Jealousy plays an interesting role in relationships and while it can be destructive sometimes, a little can be healthy and even fun. As women, you have a lot of things you do that make men jealous even if you don’t realize it. Of course, guys are guilty of this too. Here are a few tactics we sometimes use when we want to wind you ladies up on purpose.
- We casually mention our ex. If we’re upset about something and want to make you jealous, we may find a way to subtly mention our ex-girlfriend. Usually it will involve something they did that you won’t do or a quality they had that you don’t possess. We may also mention speaking to our ex even if it was totally harmless. Most of the time, we don’t mean anything by doing this, we just want to see if you get jealous and riled up at the mention of our previous girlfriend. I’ve even heard of some guys going so far as to make up an ex just to arouse some jealousy in their girlfriends.
- We purposely wait to respond to texts. I’m sure you ladies do this too! Guys sometimes choose not to respond to texts right away to make their partners jealous. As you may know, this is a great way to make someone go a little crazy while also having plausible deniability. Who’s to say that we didn’t have a long meeting or were driving through a tunnel when we got the text? Obviously, this is a really petty move that really shouldn’t happen at all… but it does.
- We text someone in the middle of a date. For the record, some guys are rude enough to do this on dates without even realizing it. For the rest of us, we’re simply trying to make you squirm a little bit. We know that if we do this, you’ll probably get a little mad because we’re not paying attention to you. It’s also a fun way to see if you’re crass enough to ask who we’re texting. In established relationships, this isn’t a big deal, but guys will use this early on to make their date think that they are more desirable.
- We go crazy over our favorite celebrity. If women are at all insecure, we know gushing over our favorite actress or model will make them jealous. Obviously, it’s a little mean to do this, but again, you ladies sometimes do the same thing sometimes, so it’s not so bad.
- We share a lingering hug with a female friend. Admittedly, this can be a bit of a dirty move. If we have close female friends, it’s not out of the ordinary to hug them on certain occasions. Of course, we know that if we let the hug linger a little too long while you’re watching, you’re bound to get jealous. In our minds, it’s a great move because it’s easy to deny that we did anything wrong. “It was just a couple seconds, what’s the big deal?” is an easy excuse to use. Plus, we know if you make a big deal out of it, you’ll just come off looking crazy and jealous. As I said, it’s a dirty trick.
- We follow random girls on social media. For the record, if a guy does this, he’s probably too immature to be in a serious relationship. It’s one thing to follow friends or co-workers, but following random trashy girls on Instagram is just a move to make you jealous, especially when we know that you’ll see that we “liked” a picture of a scantily-clad stranger. Some guys will even post pictures of themselves with random women whose names they don’t recall just to make their partner jealous.
- We tell you how much we enjoyed doing something without you. It may not seem like it, but we know if we talk about how much fun we had spending the day without you, we usually know what we’re doing. If we go out with our guy friends or have a great time at a party that you couldn’t make, we know making a big deal about it will make you jealous, especially if there were other women around.
- We compliment other women. Okay, so this isn’t particularly sneaky or subtle. However, we know that giving other girls compliments, even if it’s just one of our female friends will make you jealous. Let’s be honest, a guy would have to be incredibly dumb to think it’s cool to give another woman a thoughtful compliment in front of his girlfriend. If a guy does this, odds are he’s trying to make you jealous.
- We pretend to work late. This isn’t super clever, but saying we have to work late when we don’t have to is a good way to seem unavailable and make you ladies at least a little jealous. To be fair, people do have to work late sometimes, but even if we didn’t, it’s bound to get you riled up a little so that’s a win-win from our perspective.
To be clear, any guy who purposely gaslights you and goes to extremes to upset you is NOT relationship material and isn’t worth dating. The behaviors I’m mentioning here are very immature in places but they’re also pretty innocuous and not meant to do any lasting damage.
