Jealousy can be to do with the person you're seeing..

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I find my jealousy with people goes up and down depending on their personality.

Say I've seen two people, and am just as attracted to both of them.

Lets say one had the tendancy to flirt with women more, and didn't seem that into me as a partner, and made you feel ugly etc.

I would tend to be more jealous with that person than of someone considerate to my feelings, caring and noticably attracted to me.

I don't think people are either "jealous people" or they aren't, I think jealousy varies in levels with every person depending on their partner, how much they like them, and how they are treated by them, and the threat of losing them.

Thoughts?

People are idiots.

/thought

Personally, I am not a jealous person. Been with a few people: some clingy, some totally attentive to my needs, some in an "open relationship" and some just for "fun".

Never really felt "jealous" of the time and/or attention they lavished on others. It may be due to my need of "me" time reducing the need I would/could/should feel with or without them.

IMO jealousy doesn't fluctuate up and down depending on someone's personality but thier desirability as a partner. One could be more likely to feel jealous if a guy has a queue of ladies lining up to date him; more threat of him leaving to be with someone else.

Jealousy is all about insecurity. If you're made to feel more insecure (about yourself or maybe about the relationship in general), of course you're going to feel more jealousy.

I think what you're describing is pretty typical @Hale. I think its more related to self-esteem issues than the actual other person involved, though.

When a person rejects you - or treats you with a lack of respect - it can mess with your self-esteem. Let's face it: part of what's so enticing about romantic attraction is the idea that somebody else values us. Its an ego boost; its a feel good; its validation. But when someone behaves in a very luke-warm way, its really almost worse than a blatant rejection. Clearly they've sent the signal that they're interested....they're just not that interested.

Now a truly healthy person would say, "Your loss, f*ck-o," and move on. But the rest of us will probably go down the path (at least part of the way) trying to figure out what it is about us that evokes the lack of respect, the lack of enthusiasm, the lack of head-over-heels craziness that we want to feel from a romantic partner. When we see that person paying attention to other women, flirting, etc., it evokes all of those self-esteem issues: she's better than me; she's prettier than me; she's more deserving than me; I'm not enough for him; he thinks he can do better than me.

Those feelings are going to cause anger and jealousy. Even though intellectually we understand its bullsh*t, there's still a part of our psyche that responds to it. Unfortunately, there are times when we devalue the person who does value us (your example of being less likely to be jealous of a person who is actually good to us). I do think it all goes back to the "continuum" of self-esteem. I believe there are some areas of our lives that we have self-esteem to spare, and other areas that are so delicate that experiences can instantly put us back in that middle school gymnasium, waiting to be picked last for the team (or fill in your example here). I believe that as we build our self-esteem and heal the pain of our past, it becomes easier to let go of people who don't value us. But I think there are always hiccups, too....someone can catch us at a low point and start manipulating and it can feel like we're back where we started. But we're not: we recognize the game, and we refuse to play it. It just takes practice....eventually making better choices becomes a habit, and we stop caring about the people who really don't care about us.

I know not jealousy, for I have no reason for it.

I'm very rarely jealous. I don't know why, it just doesn't usually surface in me. I think I've been jealous maybe 3 times in my life. I don't have anything to be jealous over. And what an awful feeling. I can't imagine feeling it often. I would be very upset.