“I’m so jealous!” November 17, 2011

Mini-rant time.

I really hate it when person A describes a holiday or food or a fun activity to person B who didn’t participate and the latter responds with “I’m so jealous!” or “I hate you!” or “You suck!”

Mostly, the person making these statements doesn’t actually harbor any ill-will towards person A, and is only trying to indicate that the activity in question is something they like and wish they could do too. I don’t have a problem with that bit. I do have a problem with the phrasing though, because it’s such a negative way to express yourself. To me, it sounds like you’re saying you’re the center of the universe and how dare somebody else get to do something you don’t? Why not just a ‘good for you’ or ‘that’s so great’ or ‘have fun’ or ‘you deserve it’? I know in most cases the person who says ‘I’m so jealous’ probably feels all those things. Why not say them instead of something negative-sounding?

I suppose the j-word particularly irks me, specially in the poly context where we’ve actively worked to process and understand jealousy. You could argue that trivializing it in this way helps de-fang it – it’s just a word – and, intellectually, I’d probably agree. Generally, its use every now and then isn’t a big deal. But lately it seems that it’s being used ALL the freaking time, to the point that person A in the example above will now say ‘I’m doing such-and-such. Aren’t you jealous?’ or ‘Ooh x! B is going to be SO jealous!’ and I really don’t like it.

As if the value of whatever one is doing exists only so long as someone else is not getting to do it or someone else indicates their approval of it by saying it’s worth being jealous of. Something about that stinks.