how my boyfriend reminds her of her boyfriend… how they’re practically “the same person.”
2. She often talks about sex stuff around my boyfriend—asking him about porn and masturbation and even trying to show him porn on her phone when I was a few feet away.
3. She frequently brings up topics when we’re all together like lingerie and favorite underwear brands.
4. She recently showed my boyfriend a photo of her and said, “Don’t I look like a babe here?” (He awkwardly demurred).
5. She likes to launch into emotional topics with my boyfriend. As in, she’ll get emotional and be very open with him about all her, as she calls them, “female feelings.”

Auntie, I like this girl a lot. Overall, Sula is very sweet and I think she’s well-meaning. I think part of my reaction probably comes from my trust issues in general. Part of it could also be that I feel judged by her. I don’t think George likes her romantically, but I still feel uncomfortable with how much she brings up sexual topics with him. Is that in the “normal and okay” range of human emotions? Or am I overanalyzing?

Um, no?

I mean, unless the laws that govern normal human interaction have undergone a drastic revamp within the past five minutes, I’m pretty sure that it’s still vastly inappropriate to discuss your masturbatory proclivities with somebody else’s SO—especially when you’ve just elbowed the somebody else out of your way to do it. If one of my friends were repeatedly edging me out of conversations in order to tell my husband all about her bean-flicking practices, she certainly wouldn’t be my friend for very much longer.

But more importantly, she wouldn’t be his friend, either. And by “him,” I don’t even mean my husband specifically (although for the record, I did read your letter out loud to Mr. Auntie SparkNotes—who looked utterly horrified and asked why on earth you would keep hanging out with this girl. Only he didn’t say “on earth.” He said a bad language word.) I mean that generally speaking, guys don’t actually enjoy fielding uncomfortable sex questions and being fished for compliments by their girlfriends’ friends, and they especially don’t enjoy it when it’s happening at the expense of the girlfriend’s comfort.

Hence, the real question here is what George has to say about this—and for that matter, why you don’t already know. It might actually be the craziest thing about this whole crazy scenario that at no point have you and your boyfriend waited until Sula gets up to go to the bathroom, turned to each other, and said, “Ohmygod, what the [bad language word]?!”

Which is what I’d like you to do, more or less, at the next available opportunity. Bad word optional; you can be as casual and good-natured about it as you want, be it by cracking a joke (“Sula’s coming over later. I hope you’re ready for another round of extreme TMI about her favorite brand of thong!”) or asking a question (“Is it just me, or does she talk about her vibrator every time we see her?”) or even just being straightforward (“I really don’t love the way Sula shoves me out of conversations so she can talk to you about porn.”)

Here’s why: Whatever trust issues you may have, your biggest one appears to be that you don’t trust yourself enough to speak up when you’re feeling uncomfortable. And that’s not good! Actually, it’s really bad! You’re basically gas-lighting yourself into staying silent because your feelings might not be “normal,” and disregarding the fact that, normal or not, your feelings are real. And even if you were overreacting to something that didn’t objectively classify as Weird-Ass Shenanigans, it would still be worth talking about, particularly with the one person who might be able to help you feel better.

Your boyfriend’s reaction will likely tell you all you need to know about whether Sula’s behavior is as weird and inappropriate as it seems. (And while I make no guarantees, it’s hard to imagine him not sharing your feelings about it.) And from there, you guys can talk about how to deal with it moving forward. Maybe you’ll spend less time with her as a couple; maybe you’ll jointly agree to change the subject when she acts up; or maybe it’ll be enough just to know that you both think it’s totally cringeworthy.

In which case Sula can continue to pepper your conversations with attention-seeking sexual TMI—and you can enjoy bonding with your BF afterward over how hilariously terrible it is.

Got something to say? Tell us in the comments! And to get advice from Auntie, email her at advice@sparknotes.com.
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