My friend Jackie and I have been friends for about 3 years now. Ever since I've known her she's had a problem that has been getting worse recently.
If Jackie and I are on our own computers and are next to each other, which happens almost every day at school, she will always look over my shoulder at what I'm doing. I'm usually working, browsing reddit, or reading manga, none of which involves her. I've had some privacy issues at home in the past, and I hate the feeling of someone else watching what I'm doing. This habit has been going on for at least two years and I can't stand it. I understand that it's normal for eyes to occasionally drift over to someone's screen to see what they're doing, and I do that too. However, Jackie does this to the point where it really bothers me. Other friends have pointed out that this bothers them as well.
I think this is a huge insecurity issue for Jackie. When her screen is within viewing distance, her brightness is as low as it can be. She used to say that it was just to preserve her computer's battery life. But in a heart-to-heart conversation we had once, she admitted that she does this because she doesn't want anyone looking at her screen which she writes private things on. She also mentioned that at home, she is always as quiet as possible when she's in her room because she's terrified of her family (especially her overbearing dad) to know what she's doing, which is usually just normal teenage stuff: playing video games, watching videos, etc.
Yes, I have asked Jackie to stop. Politely and not so politely. The last time I asked her politely, she almost started crying. She said she was working on the issue, to which I responded something along the lines of "No, you haven't, I've known you for two years and I haven't seen any improvement. I've asked you to stop before and nothing's changed." Jackie said that she knows this, and promises to keep working on stopping it. Yeah, it improved, but only for about a week before she started doing it again.
Jackie also has this problem with physical things. When she's at my house, she picks up random stuff that's laying around and looks at it. This can be anything from a book to photos laying around to my fucking mail. She's also done this with my phone and looked at my notifications, which I've firmly told her to stop, but it's happened once or twice since then. I talked about this with our mutual friend Lana [19F], and she says the only way she's succeeded in getting Jackie to stop is "yelling" at her. For example, Lana and I were working on a very hands-on project and Jackie started picking at the pieces. Lana told Jackie in a very firm voice to stop, which turned some heads and got Jackie to stop for the rest of class. I don't want to do this. Jackie is not a small child or a dog and I don't want to treat her like one.
The most recent incident, which triggered me to write this post, is yesterday. Jackie and I were playing a game right next to each other. I was writing private messages to another player in the game, in which we were just joking around. Jackie was looking over my shoulder.
I asked, "What are you doing?"
She said "Nothing".
"Looking at my screen?"
"Yeah. changes subject"
She looked away, then not even 30 seconds later she was doing it again.
"Jackie, can you please stop?" I said the same tone I talk to my cat in when she jumps up on the table.
Her head turned to her own screen faster than a whip.
I hate this. I don't want to do that to my friend, especially in public. Jackie is not a child or a pet. Is there anything else I should do to encourage her to stop? It's been getting on my nerves increasingly to the point where I don't feel comfortable being around her.
TL;DR
My friend Jackie constantly reads over other people's shoulders and touches and looks at their things without asking. As her closest friend, this bothers me, and it also bothers our other friend too. We've asked her to stop for years, and she won't. The only effective way to get her to stop is scolding her, which is only temporary. What should I do?
Edit:
I feel like one thing I should point out is that Jackie's habit has saved a life. One day in class Jackie urgently came over to me and told me that she looked at Lana's screen and saw that Lana appeared to be writing a suicide note. Immediately, we went to the appropriate adults and got Lana help, and she is fine now. However, I think this incident might have caused Jackie to rationalize the situation because after that, she's been doing it more often since then. Maybe she believes that she's just looking out for her friends when she does it?
[link] [comments]
from Relationships https://ift.tt/2rGqThh
No comments:
Post a Comment