I (M21) don’t understand how I objectified my girlfriend (F22)?
(Posted this on a couple of other subreddits, but I just wanted to post it here for more advice)
Tl;dr I was looking at my girlfriend and smiling while she was at work at she told me that when I do that she feels like I’m objectifying her.
Just for some background context I’m currently doing my final year of grad school and am undertaking a big dissertation for my final project, which has meant a lot of long nights at the library and not much time to see my girlfriend. I’ve talked to her about this and she knows that it’s just for a couple of weeks and that it’s really important for me to do well so I can carry on with my education.
The other day I was talking to my girlfriend and she was telling me how she was coming onto her period and that she was feeling a bit down. I managed to finish my dissertation work a bit early and thought it would be nice to visit her at work and bring her some of her favourite cookies. I told her this before hand so she knew it wouldn’t be a surprise when I showed up, and I also double checked that she wanted these cookies. When I got there I could tell she was a bit under the weather and she asked me to come around to the side of the stall so I wasn’t in the way of customers (she works in this little food stall), I thought I was helping her when she was passing me bottles and I was chucking them in the bin and I just thought she looked really pretty and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her and smiling (I hadn’t seen her in person for about a week). She then started shaking her hands as if she got the ick and started saying things like “I cant, I cant, please stop, you’re making me feel really weird” she then told me to go and sit on one of the benches so I did. I figured I must’ve been in the way so I just sat down and started making some notes on my dissertation.
She then comes over and tells me that she hates that I always stare at her in such a sexual way and that I make her feel objectified, and I was really taken back. In the moment I wasn’t thinking of anything sexual at all and I felt horrible that I made her feel that way, I began to get really self conscious and kinda just kept my head down on my work. She went back to serve these customers and they were regulars so she started chatting to them, at this point I was really getting in my own head about things thinking. I started thinking things like “why are the regulars looking over at me, do they think I’m looking at the in a weird way”, “when I look and smile at people on the street do they think I’m looking at them sexually”, and things along that line. I began to get really overwhelmed and kinda upset so I decided to leave since I figured my girlfriend just didn’t want me there. So I said goodbye and left.
After this she sent me a bunch of texts asking why I left, and saying that its really unfair to objectify her and sexualise her and when I don’t get what I want I just leave, and its just made me really upset because that’s not at all what I meant to happen. Since then she said I don’t have the capacity to have a girlfriend while doing my dissertation, she took all of her money out of our holiday savings and said she needs some time. Although my dissertation is a really big stress for me at the moment and I’ve been going to therapy over it, I don’t feel like this is related.
Would someone be able to tell me what I’ve done wrong, I’m really confused?