My wandering eye..
 

I have a girlfriend but I can't help but look at other women. I do it constantly everywhere I go even when I'm around her. Is this bad?

Only if you're obnoxious about it.
Women do it too, they are just more subtle & quick about it.

Just don't disrespect her,
you know what I'm sayin'?

I agree with Rogue's advice. My wife knows that I like to admire the scenery and as long as I am subtle about it and don't make comments about breast size or compare her to them then it's ok.

It doesn't matter where you get your appetite, as long as you eat at home.

I think this is also something that you should talk about. I know a lot of folks who are in relationships where no one is allowed to even think about what anyone else looks like.

You like your S/O for more than what she looks like. You and she, while I am sure you are both attractive, are not the hottest people on planet earth. It should be okay to look around and even sometimes speak about it. If not, pressure can build up that can lead to unhealthy results later.

i got to a point with my ex where we were both checking girls out. just make sure she knows your just looking and shes the only one for you.

not if she doesnt catch you

eeh.. the wife knows that there are pretty people in the world and they need to be looked at. We both comment on them every so often. She even give me thong alerts... :) god I love my wife.

My gf knows I am always looking at other girls. She is pretty cool about it. As long as I just look at them..nothing else.

well, you have to do what I did- find a girl that likes girls as much as you do, but likes you much, much more. lol... this way you get alerts on hot girls and can point them out to her.

But in your case, I agree with what a few have already said. Have a talk about it. Be sincere and firm on the fact that while looking is COMPLETELY natural, you're not shopping, you're just seeing what everyone else is after while you've already found yours.

I don't know if anyone else's mom said this to them, but when i was in a store and touched something or picked something up and i'd say, "but i'm looking at it", she'd say something that is perfectly fitting here- "We look with our eyes, not with our hands."

Also, make sure if you're caught that you don't defend your actions. Defending yourself makes it appear you are guilty of something and trying to weasel out. Just admit you were looking, but that it doesn't matter because you've already got what you could ever want.

I don't think it is bad unless she starts to wonder whether your wandering eye means you have wandering penis too.

Just don't make it too obvious (like long stares).
She may feel insulted.

Of course we do it too, and yes you are correct we are just more subtle! :D It's human nature to check out someone of the opposite sex if you find them physically attractive...hell I think I'd wonder a little if I was with a guy who didn't do it! I feel, as so many others have expressed here, that as long as you aren't being rude (ie making comments along the lines of "Man, I'd love to do her") it's no big deal really....as long as you aren't hurting the other person. Some people (guys or girls - doesn't matter) would eventually start to feel inadequate I think if it was a constant act though. Just because you are admiring someone doesn't mean you don't love the person you are with......it means you still have a pulse!

Everybody looks! I am sure she is looking too.

This is more simple than everyone thinks.

If she has a problem with it, it's bad.

Your relationship is unique, and I don't think I can give you situational advice.

If she has a problem, you have a problem.

If you love someone enough, their hurt will become intolerable.

Only open and honest communication will decide if this is "bad" or not.

Try some, and let us know how it went.

its all about intent in my eyes......there's nothing wrong with looking, but desire to expand is a potential problem

looking is fine...as long as its just looking...
she seems to spot the pretty ones even faster than me... lol...

Just because you can't order, doesn't mean you can't look at the menu.

My wife will point out women she thinks look good. Unfourtunatly she has terrible taste in women. :D I think it kind of depends on the person you are with and the kind of relation you share.

I can't say that I don't look at other girls and some guys. My boyfriend and I both at times do it, though I think I vocalize it more. :) When I see a girl with a nice body, I look... who wouldn't? Or a guy that's well built? I don't plan on jumping outta my car and dry humping their legs just because they're walking across the street at a red light.... I love my boyfriend very much, I would never cheat on him or leave him.
It's kinda like porn, but living... just because we watch it and like it.. doesn't mean we're going to go sign up with Ron Jeremy to be in a porn flick.
I don't see anything wrong with looking, I liked the above reference.. "We look with our eyes, not our hands".. and that's perfect. I know where my love is, and that is what's important.. I'm not going to ruin that just because of eyecandy. My boyfriend and what he gives me are the most precious gifts in my life and I wouldn't lose that for the world.

Enough said. :)

You could always try to make a joke of it like I do with my girlfriend, say for example we are driving along and I see a women I just cannot help looking at I will say something stupid like "Wow, this girl has no shame, walking along in just those shorts and a bikini top. Really, nobody has any standards anymore these days!" Generally act all morally outraged.

Oh course, my girlfriend knows EXACTLY what I am up to, but she just laughs about it because my stupid comments diffuse the situation....

And remember, as my friend Bryant put it so eloquently yesterday when talking about getting old, "If you don't look, you must already be dead" ;)

only if she makes a point about it, which you can pretty well expect she will..............................

If your g/f thinks that being in a relationship means that you won't think other girls are nice to look at, SHE has the problem. That doesn't mean you should be gawking and salivating and otherwise making her geel like she's not there, but all men look.

Pretending that other members of the opposite sex don't exist is a really good way to prepare yourself psychologically for cheating. In other words, you can only walk past so many hot women and pretend they don't exist before you end up wandering after one.

It's really important to remember that APPRECIATION for beauty doesn't necessarily mean LUST for beauty.... you'd have to be dead to lose the first one, but the second one should only be directed at your SO.

Ditto, Mango. Or to put it another way, how can you appreciate caviar if you never look at hamburger.

I second everything everyone's said, with this one addition: there's NOTHING like checking out hot girls along with your own hot girl.

Exactly what my wife says.

The way I see it: you can look, but you can't touch.

i understand your predicament.
my wife is the best looking woman in both hemispheres.
your must (at best) be second best looking, that's why you look at these other female humans so much.


quit staring at my wife.

Bah, it's perfectly alright. Don't listen to hypocrites like this.

Your taken, but you sure as hell aren't blind.

Looking is ok, staring isn't polite, but as long as your SO doesn't have to roll up your tongue and stick it back in, mop drool off the floor, turn your head away for you, and get your hand out of your pants, you're not going way too far.

I'm definately one to check out the scenery. The radar is always on

Of course, I turn it down quite a bit when the woman is with me, and I never comment about anything when she's around. But when she's not there, I can give my 200% effort.

It is difficult to go to the local water park with the woman though, because the eyes wander a lot more than they should. And once the eyes have a good target, it's not so easy to take them off. Hehe

I check out chicks all the time whether im with my girl or not, but with my mates I go a bit further and say damn id love to fuck tight lil ass.

I believe this has already been addressed in a Mello Yello commericial. Just stay mello.

Although, in seriousness, it's fine to look, and I'd heed the advice to talk to your girl about it.

i have a serious problem with looking as well - I try not to do it when my wife is around, because she does not like it at all.

My father once told me: Just because I married your mother doesn't mean all the other women in the world turned ugly.

You're a male, plain and simple. That's the way you are. The question is how much do you want to alter your behavior to accomidate your significant other.

I've had all different kinds. I married a woman who enjoys looking at women with me... I'm pretty lucky like that I suppose.

To answer your question, no. It's not bad to me but it's all relative my friend.

My friend said it best to me...

Just cause I know what I'm having for dinner, don't mean I can't look at the menu.

THAT SAID, try to be subtle about it.

Don't OBVIOUSLY disrespect the woman. (The one you're dating OR the one you're oggling.)

You have to be realistic.

After we were engaged, hubby and I made a deal that we wouldn't screw anyone else until after we were married. It helped with the insecurities. Even then, he was free to look and fantasize and share it with me.

I was (am) realistic enough to figure that he would want other women. I can't possibly be everything he is ever going to want for the next 70 years.

angela - another good post from you, is nice to see another female who thinks similar to me in some respects :)

i do my best to be realistic regarding my bf and his 'innate' (?) 'eye for attractiveness' (btw, i'm not saying it's a male thing, i too have much of an appreciation for aesthetics)

...and stories and fantasies are def. a fun and welcome part of our sex life...

and at some point i would like to fufill some of our fantasies...but i've oft thought of waiting until marriage for the additional 'security'.

guys are wired to look, it's not like we can help it...the goal is to not be too obvious about it

I bet your girlfriend is doing the same, but probably for different reasons. There are some people that you just can't help but notice.

Don't be obnoxious to other women. Don't be obnoxious to the woman you're with ("Gee honey, why don't you lose some weight so you can look like her" would deserve a good kicking as she walks out!).

And don't do anything about it. Unless your lady is happy for you to play away, which I doubt.

Don't make comparisons, and DON'T let her trap you into saying something that will make her feel insecure or self-conscious.

That's the easiest way to get her pissed at you for looking.

But me? Married, not dead. :)

My wife is always telling me she thinks someone is cheating because they have that wandering eye thing going. The funny thing is I do the same thing, and she absolutely knows I wouldn't cheat on her. I often check out other women (the guys at work say I have a radar that has a 2 block radius when it comes to good-looking women). My head is on a swivel. When I'm with my wife, I'm more subtle about it, and she is always giving me hints on how to check out checks without seeming to check it out. We also discuss the pluses and minuses about the women and sometimes the men she looks at.

ok, I must just be lucky, but not only does my wife trust me and feels VERY secure in our relationship, but she will point out hot women to me. She loves just going to the mall and people watching. She actually will point out hot guys to me. I have a wandering eye myself, but we both know that we are just looking, we would never stray and we are comfortable with our relationship. We are also extremely trustworthy and have never given each other a reason to not trust each other.

I think females and males that get jealous about a guy or girl that looks at others is just too uptight and needs to loosen up a bit. There are 2 reason why someone would get upset or see their SO looking at others as a threat. Either the person is insecure, or they lack trust in the relationship.

My advise, loosen up and join in the fun. If you are a woman with a man that has a wandering eye, start pointing out hot women and join in the fun, or start pointing out hot guys, and either your SO will join in that fun, or they will start becoming more concious of their own wandering eye and knock it off for fear that you might start looking at other guys again.

Anways, that is my 2 cents...

I think the people who are saying these women are insecure may be partially correct. But for my situation, I have a boyfriend with a wandering eye, and it seriously bothers me A LOT. Not because I am insecure, but because he has given me reasons to doubt him, and not trust him. And the fact that he see's how much it hurts me despite me forgiving him for things that caused me to have distrust in him in the first place, means he doesn't deserve me. I think it is fine to look at other women because its just looking, but when a relationship is having problems and you can't stop looking, then you are just a jerk, and the man doesnt deserve that woman in the first place.

You don't want to make your girl insecure, but at the same time, you have to accept that it's natural for you to look. As others have said, be discreet about the looking, refrain from comments, and don't do more than look. That should be more than enough, and your girl ought to be able to live with that.

I am an inveterate chick-scoper, and my honeys have usually been fine with it. They know if I'm with them, it's because I love them, and that means I am faithful. My last gf summed it up best: if you're with me, I know you love me. If you check out other girls, I know that you're a dude, and that you're alive.

My wife, being female, likes to go into verbose detail about rather mundane subjects.

This was especially true when she was working at a bigger company. She would want to tell me about her day, and the various people in her life I would never meet. She would call them by their first name instead of something meaningful to me like 'The head of HR'. Later she would say 'well Mike did blah blah' and expect me to know who Mike was.

Lets call it the whole Men are from Mars thing. Anyways she would also try to explain the appearance of the people involved at times, and what she looks at in a person is different than me for appearance. So in order for both of us to save time I just ask 'Would I do her' and she knows me well enough to answer yes or no.

Now where does this rambling tale lead?

Being jealous of a SO's 'wandering eye' is about as classic a form of insecurity there is. Now being insecure is considered bad so no one likes to say it applies to them, but I know if my wife was talking about how cute some guys were when we were first dating it would have greatly annoyed me, and likewise for her. Now, older, and together for 16+ years, its like commenting that its cold out.

So my advice is to be sensitive early on, but there should come a point where you are secure enough in a relationship that you can look, admire, comment on a member of the opposite sex without your SO getting their feelings hurt.

Just because you're tied to the porch doesn't mean you can't bark at the cars. haha, I cracked up the first time I heard that.

lol