Luv Doc: Bro Nights

Dear Luv Doc,

I have been dating a guy I met during ACL Fest last year. We are both in our 30s and have a lot of shared interests and similar lifestyles. We have good times mostly – especially when it's just me and him. The problems start when he is around his friends. He still has a lot of friends from his college days (he went to UT) and they still hang out a lot – like at ACL for instance. But I have to say when he is with them it's like he is a totally different person. He is much more immature and disrespectful to me and treats me like I am stupid. We have had several fights about this after going out with him and his friends and I have gotten to where I go out with them a lot less frequently. But now we have been dating quite a while and this behavior hasn't really changed. He usually invites me along on his bro nights, but I really think that now he's just doing it out of guilt and I don't really want to go anyway. I would like to spend that extra time with him, but not his friends. What can I do to lure him away from them?

– Dissed and Pissed

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After studying your missive for a bit I have come to the inescapable conclusion that your boyfriend is a douchebag. Now, granted, he may not be a full-time douchebag ... wait ... no, scratch that. He actually is a full-time douchebag, you just get to see him pretend that he is not a full-time douchebag so you won't kick him to the curb, but make no mistake: You should absolutely kick him to the curb.

Sure, you could be empathetic to his need to spinelessly morph into the d-bag he believes his bros want him to be whenever he's around them. You could have compassion for his lack of confidence and insecurity. You could try to convince him that he is a grown-ass man and therefore entitled to behave like one at all times. You could point him to counseling and resources that might boost his self-esteem and self-respect. You might even, by some small miracle, manage to help him to transform himself into an inspirational paragon of manly virtue and self-confidence.

But goddammit, the odds of that happening are really long. I mean sick long. I mean longer than a night spent with dudes who like getting wasted on Jägerbombs, telling "make me a sandwich" jokes, regurgitating superfluous sports statistics, and watching Chive TV – which, by all objective analysis, is indeed fascinating, but mainly in a brainstem-only kind of way.

I'm not trying to be holier than those bros, but I generally avoid that kind of scene because it inevitably ends up in some sort of defensively rationalized homoerotic activity like group masturbation to straight porn videos (it's not gay, bro) or hanging out in weight rooms with guys who grunt when they do curls. I know that sounds really judgy, and maybe it is a little bit, but mainly I am just saying it's not my scene.

Your boyfriend, on the other hand, may be what he believes to be his best self in that environment – especially if he routinely chooses it over spending time with you. Therefore, maybe you will both be happiest spending time with people who treat you with love and respect all the time rather than just when it's convenient.