Where to start... when the boyfriend (30 yrs old) went official with me (26 yrs old), his friend "Dana" (we'll call her that) (24 yrs old) broke down and confessed her love for him. Then she saw he wouldn't budge and she de-friended him on Facebook. Then she re-friended him and told her she didn't mean what she said about loving him.
It gets better, though. About two weeks after Boyfriend and I go official, Dana started dating some other guy who had his eye on her for months... yet the strange behavior continued.
It seems evident to me she was crazy about my guy for a long time but he wouldn't reciprocate. Before I came along, she gave him a spare key to her apartment "in case of an emergency (or whatever)" (No, he didn't give her his key in return) and set up a Sam's club membership with him. She gave him the password to her Netflix account. But what gets me is that this behavior pretty much continued even after my boyfriend and I MOVED IN together.
For example, she kept sending little baggies of candy home with my guy. And she got this bag of candy bars for Christmas and insisted that my boyfriend take them home and dole them out to her one by one whenever she asked, since she "couldn't trust herself" to have all of them in her possession. (Yeah--why didn't she send them home with her own man?) Then she insisted he read some of her books--on her kindle--which she sent home with him.
And the occasional times when she and her boyrfriend and I and my boyfriend are in the same room together, she directs all of her attention to my boyfriend (surprise) while her poor guy sits and sulks.
It all kind of culminated when she had my guy over at her place, alone, until 11:00 pm to discuss with him her interest in changing career tracks and getting a new degree in his field (surprise!). At this point, I told him that he could be friends with whomever he wanted to be friends with--but the least he could do is avoid the appearance of infidelity, set some boundaries with her, and send me a text message if he's going to be out after 10:00 pm.
Thereafter, he did send her a nasty email asking her to recognize they were both in relationships and should act like it, right after she called him a jackass in public for not going on a hike with her like they had planned to do six months before they were involved with other people.
Sorry for the rant. My assessment is:
1. The guy she's with is a rebound and/or beard (i.e., someone she's dating to conceal that she still isn't over the guy I'm now dating).
2. I should trust her as far as I can throw her, despite her syrupy sweetness toward me.
3. I don't want to start dictating terms to my boyfriend... but should I be more iron-fisted about this? He said he's never been interested in her and I believe it--but she doesn't have to steal his heart and live happily ever after with him to get him to commit one indiscretion in a time of weakness... or to just plain annoy me and make my life unpleasant whenever she's around.
And should I be lenient with my guy, like I have been? He's brilliant, sure (an engineer!), but really not very socially perceptive.
Thoughts please?