Seeing someone get jealous is surely a sight to behold. Has the guy you’re texting with been acting strangely lately?
He has been exhibiting odd behavior whenever you bring another guy up or when you talk about how much fun you had last night.
So many questions, so many mood swings, and so many views on your social posts. Wait! Is he being jealous?!
Here are 11 distinct signs a guy is jealous over text!
1. He goes silent when you bring up other men.
Is it common for you two to be chatting normally, and the moment you innocently bring up another man his replies get dry and short?
The second you brought up another man, his jealousy got triggered and his initial reaction was to back away and become silent.
This is because the idea of another man in your life threatened him and made him want to pull away from your conversation.
A study on jealousy shows that men tend to cope with jealousy by using denial and avoidance.
Meanwhile, everybody feels and reacts to jealousy differently, one other form of it is completely pulling away to not let you know he’s feeling jealous.
- His replies become short;
- His attitude has completely shifted toward you;
- He stops replying;
- He takes a while to text back.
In this case, he might be doing any—or all—of these things to be low-key and play it cool.
There’s a high chance he wants to deny his own feelings as well.
2. He texts you a lot and checks up on you whenever you’re out.
Does he excessively text you whenever you’re going on a night out with your friends?
Because if so, there’s a high chance that he’s feeling jealous and wants to check up on you.
To him, you going out means that you’ll spend less time with him and more with—potentially—other people whom you can develop a fondness for.
His thought process is that you go out, there are other people present wherever you’re going, and eventually one might catch your attention.
By texting you, he’s hoping to grab your attention and make sure that no “funny business” is going on.
He’s constantly keeping tabs on you while also not allowing you to forget about him.
3. He asks you a lot of follow-up questions!
These are not those interesting questions that keep the conversation going. No.
I’m talking about asking an unreasonable and ridiculous amount of questions that make you feel like you’re being interrogated. When he texts you he’s:
- Asking you for in-depth details about how your night out went;
- Asking you excessive questions about other men in your life (e.g. guy friends, exes, co-workers, acquaintances, classmates, etc);
- Asking what you’re going to wear;
- Wanting to know about the aftermath of another guy who hit on you (e.g. whether you like him, if you gave him your phone number if you’re still talking);
- Asking you about who’s going to be present at an event you’re going to.
You’ve noticed that every time you tell him something, he tries to pry more information out of you, sometimes stuff that is unreasonable and none of his business.
He does this as a way to make sure his position in your life isn’t threatened, there’s no need for him to worry, and/or other guys aren’t “stealing” you from him.
His jealousy pushes him to ask a lot of questions and know everything possible that, in his opinion, should be known.
4. He gets super curious when it comes to your connection with other men.
Have you noticed that he usually asks about what your relationship with someone you bring up is?
Because if so, we might be onto something here.
If he’s nosy regarding your relationships with other men in your life, he’s probably jealous and trying to figure out whether he should worry or not.
Whenever the topic of another guy comes up, he might ask “Is he a friend?” “Are you two dating?” “How do you two know each other?” “Are you close to him?”
He will find himself wanting to find out more about your daily life and the people in it.
He fears losing you to someone else and needs to know if there’s any reason for him to be concerned.
He also wants to know whether you’re not already interested in someone else if he’s thinking of confessing his feelings to you.
His natural instinct will be to question every other man in his life and see if they’re to be considered rivals.
5. He keeps a close eye on your social media activity and following.
When a guy is jealous, he will, without a doubt, stalk your social media and keep a close eye on whether your following has gone up or down.
He’s going to check your socials and might even ask questions such as:
- “I saw you posted on [location]. That’s nice! Who did you go with?”
- “I just noticed by chance that you follow [a guy’s name]. How do you know him?”
- “You were online until late last night! That’s unusual. What were you up to?”
- “Just saw that [name] commented under your post. Is he a friend of yours?”
He scrutinizes everything you do on your social media because he’s jealous of another guy coming into your life and/or making a special place for himself.
This is also his way of making sure that you have no romantic relations with somebody else.
Nowadays, social media takes up a huge part of our day-to-day life. You meet a lot of people there and one thing might lead to another: your guy knows that.
6. He brings other women up right after you mention a guy while talking.
The good old switcheroo!
If you’ve noticed his annoying habit of bringing girls up whenever you do the same, there’s a high possibility that he’s doing it out of jealousy.
According to Maryanne Fisher, Ph.D., when people try to induce jealousy, they’re also reflecting the need for love and attention.
It’s quite common for people to want to induce jealousy because they see it as a win-win situation: they show the other person that they have options and get a better idea of how the other person feels toward them.
He brings up a female friend, co-worker, or a random stranger flirting with him right after you innocently mention another guy’s name.
Coincidence? Unlikely.
If you notice him bringing other people into the conversation, he’s undoubtedly jealous and hoping to make you feel jealous in return!
He’s attempting to make you jealous as a response to him feeling jealous.
He might even be wanting you to chase him and see him as more desirable.
7. He gets visibly upset when you don’t text him back.
This is a clear sign that he is in fact jealous.
He wants to be talking to you at all times, and when you take a while to text back, his thoughts start racing in all different directions.
He gets mad and upset when you don’t respond to his text messages because he thinks you might be spending that time with somebody else.
He starts assuming that you’re texting another guy, and he doesn’t want that: he doesn’t want anybody else hogging your time and attention.
- He gets angry;
- He is irritated;
- His spirits are down;
- He gives you the cold shoulder afterward;
If he exhibits any similar behavior after not receiving a text back for a while, then chances are that he’s jealous and over-exaggerating the whole situation.
So, to him, every minute you delay your message is an extra minute that you might be possibly spending with another person who might take his spot.
8. He wants explanations as to why you didn’t text him back.
Following up on the prior sign, when he’s jealous, he will also want an explanation as to why you didn’t text him.
He will want to know what—or who—is so important that got you distracted to the point you weren’t even able to text him back
If he doesn’t hear from you right away, he will want to know what you’re doing and who you’re with.
He will, again, start assuming the worst and think that you’re talking to a man that isn’t him.
That, or he’s genuinely concerned.
He might start “jokingly” implying that he wants an explanation, even though he very much does and will get upset if he doesn’t get it.
- “You didn’t text me the whole day! Somebody must have kept you busy, haha! No, I’m just kidding, that’s your business.”
Telling you without telling you that he is asking for an explanation, pushing you to give him one.
He might also just go for it and straight-up ask you why you delayed your texts.
Not knowing why you didn’t message him will make his imagination run wild and jump to conclusions, making him think another guy has “stolen” you away.
9. He tries to imply that he doesn’t believe your explanations!
He often “jokes” that he doesn’t believe your explanations when you try to explain stuff to him.
When people have complete faith in other people, they believe them in a heartbeat, however, if they don’t, no amount of explaining can help.
If whenever you explain something to him, he gives you hell for it, it’s because he feels jealous and is sticking to his ridiculous assumptions.
You might try telling him that you weren’t able to spend time together because you’ve been busy or sleeping, however, that’s not going to be effective.
Let’s say you couldn’t talk to him the whole day because you were busy studying for a really difficult exam and then you tell him why you haven’t been online.
He might attempt to:
- “Joke” that he doesn’t believe you (he probably actually doesn’t): “I don’t buy it. There’s no way you didn’t go out with somebody haha!”
- Further question you: “Yeah? Which class? Was there too much material you needed to go over?”
- Purposely make you feel as if you’re lying: “You spent 24 whole hours just studying? That’s weird.”
- Act cold, dry, or distant as a way to keep you on your toes, might even not respond at all: “It’s cool.”
Jealousy has clouded his judgment and he can’t stop thinking—and fearing—that you spent the whole day with another man, forgetting about him.
10. He acts passive-aggressively while texting you.
Daniel K. Hall-Flavin, M.D., explains that passive-aggressiveness is behavior in which instead of addressing an issue, one indirectly expresses it.
He’s jealous but he would never tell you that, so instead he starts being passive-aggressive.
On the outside, he might appear “cool” about the whole situation, but in reality, his jealousy is pushing him to act negatively, like:
- Often making “jokes” regarding you and other guys;
- Giving you the silent treatment;
- Not responding to your text messages;
- Using sarcasm;
- Refusing to tell you what’s wrong.
He repeats this behavior multiple times as a way to “punish” you if he believes you have done something wrong.
He doesn’t tell you straightforwardly that he’s feeling jealous, instead, he indirectly hints at the fact that he’s mad.
11. He says he’s jealous without you even asking about it.
Jealousy isn’t a pretty feeling, and as mentioned above, when men start getting jealous, they usually tend to fight their feelings.
If your guy often feels the need to say things like “Not to be jealous but […]”
Then there’s a big chance that he is, in fact, jealous but trying to hide it and deny that he’s feeling in such a way.
Instead, he doesn’t tell you what’s wrong and tries to carry on as usual.
You might ask him if something’s wrong or even straight-up ask him if he’s jealous, but the answer will most likely be “no”.
This is because men have a lot of pride and would never admit that they feel threatened by another man, who at this point is just imaginary.
Admitting that he’s jealous, to him, will sound like admitting that he has low self-esteem and no confidence: not good enough for you.
So of course, when he’s jealous, his initial reaction will be to deny it.
To sum it all up…
Jealousy is a normal thing to feel when you’re interested in somebody!
Although a majority of men like to deny that feeling, their actions speak more than their words.
Now, it’s not too cute to witness this type of behavior from someone you have no feelings for: if it affects you negatively, you don’t have to tolerate their shenanigans!
Love,
Callisto.
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