Does this behavior resemble a couple trying to test the waters for non-monogamy/trio/threesome, or am I reading too much into it?
Context:
I’m a 26-year-old man. My friend’s girlfriend is also 26, and her boyfriend is 24. I’ve known him for about 6 years, and I knew her from high school for one year before losing touch with her. I’ve been seeing her again for the past 2–3 years since he introduced us. For a little over a year, they’ve been regularly inviting me to their place, often with the three of us spending time together.
Her behavior toward me
From the beginning, she has made some comments that I found unusual:
She repeatedly joked about whether I had a guest room and told me I could “take him with me” because he gets on her nerves.
Even though we weren’t talking about kids, she once said she wanted to give her future child my first name, which made her boyfriend visibly uncomfortable.
She has also joked about being pregnant in front of both of us.
There have also been several moments where she seemed particularly focused on me:
In February 2025, while her boyfriend was in another room changing his shirt, she ran toward me with her arms open as if she wanted to hug me. When I mentioned it to her boyfriend, he laughed. She then stopped, smiled at me behind his back, put a finger to her lips and said “shhh.”
At restaurants and cafés, she has deliberately changed seats so that she was sitting directly across from me, saying she felt more comfortable there.
She has told me that she doesn’t mind me coming over, even spontaneously, and that she makes an effort to cook so I don’t have to order food.
She has repeatedly suggested that I stay the night when it was late.
One morning when I became more distant, her boyfriend told me she immediately noticed, became worried, and even talked about it with her mother.
When her boyfriend was in the ER, she said she thought it was a shame I couldn’t stay with her at his bedside because only one person was allowed.
At a car garage, I noticed a picture of me taken from behind. I assumed her boyfriend took it, but she proudly told me “No, I took it for my story.”
At a car exhibition, she told me she kept looking behind her to make sure I was still there because she was looking for my hat in the crowd.
Some more questionable moments
At her birthday, while cutting the cake, she asked me to carefully choose my first piece. I jokingly said I’d give her the first piece to avoid “feminist associations.” She then looked at her boyfriend and said:
“See? Your friend likes me better. I’m the person he likes the most here.”
The next day, while several of us were sitting on the couch, she came directly behind me and pulled on my side of the couch as if she were trying to pull me back toward her.
A few days later, her boyfriend asked her whether she would stay with him if he left for six months. She initially said yes, but then said:
“You wouldn’t know anyway if there was no tracker. You’d never know if I cheated on you.”
He got angry and told her not to even try it. About a month later, they actually went on a break, although they eventually got back together.
The ice cream situation
One day I went to the mall with her boyfriend and we got ice cream. When he told her, she jokingly said that he now had to pay for ice cream for both me and her the next day. The next day, she reminded me that we needed to get our ice creams and that he had to pay.
Later, she and her boyfriend started arguing in public. I stepped away because I didn’t want to be involved. They came looking for me, and he told me he thought I had left and that he was upset because she was “making a scene” by arguing in front of his friend.
That same evening, he told me the next day was her birthday and that he really wanted me to come. I ultimately didn’t go.
The boyfriend’s behavior
His behavior is also strange to me.
He once told me completely out of context that he could leave his girlfriend and me alone together for an entire weekend and knew nothing would happen.
He sometimes says he asks her to make more of an effort so that she and I talk more.
He makes sexual jokes in front of her, including saying that I’m more “well-endowed” than he is.
He has repeatedly said he’d like the three of us to travel together, including to Asia. Whenever I suggested inviting other friends, he seemed less enthusiastic.
He also told me that out of his whole friend group, I’m apparently the person she likes the most, and that she never feels uncomfortable around me unlike with some of his other friends.
There was also an odd interaction at a car exhibition. We were standing in line, and he pointed to the empty space directly behind his girlfriend and told me:
“Insert yourself there.”
Later, I told him the wording made me uncomfortable because I wasn’t sure whether there was a double meaning. He laughed, said I looked uncomfortable, and when I asked whether there was actually a hidden meaning, he smiled and said:
“Maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. You’ll never know.”
What I’m trying to understand
Individually, some of these things could obviously be jokes or completely innocent. What makes me question it is the overall pattern: she seems unusually attentive toward me, has made several comments that could be interpreted as flirtatious or suggestive, seems particularly concerned about my presence and reactions, and appears to prefer being around me.
At the same time, her boyfriend seems surprisingly comfortable with our closeness and sometimes even seems to encourage it.