You may have seen him before. He’s that guy who might always be holding his lady so tightly at that party, not wanting anyone to get close. He may be that kind of guy who calls her every hour. You may call him over-possessive, over-protective or both. Don’t bother with the big words. He just might be an Othello.
To get started let’s look at what Othello syndrome is. Othello syndrome is also known as delusional jealousy, a psychopathological condition in which a person holds a strong delusional belief that their spouse or sexual partner is unfaithful without any significant proof to back up their claim.
Someone once told me that being involved with pathological jealousy could be fatal. We’ve all heard one or two horror stories where the man beats up his wife after accusing her of being with another man. However, hardly any man will come up to you, wearing shades and flashing a grin and saying: “Hello babe, my name is Othello.”
Thankfully, there are a lot of ways of detecting an Othello once you have a little interaction with them. Let’s look at a few:
- *** When eye contact with other men is considered the unforgivable sin***:
Othello would keep telling you that because you glanced at bro Hunk passing by the road then your fidelity is in question. It doesn’t even matter if Hunk is your bosom friend who you gazed at directly when you were talking to him, Othello would hit the roof. Nobody likes their significant other ogling someone else but Othello takes it a different level when all you do is give a cursory glance. It’s ten times worse if you smile at the fellow.
- Overly clingy
The Othello guy always wants to be all over you. His calling you twelve times a day isn’t because he’s madly in love with you as he professes but because he’s being overly clingy. He wants to know where you are every minute of the day and what you are doing so he can be sure there’s no one on the side. Don’t bother trying to tell him that you are being monogamous because he’ll never believe you. He also likes to be very demonstrative in public so that everyone can know that he uh owns you and that you are off limits.
3.*** He goes all FBI on you***
Othello will make a good criminal investigator because he is such a snoop. He can ask you a gazillion questions about your day, who you’ve been with, who called you or who you called. He’d go through your diary, your e-mails, your phone calls, your make-up and your clothes just to establish in his troubled mind that you are having a sordid affair.
4.No alone time
Like we’ve established since Othello wants to monitor you every minute of every day, he definitely will not allow you to socialize on your own. A night out with the girls for you is a no-no. You can never ever go to parties alone. What he will try to do is to isolate you so you can have no access to the rivals he has projected up in his mind.
5.You begin to turn black and blue
It will get to a point and believe me if you stay with Othello long enough it will, that nothing you can say will ever satisfy him. He will no longer believe all your protestations that you are having an affair. And in other to punish you, he will begin to beat you up. And guess what? He will begin to blame you for his outrageous behavior.
Believe me; you do not want to get to point number 5 with an Othello. One might not even be alive to tell the story.
It’s important to note that ladies can also exhibit the Othello syndrome too. But another name exists for them; they are called the drama queens. They are just as dangerous as the Othellos.
In the long run though, no matter how smitten you are, you need to run away from an Othello because getting hitched to one can only mean one thing…a living nightmare.
P.S: Have you ever met an Othello before? How did she/he behave? Share your experiences and opinions in the comment box.
