Friend is always talking about the male attention she's getting, is it reasonable to be annoyed?
So, I'm (29,f) in a bit of a dilemma and would appreciate some insight from other people how might be able to relate to this. I have a roommate who is in her early twenties (around 8 years younger than I am) and we got along great in the beginning despite the age difference. I consider her a friend by now and really like her, but there are a couple of things that I think are quite annoying and I'm unsure if it's reasonable to bring them up.
She recently went through a breakup and since then she's been telling me every day about a new guy who wouldn't leave her alone. We've been out a couple of times together - I know that she does actually get approached quite often. I was very sympathetic in the beginning - I'm not beautiful enough to have this problem often, but I completely understand how aggravating a man who can't take no for an answer is and how deeply unsafe und uncomfortable this can feel. I happened once while I was with her - some guy who was way older than her approached her and told her her rembered her blue eyes and that they must have met before. She didn't say she wasn't interested - which I thought was understandable, this is always an intimidating situation, so I stepped in and asked what he wanted. She kind of shushed me and continued talking to him. Afterwards when she told him no,nthe couldn't have met three times and he finally left she turned to me and immediately went "wow this is so typical how I can't just have a minute without a man approaching me. Also you saw how he completely ignored you when you tried to say something? This happens to me so often, why are men so obsessed with me and won't leave me alone?" From my perspective this whole exchange felt rather weird and I felt reminded of my teenage friendships, where male attention, even unwanted was some kind of social currency. I left it at that, but I feel like recently it's all she talks about. I always try to comfort her and say things like "yeah, that's so rude, I'm so sorry you're going through this and have to feel unsafe", but to be quite honest it just feels like it's some kind of ego boost for her to tell me about it? Recently she told me about how a mutual friend who I used to have a crush on ages ago (completely over it, but still) had to protect her from more unwanted male attention and couldn't leave her out of sight and how it's so funny that he's so protective of her since he usually is very standoffish. I told her that was how I perceived him when I had crush in him, a long time ago and she seemed really excited to tell me after this happened that he was so so caring and kind with her. Also, when we're in groups somewhere she is being extra loud and extroverted, especially if there are new guys around, talking over me and my other friends. I usually let it slide because we both have ADHD, I think she's partly just excited and enjoys socializing and she's barely 20, so I get that insecurities might also play into this and that she feels like she has to be extra fun and loud to be liked. But I also notice how I'm getting more and more annoyed by all of this behavior. Like I said, I was in a lot of quite toxic friendships in my highschool years with girls who were obsessively male centered and put me down in front of other people (specifically men) to make themselves look better and took a lot of pride in being more attractive then me. I'm really not interested in this dynamic again. On the other hand, I do know that she is getting approached quite often and maybe am jumping to conclusions based on my previous experiences. Also, she's just so young - maybe I should just put it down validation she apparently needs and leave it at that. But also, listing to it all the time just is genuinely annoying to me. Any advice how to handle this?