So, what if they ARE a threat? When really good looking and smooth guys come over to chat up your bird it's much harder to keep your cool.

There is a big piece of the neurological pie missing, you're spot on. The only two vaguely convincing answers to this I've seen are as follows:

1) the idea of psych/emot leverage. You need a lever to move something seemingly immovable and intangible within you, so you "lighten" the one side with a programme of meditation so you're feeling calm and less attached to your old "patterns". You then apply various hypnotic and NLP style mental exercises to "create" or "rewire" the other side with the characteristics you seek, thus tipping the balance.
2) the idea that behaviour changes the thought and emotion, not the other way round. To a certain extent you "act" a desired mental state and physiology, it breaks the internal cycles by stopping reinforcing them with the previous behaviour. You gotta stop reinforcing them, so catch yourself in the act of getting jealous or defensive and "act" gregarious and cool.

Not exactly golden bullets but the nearest I've found.

On keeping your cool when guys hit on your bird, it's the whole "leader of men and women will follow" frame, switch gear: be friendly towards them, over the top gregarious, make them your mates but from a position of being very extroverted. It's the only sensible option, and think what it says about you. If you still lose her after this then you're better off nexting.

PS

Ok, I'll tell you how I deal with these things.

If my girlfriend gets propositioned for a date by someone she'd rather be with yet stays with me, then that means she's just "settling". That would make me think very little of her, she'd rather settle than pursue something she'd rather have.

I know for certain that my partner is with me because she perceives me as the best, if she ever perceives anyone else as better then I WANT her to leave me, if she didn't I'd find her less attractive anyway.

If she meets somebody better than me, by all means, she should be with him.

Stop caring about competition and instead focus on being the best you can possibly be. I don't suffer from insecurity or jealousy at all, the above rationalisation removes any issue with it I have. If she were to "settle" for me instead of having something better then she wouldn't be the person I'd want to have anyway, fuck everything about that, people get with me because I'm the fucking best.

It's not even about trust for me, it's about knowing that I'd think less of her if she were just settling for me. I want to be with someone that thinks I'm fucking awesome, if she doesn't think like that, fine, she can go, I won't even try to stop her.

Competition is bullshit and only serves to further destroy whatever "state" you have. Believing that there is competition inherently creates fear within yourself and sets you up to lose your self belief and confidence in any situation.

I want the people I get with to be exposed to this false "competition", by being exposed to it and still wanting to be with me I remain certain that there's no settling going on, they remind me that I'm fucking awesome. If someone perceives another as better than me, fair play! I know not to waste my time with someone that I'm less compatible with.

Being better or worse than another is a subjective scale based on perception of the events and interactions you've had with another. If you build better interactions with those around you than they have with others then they will inevitably have a better perception of you than others. Certain people connect better with various people due to genetics and other factors though and those instances merely help you to see who you're compatible with and who you're not. Better to find out who you're best compatible with than to be with someone you're barely connected to merely because you managed to stop her from being exposed to "competition".

I have seen both sides of the subject of jealousy. With my ex, I was an obsessive complete mess, completely head over heels would do anything and drop anything for her, thought she was my soul mate, would wonder why she didn't say "i love you too" all that jazz.

THEN things fucked up (thankfully, cos shes a dick) and I grew some balls.

Now I never get jealous or insecure. My girlfriend thinks I'm awesome, and is always telling me how much she misses me and how great I am.

Its wierd cos I never thought I would get over trust issues, but now it doesn't even phase me. BUT she does say sometimes it comes across like I don't care. Swings and roundabouts.

I don't feel it is hard to behave like this in a relationship situation at all. Obviously if the girlfriend in question is not happy at the guys chatting to her then sort it out, otherwise it's fine, that is of course if you trust the girl. If you don't trust the girl then there are widespread problems anyway.

Regardless, your reaction was the right course of action. No worries.

Yeah, I guess it depends on a few factors, including how much you like the girl, how much you trust her, the level of perceived threat, and arguably your own level of EQ, or emotional mastery.

Some girls get turned on by a bit of jealousy though. My mate from New Jersey used to have jealous rages and suspected his women of being up to no good all the time. He was, however, a complete natural ladies' man.

That's probably just because he's good looking though and very alpha in other ways, so his shit behaviour somehow gets through the loophole.

It also depends what the girls he dates are like. It's not like all girls set the benchmark here, i.e. where he's 'fooled them' somehow. They could be equally emotionally unstable, and like you suggest feed off the attention.

I've had that. I had almost total control of my emotions with my American ex, the same thing to varying degrees with others, and less so in one or two other relationships... Could that just mean that you are JUST not that into her though, and that you are mistaking this for emotional mastery? Would it be the same if you were with the "so called" woman of your dreams?

You draw a good point... I think my ex always played hard to get just for fun and games, and it made me want her more..

I generally feel happy with my current gf, so no idea!

Do you think emotional mastery can be mistaken for lack of interest? (new thread maybe?)