Is my boyfriend flirting with this girl?

[maplestory]

Sorry if this is long, but I really need help. I feel like I'm going to go crazy over-analyzing this.

I've been dating my best guy friend "Ben" secretly for 2+ months now. We plan on announcing our relationship soon. It's a bit complicated, since I dated one of his good friends a while back. He plans on telling his friend about us by the end of Feb, and wants me to tell my family about us by then, too. But I feel like I need to solve this issue before I take this step of risking my parents being super mad at me (they're against me dating in hs) and risking his friendship with his friend.

Anyways, before we started dating, I noticed that he was unusually friendly with this girl "Kelly" in our English class. He's been in the same table group with her for half a year by chance since our teacher randomly assigns seats so that's prob how they got so friendly, but we recently changed seats a month ago so he doesn't sit near her anymore. Once I was talking to him, (a few weeks before we started dating), he reached over mid convo and pinched her as she was walking into class. Ben's the kind of guy that mostly sticks to himself and his gang of guy friends and is typically somewhat reserved/introverted. He doesn't really have any girl friends besides me, so this was out of character for him, and I've known this guy for 3.5 years. So when I found out he liked me a few weeks later, I brought up how I was surprised bc I had thought he liked Kelly bc of how he seemed comfortable pinching and playing around with her. He replied saying "I'm not going to stop doing it though," which I thought was strange since I hadn't asked him to in the first place. I let the matter slide at the time bc I figured that it was me he liked, and 2 months pass without me really thinking about it again. During those 2 months I don't really notice much interaction between him and Kelly either.

However, yesterday as we were once again talking with our group of friends near the doorway, she passed by and he reached out and they did some sort of quick special handshake. And finally today, Kelly initiated it and poked/slapped him (not sure which) and quickly walked way, which led Ben to turn around quickly, walk away from our friend group for a few seconds, and poke/slap (?) her back as she was trying to run away. Again, I was surprised, this time because I thought they didn't really interact anymore, let alone talk enough to have a special handshake. I'm thinking that she might be in one of Ben's other classes.

Am I overreacting or does this seem like flirting to you guys? I'm fine with him just talking to her, and I'm fine with him having female friends, but the playful touching makes me a bit uneasy. Also, I don't really like Kelly as a person so that might be part of the reason why I'm so antsy. She's done some questionable stuff to past guys she's dated. However, she's never been mean to me personally. I plan on talking to Ben about this, but I wanted to get some other opinions on this first.

[Wakeup]

Yes, it's a form of flirting. When you talk to him use your "I" words and do your best to refrain from saying "you" do this or "you" do that but rather make it about how you feel when he does those kinds of things as its disrespectful to you.


Example: "I" feel embarrassed when you do that because even though no one knows we are a couple, I know we are and I feel "jealous" or "insecure" or "threatened" or "disrespected" (whatever it is you feel) when you are playful with her. I don't see you pinching/slapping/giggling like that with your male friends so why are you doing it with your female ones?"

Remember: She doesn't know he is dating you so you might also want to mention that as well and also point out that how he is acting with her would give any girl the wrong idea about his availability.

Bottom line: He doesn't act like that with his male friends so it is crossing platonic relationship boundaries to act like that with his female ones.

Good luck, let us know how your talk goes. Do your best to make it about you and avoid making him defensive by accusing him of anything.