I have been dating this girl for quite awhile (6 months) and thing have always gone very well. We are both very considereate and understand of each others needs, wants and views. It's great.
But in the last month a very odd rough spot surfaced on her 21st birthday. She doesn't drink and says she doesn't want to. Which works out cause I am not a drinker either.
But on the week of her birthday she started to become obsessed with going to clubs and bars. Which is something I never knew she even had any interest in.. She said she wanted to go just cause she couldn't before but now she can.
After her birthday party she said she wanted to go to a club just to get a virgin drink and go to say she went and asked me to go, I went. She is a fairly naive girl and she was a little surprised that it was not quite the fun little dance party she expected it to be. All we did is play pool and drink some Sprite and then leave cause she said she did not want to dance with me in the publicly explicit way that was happening cause she sees me as a good man and does not want me to seem degraded in hers or my eyes and I thought that was the end of it.
Then the next night I am working and she says she is going to go "bar hopping" alone. This kind of scares me and confuses me cause she doesn't drink, so why does she want to go to bars alone?
I asked her why and she says it's cause she likes and feels the need for attention from people. I asked why she wanted attention from strangers and was not content with attention from me, her and my family and all of our friends. She said she doesn't understand why wants it. But it makes me feel kind of odd. I asked her to please not go "bar Hopping" alone. A young naive girl alone at a bar is a target. She said that I was being ridiculous and that things only happen to people at bars on movies. She got upset that I was very insistent that she not go alone but go with a friend.
She was angry but went with a friend and then later she said that she was glad she didn't go alone.
Then she said that she did understand my point of view and that after going with her best friend who had just turned 21 a few days later, she would be done going to the club. That she was not as interested as she thought she would be and she saw it has a hard spot in the relationship and she cared about me more than clubbing. I told her she could go if she went with her friends I just was concerned about her going alone, but she was insistent about not going anymore.
Things seemed worked out.
Then out of nowhere yesterday she says she needs to talk. She says she really likes going to the club and dancing with her friends. I told her that I was glad she enjoyed it. And she said she wanted to start going again but wanted to ask me. I told her she should do what she wanted, she knew how I felt about her going alone and she could do what she chooses.
She then brings up again how she likes the attention. I told her I did not understand again. She said if I was a wild type who liked drinking and stuff and hanging out at clubs and bars that she would have no interest in me. She likes my "clean, intellectual nice guy style." She says its what she wants in a boyfriend and eventually husband. But she says she sometimes needs to address her wild side so she wants to go just for "temporary attention from people she doesn't care about" I asked her what kind of attention and she said she likes when people are looking at her cause she is sexy and dancing good with her friend but if they ask her to dance or anything she turns them down.
This is to me, very concerning, it's like she has a double standard she only has an interest in dating me because I am kind, clean respectful, level headed and self-controlled. And she says she wants to be that way too (and before this whole thing, she always was) but feels the occasional need to break from that and be "wild" but she does not want me to see that side of her.
It just makes me feel lousy. Maybe I am being too sensitive about this but it really is difficult for me.
Then she says that she will not go clubbing if I don't want her to but she would feel controlled. I am confused cause she is normally so selfless, very understanding and so open minded, but when it comes to this, it's a completely different matter.
Any thoughts, advice, jokes? Sorry about the length.