"Is it too soon to ask him to lay off the other girls?"

Dear Greta,

I feel ya – the same thing happened to me recently after I started seeing someone who had more girl-friends than I have shoes and bags combined (that’s a lot!). He was constantly telling me about all his great gal-pals, some of whom he saw daily, others he called constantly and few he’d never actually met but befriended through MySpace! I’m not the jealous type either, but I couldn’t help but be irritated.I kept thinking, “If he’s so into me, then why does he need an entire lineup of other girls?”

What I finally began to understand – and this could be the case with your guy too – is that that he used his relationships with all those girls to boost his self-esteem and confidence. Think about it – when a whole gaggle of guys are into us, we feel pretty damn good about ourselves, right? Our confidence rises and we’re on top of the world!

Sounds to me like your guy and my ex have something in common – they use their girl roster as a means to make them feel cool. Even if they’re just “friends”, the more girls they have vying for their time and attention, the hotter they feel about themselves. Unfortunately, the greater their roster gets, the less hot we start to feel!

We want to be the priority – and we should be! We don’t want to feel like just one of many, we want to know that the guy we’re seeing is seeing US, and only us. But here’s the thing, we can’t very well ask them to quit their relationships with their other friends. What we can do, however, is explain to them that we respect their friendships, but we hope they give just as much effort (if not more) to our relationship with them, as they’re giving to all the other friends in their life.

Explain to your guy that he’s your number one, and you want to feel like his, also. And tell him that you’d really love to meet some of his friends – especially his best girl friend who he always talks about.Maybe plan a little get together for the three of you, or even a whole group of people (your friends and his combined). By meeting some of his girls, and befriending them, you’ll feel less threatened by them and hopefully see that the only thing between him and them is plain, old platonic friendship.

Good luck!
Marissa