Dear SJ,
This is driving me nuts! My boyfriend is amazing but he has quite a lot of female friends. I get jealous sometimes and I’m struggling with it. To make it worse, he likes random girls’ pictures on Instagram. How do I boost my self-esteem and not torment myself?– Jealous Girlfriend.
Dear ‘Jealous girlfriend’,
I wish you had told me you and boyfriend’s ages. So, there seem to be three issues here. The first one being him being friends with a lot of female friends.
A boy and a girl cannot be friends!
Several people always disagree with me on that and yet I stick with it. Since it’s you and not him who wrote about that, this is something he will have to learn on his own. If you had “quite a lot” of male friends, would he be happy about it? Ask him.
People keep “friends” of the opposite sex as bounce backs into the game. These days, people are always expecting to be cheated on and it seems to be happening. It’s what untrained people do.
The second issue is the Gram. Oh, the ‘like’ thingy on the Gram! Social media is atrocious I tell you. Again, this is something that he will have to learn on his own. If you were to like random boys’ pictures on Insta, would he be happy about it? Ask him this too.
Personally – because I am a “do as I do” guy – I just don’t use the like button. I only use the like button expressly for scientific posts. There is a lot of misinformation on social media and your like is as good as a vote. There are a lot of bums and boobs on Insta as there are chests and abs. Ask him.
Liking for what?
The third issue is self-worth. I hope you are aware that I have an entire book solely on that. We are not taught self-esteem at home and that is why I am here. We all have to learn – on our own – how to build self-worth. Also, and I posted on this platform before, Rev. Run Simmons says,“the best person to talk about the problems in your relationship, is the person you are in a relationship with.”
If they don’t understand, I’m afraid you are dating a brick.
Dear SJ,
I’m in love with this guy but he is an asshole. I’m hurting but I love him dearly. What do I do? – Hurting
Dear ‘Hurting’,
Grrr! Asshole = Asshole = Brick.
There isn’t much you can do except to dump the brick. You are going to keep hurting and the lovely brick just won’t get it. You put the brick on a dinner table and it drops and stomps on your toes. Ouch! And then you set yourself up for having a luggage of bricks one after the other.
Drop the luggage.
Sonny Jermain is an award-winning public health, maternal, sexual and reproductive health rights facilitator and a traditional psychic. This column appears Thursdays on #ENTHUSE Send questions to asksj@enthusemag.com or WhatsApp +263 71 387 2286. Follow @SonnyJermain.
