Female friends and affection

While my boyfriend is completely aware and I don’t go kissing my guy friends on the cheek, I do have lots of friends of the opposite gender and I do hang out one on one with them, or sometimes together with my boyfriend as well. So I think it’s normal enough for *me* and I wouldn’t be okay with a partner who felt threatened or uncomfortable with it because I’ve known my friends far longer and it would mean the partner doesn’t trust me. That being said, while I was upfront early on that I have a lot of platonic male friendships who are not a romantic threat (and I was very upfront to be fully transparent in this specific case because he’s experienced cheating in the past), I didn’t expect him to be immediately okay with it. If you barely know someone, you also haven’t built any trust with them yet. He had already fully come to terms with and dealt with what happened in his past and so wasn’t concerned when I brought it up (there was zero projection of “an ex cheated so any new partner can cheat too”), but with the trust we built over time, it hasn’t been any issue at all at any point. I like to think my volunteered and continued transparency helped (I’d want this too at the very beginning of a serious relationship if the situation was reversed, to build trust), but he doesn’t seem to actually even need it from me.

If you are immediately uncomfortable, if you feel any anxiety / jealousy, and *don’t* think that will change, then you’re incompatible and should end it as you’re thinking, and that’s okay. If this is something you’re ambivalent about now but still open to which might dissipate over time, and he’s giving you no reason to distrust him — you still barely know the guy after a month and can take things slow enough to get to know him better and see how it goes and how you feel.

If you do end things now, after a month you don’t need to give him a detailed explanation. “I’ve enjoyed my time getting to know you but it’s not what I’m looking for” is fine. Telling him this friends-related reason won’t help or change anything for either of you now or in the future because it is just a neutral lifestyle incompatibility. You have different boundaries and comfort levels around opposite-sex friendships. Most people won’t press too hard for reasons after only going out a few times over the course of a month anyway, as it’s not an established official relationship yet. And if it was official and you had issues, hopefully you’d have already discussed them before breaking up.

can you like go out for a group luncheon or dinner ? maybe that will give you a chance to see how you feel about their close friendship upclose?