I Really, Really Don’t Want to Go on a Little Walk
Q
My girlfriend just started working out and being really deliberate about her protein intake and joined a book club. She wants to go to bed early instead of watching TV after work. All of these things are so great for her and I’m honestly proud of her dedication and drive, but here’s the thing. I don’t want to work out or think about protein and I want to watch TV and go to bed when I feel like it, but she keeps inviting me to join her in these things. She brought up walking around our neighborhood after work instead of watching TV and this sounds like torture to me! How can I encourage her to keep doing what she wants but to leave me out of it, and if I do that, will it harm our relationship? That sounds meaner than I feel about it, but I’m worried this is driving a wedge between us. Every time I decline her invites I feel worse and worse. It means every day we have a negative interaction and if she just stopped asking, we wouldn’t have to have it. But also, even if I don’t want to do the things she does, I probably SHOULD be, right? If I really cared about myself and my health? I don’t wanna get dumped for being lazy. Probably then I’d just get even lazier.
A
Summer: For starters, I’m not going to characterize your interests as ‘lazy’ because I believe that very few people are actually lazy. The things you want sound like normal decompressing activities that people have at the end of their day. Not wanting to add more activity or lifestyle changes isn’t necessarily a sign of laziness and we’re allowed to have interests.
That being said… this goes into the category of Stuff You Need to Have a Convo About. It’s clearly getting stressful for you and a sit-down conversation is necessary to clear the air about these feelings. For both of you. There’s a chance that your girlfriend is doing this to try and spend more time with you in a way that she enjoys. Maybe she feels rejected. Maybe she’s not seeing your stress. Maybe you can talk about these feelings of ‘laziness’ with the person you trust and live with. But that can only happen if you have a talk. Something like this shouldn’t turn into stress or persistent fear. At most, a ‘no thanks, but have fun!’ should suffice. I think you have to work to move the needle back to that stable state.
Kayla: I do not think it will harm your relationship if you tell your girlfriend you’re not interested in these things, and if it does, then I think there are deeper issues in play! It is totally fine that you don’t care about or want to do these things. My wife and I have very different relationships to fitness and that’s totally okay. We also sometimes have differences in our routines; for example, she wants to stay up all night watching TV and I want to go to bed early. That’s totally fine! We make it work! None of these differences are relationship dealbreakers, and I do not think it’s mean to say you don’t want to do these things with your gf. She should have a fulfilling life outside of you, and you can always find other ways to connect and spend time together that work for both of your lifestyles!
Valerie: I agree that this needs to be a conversation but doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker. I don’t think you’re lazy for not wanting to do these things! If you DO want to do a fitness activity with your girlfriend but not the whole walking-instead-of-television thing (which also sounds like torture to me; TV is my comfort space), maybe you can find a weekly or bi-weekly or even monthly activity you can do together that doesn’t sound like torture to you, but aligns with her interests (and also doesn’t interfere with your TV/decompressing time.) This can be anything from a weekend hike or some kind of dance class. Or even just like one Sunday morning walks to a coffee shop, or a quick morning stretch. Maybe even getting a video game like Just Dance, or doing a YouTube workout video together once and a while. It sounds like she’s trying to include you in her new passion, and maybe there’s a way to do that without disrupting your life too much. That said, if even this doesn’t interest you, that is TOTALLY VALID (you are not lazy) and you can find other things to do together! It’s okay to have different passions and interests.
Nico: While agreeing with all my colleagues above — you do not have to do anything you don’t want to, you are not lazy, and you and your girlfriend can have diverging interests without it being a breaking point AND you two need to have an honest conversation about how feeling pressured is affecting you — I also just want to voice that if you do want to join her for an activity or two, getting into doing physical stuff when you haven’t been doing any physical stuff is a difficult leap to make and can take some serious adjusting, so I hope you both can honor that. If you never hike, for example, you are not just going to suddenly become a person who is good at hiking. You might not even feel good after your first hike (or whatever activity). You might hate it. You might not like it until you do it several times, and then suddenly you might be in love with it. In my experience, physical activity can work like that. Because it is kind of torture. You’re not wrong about that. It’s torture that many people come to look forward to, which, well, do with that what you will. Now, your relationship has two people in it, and that means that I hope your girlfriend is trying to be as invested in your interests as you are in hers. Is there a compromise here? Can you be rewarded for joining her for a walk after dinner by then having her cuddle up with you afterwards to watch an episode of a show before she goes to bed early? Aside from compromise, again, you two just need to talk about this and learn to support each others’ interests without needing the other to participate in every single one. And you are not lazy!
Texting People Back Feels Like Homework
Q
Text messages (via Facebook, WhatsApp, and Discord) are a main way I keep in touch with friends, and I correspond with a lot of them – I’ve lived in many different places and friendship matters a lot to me, so I’ve always put time into keeping in touch. Many of my friends are great about keeping in touch too. But over the past few months, I’ve gotten to really dislike replying to messages – it feels like an arduous chore, especially if messages are long or frequent, even though I genuinely care about the people I’m writing to. I especially dislike being sent Instagram reels or other video clips I “have” to watch, which feels like homework. Is there a way I can reclaim the joy of messaging a bit? Or cut down on the pressure to write and reply? I know phone calls are one option, but I’m quite an introvert and also maintain contact with more loved ones by messaging than I’d have time to by phone.
One specific instance that’s tricky is that I have a platonic play partner who messages every day at length. We’ve previously discussed that I prefer not to chat daily, because it feels like something I’d do with a romantic partner or with family. They say they are fine with me replying whenever I want to, but just seeing long messages from them makes me feel pressure, like it is eating into my own space and time.
I know this largely sounds ungrateful because I’m truly lucky to have friends I care about but – how to reframe? Thank you!
A
Summer: Ooh yeah, I felt that bit about feeling obliged to watch reels and other short-form videos. I always prefer text because I only engage with video and audio on my time. Seeing those kinds of messages (or long messages) puts the pressure on, as you say.
To counter this? Use a mixture of in-app tools, adjusted chat behavior, and flatly ignoring some messages for a while. In-app tools like the kind that let you set your status to ‘Away’ or disabling read receipts reduces pressure on you by removing the expectation of a quick reply. If you get a reel or something, click it, glance at the gist/punchline, and leave a fitting reaction to it. You don’t have to watch it in full or respond with a message. Use emojis to close off conversations. After the last thing they send, ship them a non-committal smiley or thumbs-up. It’s a response, but not a continuation of the conversation.
Adjust your behavior by telling people who send you long messages that you’ll read it when you’re able to. Or tell them you’ll get to it by the end of the day. You’re busy. We all are. This sets a distant expectation and removes immediate pressure. This is especially important with a talkative play partner. Extract yourself from groups or conversations you’re inactive in.
Lastly… learn to ignore messages you can’t deal with quickly. Especially if you’ve given notice that you’re unavailable. Ignore them. If it’s important, they’ll ping you again. Socialization should not be a burden.
Valerie: I also highly recommend just skipping the reels and clips people send you when you don’t have the bandwidth for them. If it’s something important, they will include a message explaining why it’s important. Most likely, 99% of those videos they sent are just for fun and just their way of saying “saw this, thought of you” – if your friends are anything like me, they have no expectation of you watching it in detail or responding to it if you’re feeling overwhelmed. It’s hard to break the habit of responding to everything quickly, but like Summer said, socializing shouldn’t be a burden. Going on Do Not Disturb for a few hours or simply waiting until you have more bandwidth to answer someone is totally fine. As someone who does message my friends fairly frequently, I know that everyone has their own lives and capacities, and never expect anyone to answer me in any kind of time frame, unless we’re like…meeting up and I need to know where they are. So as long as you’ve communicated this to the people that matter, the next step is setting YOURSELF free of the expectations you have for your response time.
Nico: I am here to third skipping reels and such. It’s too time-consuming! And anything you can say over a normal text message is going to be so much more personal, and be just far less brain rot. Unless urgent, I think you can try checking and responding to texts at only certain times of the day. This reminds me of reading about the way people of the physical mail-based past often designated time dedicated to correspondence, where they’d sit and go through all their paper mail and write up responses and get them all addressed and packaged out. It’s not like people were responding to each letter as soon as they got it in! Why not spend one or two blocks of time a day just sitting and writing to your friends, without trying to squeeze texting in around other things, and then when you’re done (either with texts or with your designated allotment of time), you can feel unburdened and able to move on with your day!
I think also you can ask your play partner to message less frequently. It should not be super hard for them to not do something or hold off more. If they can’t do this, and it causes you too much anxiety, then that’s a different conversation. However, yes to everything my colleagues said about learning to ignore messages, to utilize Do Not Disturb, to understand that no one has to respond immediately to non-urgent messages (and you should know who in your social circles is someone who may message you with something urgent and who might not).
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Wow I relate to LW2 so much! You are not alone!
re: letter 2 — is there a level of this that’s normal, and a level that isn’t? because I feel the way you describe, but about… all messages. even ones that aren’t frequent, or that aren’t demanding. every time I get an email, or a text, or a social media message, I put off responding to it for days, if not weeks. while I think feeling this way makes sense when you’re getting (as you said) lots of daily messages you’ve explicitly said you aren’t interested, your question made me reflect on my own situation here. anyone else relate to just, feeling stressed out by all social interaction?? I do feel like I put friends off by not being better at this kind of communication, even even lost one friend completely because of it. I just want to either be in person, fully present with someone and getting deep in our feels, or like, not talking at all. the thought of maintaining regular connections with people through digital life is so overwhelming to me. sorry I’m question-dumping here.
I relate. I think for me it’s a social anxiety thing but also the lack of a set ‘script’ for texting in particular. The lack of structure (how fast/slow to respond, are we trying to replicate a phone/in-person convo or do some amorphous open-ended thing?) stresses me out. There are so many different ways to text and it makes me feel like I have to be ‘on’ all the time if that’s our primary form of communicating.
absolutely relate to both these letters and I think the responses are good! I’m trying to be as up front with people as I can re: messaging speeds, that at this point i just operate slowly and I can almost guarantee it’s not something the other person did, I’m just like this.
it’s so validating to hear about videos, I ALWAYS avoid them bc I need to be alone or have headphones to watch, need to have time to watch and energy. and my friends tend to be really shocked when I don’t respond to them so it feels good to know other ppl feel the same!
LW2 at this point in *my* life, I have mixed feelings about texting in general. No one wants to call, FaceTime or even hang out face-to-face, it feels like. I also won’t spend a lot of time engaging unless it’s family or the person I’m with. I don’t use “read” receipts and I have a Focus on from 9PM-7AM that excludes close family and “partners”. I give people different vibrations so I know if I need to look. All group chats are on silent. As far as texting a lot, if LW already has told PP they don’t like it then I think probably that person is not respecting boundaries. I’ve had instances where I’ll text somebody a few times in a day, they don’t respond and I’ll just let it be for a few days until I hear from them. But also, I’ll asked people if I text too much to let me know. Perhaps LW hasn’t made it abundantly clear cause they don’t want the PP to go away. Everyone has different communications styles and it’s best to put it out there. OR maybe LW is over the PP and doesn’t know it. 🤷
I get the videos things. I rarely use to send videos to people til I joined TT. Big mistake on my part cause I rarely watch anything someone sends to me (I’ll give it a ❤️/👍 as response anyway). I also don’t necessarily need a response unless I add some sort of text to go along with it when I do.
I relate to this so much, but almost in opposite terms! My GF and I have been together for several years; when we got together we were both active and went on long bike rides together. Now she is a couch potato to the max…at first I found this distressing, and there were 6ish months where I had anxiety about wanting to be more active together and she had anxiety about wanting to slow and calm down. We’ve now normed on this so we both do what we want and still enjoy time together! I’m active while she naps, and she’s very happy to eat my clean meals as long as I’m cooking! You love each other for who you are, and that hasn’t changed. Just keep supporting her and hopefully she won’t push you!