Seeking some advice. Could be something, could be nothing.
My girlfriend and I have been dating for 11 months iirc. We both go to different universities living roughly 4 hours away from one another. If we’re not spending the weekend together, we’re calling until we’re both asleep on FT.
Anyway, I want to preface this by saying that neither of us party or drink unless it’s with friends. We are both totally comfortable with opposite gender friends and try to keep them exclusively childhood/HS friends or with ppl we know swing the other way.
I’ll get straight into it, my girlfriend was at her best friends (let’s call her Alice), as it was Alice’s birthday. It would be them two, with (let’s call him John), John who is their childhood best friend, along with (let’s say Jake), Jake who they’ve known due to school for a little while now. Neither Alice or my girlfriend are close with Jake and only know him through John.
Halfway through the, let’s just call it a party ig for simplicity, Jake tried to rub my girlfriend’s inner thigh while they were both on their phones on the couch alone as John and Alice weren’t in the room. Obviously my girlfriend told him no, to stop, and flicked his hand off. He apologized and they all went home soon after. I didn’t think much of this, as although as weird of a “flirting method” that may be, I don’t think Jake knew that my girlfriend and I are dating. This happened probably 2 months ago.
Fast forward to this month. Jake has been increasingly more active in trying to get close to my girlfriend. From what my girlfriend tells me, he has complimented her saying she “looks really good today”, has grabbed her wrist to get her attention of which she pulled away from, and has even asked her to hang out alone sometime of which she said “Idk, we’ll see”, but firmly reassured me she has no interest in hanging out with him alone and will refuse him if he brings it back up. They share one class together, if that helps to clarify.
My girlfriend has issues with boundaries and stuff due to abuse as a kid, relationships, etc. of which I won’t get into, but she’s always struggled with standing up for herself. I’ve been telling her to, not randomly approach him and tell him to stop, (and yes she finds all of this incredibly uncomfortable), but to try and find a way to get him to understand that she isn’t at all interested in him. At this point I should make it clear that Jake knows that my girlfriend and I are dating.
She tells me that he hasn’t touched her since from the birthday party in a similar way, and she doesn’t want to intervene if his intentions aren’t what they seem, but I’m worried that she’s letting her boundaries get crossed again in hopes of not looking like a bad or crazy person in front of other people.
This is the part where I need some advice. What can I do or say to her to help? She does see that he has weird intentions, and has told me that she’ll firmly tell him to stop the next time he tries anything. Do I trust her loyalty, or do I take another approach or action? I’m not worried about her cheating as she has no history of the such, and although not sure-fire ig, the rest of her friends are in relationships or are engaged. She also has been very transparent about how this makes her feel and hides nothing from me. Not really sure.
Anything would help, much appreciated.