I was at a wedding with my boyfriend on Friday where I was his plus one so while I’d met the groom once, I knew nobody else. On our table were three men my boyfriend knows plus their wives. It’s one of the couples I want to talk about. Let’s call them Chad and Sarah.

After the first dance we all joined them on the dance floor. Afterwards we all returned to our table. My boyfriend kissed my cheek and went to get us a drink. Chad immediately tells me he thought his best move was how quickly he managed to get off the dance floor.

Every time my boyfriend left my side it was always brief and when he got back he’d check on me (if I was mid conversation, he’d just put a hand on my lower back rather than interrupt). Chad wandered off a few times and when he returned, would insert himself into the prime position in the group and not acknowledge Sarah. As the evening wore on I gave up trying to talk to Sarah, she was deep in a pick me dance of trying to keep Chad’s attention.

Clearly Chad identified me and another man as being the ones whose reaction he cared about. On the surface he was fairly charming so I guess this tactic often makes people feel important but after finding FDS in lockdown it was so bizarre to experience. Obviously I didn’t like them (one of the few things Sarah did say to me was a comparison between my boyfriend and her husband which made out Chad was the better catch) but it really made me think about couples in group settings. So often the men want to charm and amuse the other men or women they decide are HV.

Just by looking at whose reaction they want is so telling. Pre-FDS I’d have found Chad a bit obnoxious but wouldn’t have called him LV as he did dance with his wife, didn’t actually flirt with any other women etc. But the wedding was an opportunity for him to boost his ego by getting attention. He doesn’t like my boyfriend as he’s very funny (but never at anyone’s expense) so sees him as the competition. He was clearly annoyed when my boyfriend missed a joke because he’d turned to tell me something or was checking whether my drink needed a refill. It was nice to see that the other couples followed more of the pattern of checking back with each other and once when Chad did say something actually funny I caught one man turn to check his wife’s reaction and smiled to see her laughing.

So yeah, from now on I’m always going to see whose reaction people care about. I liked the man who liked seeing his wife laugh and didn’t have a problem with the fact it was another man making her laugh.