I'm paranoid about her (best) friend, who is a "he."

Hey guys.
Some of you might have read what I had posted back in September about this girl that I've been dating since mid-August (post1275126.html#p1275126). In short, I'm in love with this girl (although I haven't got the chance/courage to tell her yet) who is very busy (pretty much as busy as I am) and is awful in communication (which is something that she also admits). It has been a challenging experience for me, but I have managed to go through it so far.
Recently, I've been dealing with a new challenge, which I have never dealt with before in any of my previous relationships: I am paranoid about her (best) friend, who is a "he." In a nutshell, she has a very close friend (to the best of my knowledge, he is either her best friend or the second best) who is clearly in love with her. He doesn't even try to hide it. He would say this out load and admit it in front of everyone. The first time that my friends saw this they were shocked. I even think that his family (parents and his sister) and some of his friends believe that he is dating my girlfriend. I actually used to think that he is gay, and it didn't bother me at first (he has some behavioral characteristics that are common among my homosexual friends). However, I recently found out that he is not. Since then, it made me paranoid. Notice that I am using the word "paranoid" very carefully.
These can describe the situation:
1. I do not believe that my girlfriend is currently cheating on me.
2. The recent trips that this guy has taken to my girlfriend's (she has recently moved from Austin, so we are not living in the same area anymore) made me think that he might be on to something now that he knows that our relationship is moving forward. This has caused my paranoia.
3. I feel like she's been distant from me since Christmas break.
In short, I think/suspect (or whatever verb that you would like to use here) that my girlfriend's best friend is trying to win her over, and because of that my girlfriend is having second thoughts.

How can you help:
Although I shared these with you, I am not that type of person who allows his paranoia becomes firm belief. I have never brought this up to my girlfriend, and I am not going to either. As I said, she is awful in communication, and I'm afraid this can ruin everything. Besides, the above is just speculation. I dearly love her, and I trust her. I don't know how to deal with this without communicating this with my girlfriend though. Believe me, I've thought about talking to her about this. But not only I am not that type of guy who makes decision based on speculation and paranoia, but I've also come to the conclusion that this may have some awful unintended consequences. What should I do, then?!? Any advice?!?

osborne -

Could be nothing but a friendship, but unfortunately it happens too that some people don't respect others relationships (or even see it as a challenge) and try to interfere (p.s. long ago I had a roommate who consistently went after the women I was dating; eventually he was my roommate no more )... Anyway...

Ultimately you have to trust her, and you're right that bringing it up is likely to backfire. Ideally she would make her relationship with you very clear to her friend (and maybe has, but not necessarily told you she has).

I have no advise myself. Sometimes all choices are less than ideal, and all we can do is trust the people we care about to do their part to make a relationship work.

xdude wrote:Ultimately you have to trust her, and you're right that bringing it up is likely to backfire. Ideally she would make her relationship with you very clear to her friend (and maybe has, but not necessarily told you she has).

I'd agree with this.

Thank you, xdude. Like michberries, I also agree with what you said. On top of that, you brought up an interesting point:

Ideally she would make her relationship with you very clear to her friend

I don't know if she's clarified the nature of our relationship with him or not. I haven't asked her, and she's never brought this up either. Now that I think about it, though, she has brought up the fact that he is her "friend" couple of times: once when she told me for the first time that this guys is visiting, and once when we were in a gathering with her former colleagues and friends (she was actually very clear that this guy is her friend, and she put clear emphasis on it). Plus, I know that she has already told couple of her best friends and some of her former colleagues that we are dating. But I don't know if she has clarified this to this guy yet.
A quick note: since we worked together on a project this summer (where she was with the law firm and I was representing our bank), it is not ideal for us to put this out there yet that we are currently dating. There are some legal and confidentiality concerns that will soon be resolved once the whole project is over. That is why only a few of her closest friends (who are not working for either parties) and two of her colleagues (who were working with us in the same team) know that we are dating.

This situation is really bothering me, and I would really appreciate it if someone could give me some advice. I fully trust her, in fact, but I am super irritated by the way that her friend behaves.

Thanks again xdude and michberries!

With regards to your relationship with your GF, I say proceed with suspicion. It happens that needy, insecure men hang around women who are not romantically interested in them. However you ought to at least ask yourself, why is this guy hanging out with your girlfriend if she's not sleeping with him or at least leading him on when he could be spending his time with other romantic pursuits. I think there's a reasonably good chance she's sleeping with him, slept with him in the past, and is sleeping with other people.

With regards to your OP, I noticed that you wrote of "I'm not this type of guy to do this" or "I'm not the type of guy to do that". This is a type of psychological weakness. This compulsion towards not being a certain type of person, rather than acting in a way that natural to one's self and adapting to one's circumstances, implies a high degree of self-guilt and low self-esteem. Some people can and will use this to manipulate.

Thank you Kabuhi. Thanks for the advice.