His friend seems emotionally dependent on him

[Honeybunnies]

Hey again! I had a lot of success with my last thread (seriously, you guys are so awesome) and decided to bring up another concern of mine.

 

As I said in my last thread, my boyfriend and I have been together for over a year. My boyfriend has an online friend who is a girl - they have never met but talk through facebook. We'll call her Becky. They have been talking for a couple years and bond over video games and such. That's how they met: on one of those online games. When we started dating, he told me about Becky: she lives in a different country and they sometimes play games together. He was very open about their conversations and would show me what they were talking about, I guess to make sure I wouldn't get paranoid (smart choice, haha).

 

Becky knows about me because my boyfriend posts pictures of us on facebook and mentions me in their conversations a lot. At first, their relationship didn't bother me because hey, she lives in a different country and my boyfriend has never given me a reason to not trust him.

 

Now, the problem is this: I just think Becky is way too dependent on my boyfriend for emotional support. Firstly, she comes off as very clingy and needy. My boyfriend will respond to her messages every few days, but she will literally send message after message, even when he is not online. So when he logs on, he is bombarded with "hey, hi, you there? come back" etc. She constantly asks him to play games with her online or mic with her.

 

Becky used to send him hearts and "kisses" and "hugs" and "I luv youuuu" until he asked her to stop. He said gestures like that weren't appropriate because he was dating me, that those messages would be okay if he was single - but he's not. I gave him huge props for doing this. She basically said "well I think of you as a brother" which to me, is kind of a lame excuse for sending these things. Personally, I would never send hearts and "I luv you" to a male friend knowing he has a girlfriend. I just think it's disrespectful.

 

So no more hearts and kisses, but she will say things like "ugh I almost sent you a heart on accident" as if trying to make him feel bad. He said she suffers from depression and agoraphobia, that she doesn't have many friends in real life and has called him, many times, her best friend. I've messaged her, saying things along the line of "I hope we can talk more in the future. [boyfriend] has told me a lot about you and I hope we can be friends." She completely ignored me and went straight to my boyfriend, saying my message was "awkward." She said, "I just wanted to let you know because I don't want to keep secrets from you." I don't know, it just seems like in her fantasy world, she's in a relationship with him instead of me. Clearly, this girl has no interest in getting to know me and sees me as an intruder, even though she is 3,000 miles away.

 

My boyfriend in no way engages in anything inappropriate with Becky. Even before we started dating, he let her know he wasn't interested - that he does not want anything more than a friendship. He has cut down on contact with her since we started dating, which she has noticed. She will always seek him out for support when she is having a depressing episode, venting to him, viewing him as her outlet.

 

Am I being insensitive? Personally, I think if she is depressed, she should seek help from someone near her - not from a man who is in a relationship.

 

What should I do? Send her another message?

[preraph]

I think it's obvious she's overly attached to him. She never stops, and she didn't like you intruding into her fantasy. If she's agoraphobic, this is probably the biggest relationship in her lonely life. I wouldn't be comfortable with the situation, but at least she's in another country and at least he's not trying to text her back very often. Just keep an eye on it and make sure there's never any talk of him going to see her or vice versa (I assume she wouldn't be able to travel if she's agoraphobic). Keep yourself front and center on his Facebook and don't let him slide into more frequent contact. She's probably a big mess.

[Honeybunnies]

I think it's obvious she's overly attached to him. She never stops, and she didn't like you intruding into her fantasy. If she's agoraphobic, this is probably the biggest relationship in her lonely life. I wouldn't be comfortable with the situation, but at least she's in another country and at least he's not trying to text her back very often. Just keep an eye on it and make sure there's never any talk of him going to see her or vice versa (I assume she wouldn't be able to travel if she's agoraphobic). Keep yourself front and center on his Facebook and don't let him slide into more frequent contact. She's probably a big mess.

 

I agree! She is very attached to him! I'm not sure how agoraphobia works, so I wasn't sure if her actions can be somewhat justified (the neediness and feeling lonely).

 

Thank you for your response! There hasn't been any talk of visiting, so that's a good sign! I will definitely keep an eye on this!

[preraph]

Look up agoraphobia and read about it. Of course, it can affect people to varying degrees. While she might not travel, she might be more than happy to lure him into her lair........hisssssss. He sounds like he's handling it somewhat appropriately, but don't let him let that slide. Hopefully he understands how out of control this woman probably is on some level.