Dear Dáithí: I'm uncomfortable with the messages from my friend's husband 

'I’m uncomfortable with this man engaging with my online persona like this. I don’t want to accuse him of anything or admonish him.'

Dear Dáithí,

I’m a content creator and am lucky to have mostly positive experiences with followers.

Some of my content is about being single and dating — there’s an element of exaggeration and putting on an act with all of this. In recent months, my close friend’s husband has been interacting with my videos and profile in a noticeably flirty way, especially when I post more ‘risqué’ content.

He’s regularly sending me private messages and comments that, if they came from someone I didn’t know personally, I would dismiss as innocuous. However, I’m uncomfortable with this man engaging with my online persona like this. I don’t want to accuse him of anything or admonish him.

I have no interest in bringing his behavior up with his wife. I’m just getting weird vibes from the whole thing. In real life, he’s fine, but after a recent friends’ trip together, he sent me a message about how lovely it was to see me.

I don’t think I’m being paranoid. I don’t want my friendship with his wife to change, and I’m resentful that his carry on is going to necessitate me having to distance myself from her.

Let me begin by saying I’m delighted to hear that you have mostly positive experiences on social media. Sometimes I think it is all bad online because all we have coming at us these days is bad news from that corner. 

I think being a content creator is a great job; you are a movie maker, and it’s up to you to write the script every time and how exciting is that. If I was starting out again, this is where I’d be.

Because of the world we live in, we need to push the boundaries of reality to get people’s attention, and that’s where the element of exaggeration comes in.

Otherwise your work would get lost in a sea of similar content in an ever-growing ocean. When you look at it, everything and everybody, even ordinary things on social media, are exaggerated and all for the same reason: to grab your attention.

Sometimes it’s even hard to know what’s real and not. What one person shows on their social media pages might not be how they live at all. 

Add this natural exaggeration of social media and your subject matter about being single, it is probably going to draw attention, which is what you want, of course. This is not the issue here at all, it’s the person who is reacting to it. 

We will get to the person in question and how to deal with him soon, because it is very important to say at this stage that you have done nothing wrong, this is in no way your fault. This is your job.

The two main problems here are that your good friend’s husband is messaging you when he sees your videos, and he shouldn’t be, and this is making you feel very uncomfortable. Let’s deal with him first. 

I wonder does he fancy you? Did you ever get the feeling that he really liked you? Like he did say, it was lovely to see you after the friends get together. 

He might have misread the video as some kind of signal and is now sending out some kind of ‘feeler’ (excuse the pun, not intended) to see if you might like him back.

He could also be chancing his arm and be looking for something else. We really don’t know until we ask him what the heck is going through his head with all of this.

To answer another question you have in there, I don’t think you’re being paranoid here. This is making you feel uncomfortable, and that is always a good yardstick when it comes to right and wrong. 

Along with this, you’re getting weird vibes about the whole thing. Why wouldn’t you? It’s not supposed to happen, especially when he knows that you and his wife are good friends. 

Or maybe this is where the chase is for him. Again, only he will know this.

It might be a good idea to ask another close female friend within the group if they have ever come across this from him before. There might be pattern here, or it might be just a case of this guy getting his wires crossed.

You feel uncomfortable about the whole thing, and you need that to stop. You love your work, and you want to continue doing it, and I think that you will only keep working at your best when this crap is all dealt with. 

I have thought about this, and I think the next time you put up a video, and when he comes back with a flirty message, I’d ask him what you mean by that? And wait for his response.

This puts it right back on him to answer, and what he comes back with will let us know a lot. If he says he was only joking, he was chancing his arm, and you say look, all the messages make me feel uncomfortable, and they need to stop. 

If he says "look I like you and thought there was something there" tell him he has misread the room, there is no feeling on this side.

Be direct and straight. I wouldn’t get into a big over and back with him here, it’s "I’m not interested and stop making me feel uncomfortable" and that’s it.

I get the sense from your letter, too, that your relationship with his wife is very important to you and you don’t want to put any distance between you both, so you’ll need to think about that too.

What do you do? Are you happy to give the husband a warning? Will you ever say something to her? Another question is, why is he doing this? Are they having problems at home?

This part is a huge minefield, and you really need to think about it, so be careful and tread lightly.