Beware The Green-Eyed Monster
In Which We Question The Implications and Relevance of Romantic Jealousy
Personally speaking, impostor syndrome is neither an exotic nor totally alien concept. Having always had a level of confidence which weighs in on the lower end of the scale, a near-constant questioning of my skills, likeability and worth has made me an expert in the field of self-sabotage. Because of this, romantic entanglements have proved themselves to be, more often than not, wrought with anxiety from my end and certainly have not spared the indignity of my appetite for destruction. What really sets impostor syndrome apart from simple self-deprecation, however, is the burning streak of jealousy which we don’t care to admit comes alongside it.
If we’re to take the most prominent pop-culture references through the ages at face value, then we acknowledge the trope of a jealous party wreaking confusion (Almost Famous, 2000), pain (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, 1891) and even death (Othello, 1604) upon unsuspecting players in a tense situation which would almost certainly be avoided under ordinary circumstances. Rightly or wrongly, those of us prone to episodes of jealousy may, on occasion, find some twisted comfort in devising a purely illusory plot for revenge (or, at least, poetic justice). It just so happens that any regular upstanding citizen would have the common sense to exercise self-control; in making a conscious choice to sidestep these over-dramatisations of grudgingness, what, exactly, have we got left? In the real world, we adjust our behaviours to suit much more subtle nuances.
By this, I don’t mean to say that each slightly-less-than-ideal situation is appropriately handled with stinging tears and wild accusations. Only that, if we begin to compartmentalise the issue, there is a glut of ways in which jealousy can ultimately take a vice-grip toehold and manifest. Sometimes, it may be that the object of our affections has caught the attention of someone else. Others, someone else may have their attention. The ‘someone’ could very well be a something – work, hobbies, platonic friendships, an insufferably toxic parent/sibling/far-removed family member. But can we realistically place the blame on any of these scapegoats for being at the root of our personal unease? Not without laughing at the lack of self-awareness that would bring to light. Yet this does nothing to halt our soul-searching pursuits or shorten the growing list of rhetorical questions, which I’ve been asking less than five hundred words into this article. Self-aware or not, jealousy continues to exist and as with other facts of life, we bafflingly continue to accept it.
One arm of the argument for where jealousy actually comes from in the first instance places the onus on the individual ego – something lacking from the inner-self which leads us to over-compensate with weird behaviour. In an excellent article for Refinery29, senior lifestyle writer for The Independent Olivia Petter details how a private obsession with identifying how exactly she was better than her partner’s ex – in which she uncovered little more than the GCSE results of the woman in question’s 15-year-old sister - led to her acknowledging a rat’s nest of misplaced internalised misogyny. Petter’s admission has since sparked a reversal of the hibernation process which for years has seen me deeply bury and freeze in time a startlingly similar pattern of conduct, and I can only agree with her reasoning. Put simply, jealousy, without a doubt, emerges from a place of lack. A lack of confidence; a lack of anger management and personal boundaries; a lack of self-belief – making a clear distinguishment is of no huge consequence. The only thing which keeps jealous responses on the board as a valid option on the reactionary wheel of fortune are our misgivings towards ourselves.
I’ve already confessed to becoming a willing slave to the iron will of resentment (to say I’ve fallen victim would be a mistake – that would imply that my contribution to the upset was accidental or under duress). Now I must narrate the story.
A little while ago, I did the exact thing which every individual romantically involved with another is told not to do and checked my partner’s phone. It was neither a proud nor clarifying moment, nor was it made better by knowing they had done the same close to the start of our relationship. Although it wasn’t a detailed or extended sweep of their private conversations, I ended up finding… absolutely nothing. Nothing that would have incriminated themselves, nothing to make me question their loyalty, and certainly nothing to justify my low-simmering jealousy.
Ultimately, proving to myself that my partner was simply the great person I fell in love with made my quest to substantiate an opposing claim feel awful. Having deemed me trustworthy enough to bestow upon me the privilege of knowing their phone password should have been an adequate indication to take jealousy out of the equation between my partner and I, but the green mist clearly clouded my vision for that brief moment of misadventure.
Revisiting Olivia Petter’s article a second time, I take pains to expose myself in acknowledging that the ugly, lurking, creature-of-the-deep that is my inner internet stalker has become something of a friendly acquaintance of mine over the years. As is candidly mentioned by Petter, drawing the line and kicking the addiction has often proved to be an arduous task.
“I wasn’t looking for surface-level stuff” she writes. “I needed to know who this woman was. What did she find funny? Did she order fries with her burger, or a green salad? Did she describe herself as a ‘Boy’s Girl’?”
Rather than pick holes in another woman’s entire comportment, however, my end goal was always rooted in something more masochistic. I wanted to identify the minutiae of character which supposedly made my partners’ exes people who were infinitely superior to myself. Somehow, these largely anonymous women became romantic archetypes for me to replicate and I just wasn’t cutting it.
I am old enough to recognise my own internalised misogyny and young enough to still make positive changes to my outlook. The last few years of romantic pursuits have been spent attempting to un-learn the idea that our partner’s side of the story is gospel, and that it is acceptable to pass derisive comments on how another person chooses to live. What was it exactly that I learned from uncovering massively inconsequential details about someone with whom I may or may not have a sexual partner in common? That it was, fundamentally, none of my fucking business. Trivialities can grind us down if we let them, and a major city can feel like a village if we go to the effort of making the connection.
Is, if we strip it down to its foundations, jealousy ever completely justified? Possibly, if the motivations behind any suspicions expose genuinely dubious actions. But is it, more importantly, a source of unnecessary pain and unhealthy social competition? Definitely, and the sooner we remove our heads from its proverbial jaws, the quicker we can begin to look more kindly upon ourselves as allies rather than adversaries.
by Emma Doyle (Staff Love & Relationships Writer)
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Edited by Charlotte Osment (Editorial Assistant)
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