Me and my boyfriend have been living together for almost 2 years now. As soon as we met, I told him about my passion for figure skating. I’ve been skating since I’m 5 and I practise 3-5 times a week.
I often watch figure skating on tv and once or twice I tried to explain the sport to him but he told me that he wasn’t really interested and ended up leaving the room politely.
I can understand that he is not interested in this sport and that doesn’t really bother me.
On the other hand, I can’t understand that after almost two years of relationship he was never curious about what I do. he never asked to see a video of me while I’m skating and never arrived early at the rink to see me practise before picking me up. I told him I had a competition in a few weeks and he didn’t ask if he could come and see me skate, even if I mentioned that some of our mutual friends would probably be there.
Yesterday I finally asked him if he planned on coming to my competition and he just answered « I’ll come if you want me to ». Like I should ask him.
In general he is a good boyfriend. He respects me and he listens to me. He is always ready to help if I need something.
However, I cannot understand why he has no interest in one of the things I love the most. He knows how important it is to me, it’s my main hobby and I talk about it (very) often. I don’t want to ask him to be interested in what I do, I just wish he was. Am I making too much of a big deal with this? Should I talk to him or just accept that he’s not curious at all about this part of my life?
TLDR : my boyfriend has never shown any interest to see me figure skating and doesn’t plan on coming to my competition even if it’s my biggest passion, is it normal? Should I talk to him or just accept that he is not interested?
6 comments
It’s a guy thing. He’s likely never going to be into your figure skating hobby, but he’s going to be there for you if you need him to.
Bottom line: accept that he is not interested and leave it at that.
This is strange. Normally we have some interest in the things that matter to the people we love.
Could he be on the spectrum? Do you feel loved in the relationship outside of this?
It sounds like figure skating is just not something that interests him. That is the case for some people. He seems supportive in that he’ll go and watch you if you want him to, but he’s honest about not caring about figure skating. I do think people should try to take an interest in how a partner’s interests affect them. That is, if something good happened to you (like you won a competition) he should be happy for you because it makes you happy and you accomplished something you wanted to. But it does sound like he listens to you when you talk about it.
What it all comes down to is, he isn’t interested in figure skating. So, you either accept that about him or you decide that having somebody who at least partially shares your interest is important to you and you find someone else. But I think this is probably the sort of incompatibility you can just live with.
Let’s flip the situation and say that he was competitive in something you had no interest in – pro computer gaming for example (you could be a gamer for all I know, but it’s just an example so pick something that bores you if that example doesn’t work). He’s tried to explain how the game works, but it’s really complicated and you just can’t bring yourself to be interested enough to watch it and understand what’s going on. He’s going to be going to a competition where there’s a bunch of other gamers all excited about this game and is asking why you’re not planning on going there and sitting among them for hours while your mutual friends who are there with you are geeking out over what’s going on (that you don’t understand). When I think about it that way, I can kinda get where he is coming from. That’s not really a situation I’d be keen to put myself in, but if my boyfriend asked me to come then of course I would.
I don’t think his behaviour is abnormal, but there are going to be other guys out there that would take a keen interest in your hobbies just because you’re interested in them. There’s a spectrum of behaviour and some people will be interested and others just won’t. You have to decide if that is a deal-breaker for you.
Have you talked to him about how it makes you feel that he refuses to engage in something that’s a huge part of your life?
I think it would be unreasonable to expect him to get fully into it and become an expert of something, but I think that people should at least take a light-moderate interest in things that are important to their partner. My bf and I have some pretty deep interests that the other does not share, and we listen to each other talk about it and have put in effort and attention to learn about the basics. Sometimes we’ll tell each other if we’re getting into the conversation too deeply or we don’t feel like it at the time, but we make sure to engage with each other.
And why wouldn’t he be interested at all in seeing you skate? It’s something exciting that you’re skilled at, and doesn’t require detailed knowledge of the sport. He’d just be going to watch you! I think this level of disinterest approaches the level of callousness, tbh.
(side question that I’m curious about: do you engage with him about things that he is particularly interested in but you are not?)
He already told you he is not interested in it. Why are you pushing this? Would you rather he come to an event that he feels forced where he is bored? No. This is YOUR passion, not his.