We’ve been together for 3 years now and met while we were auditioning for bands in our area. We’re both huge music fans and play for fun ourselves in our local music scene. He’s a really nice guy with a big heart which is why we got close to each other pretty quickly so this is not a domestic violence or communications problem.
I just sometimes dislike his way of expressing his love for music. He has a pretty limited scope of music he actually listens to (british pop and rock music from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s) but pretends to be an expert on anything in a very grating way that doesn’t reflect his actual personality as a pretty warm and open-minded guy. He takes differing opinions to his own as some kind of personal attack and sometimes drones on about tedious music facts for hours upon end, without realizing that most people there don’t really care to listen to it at such an obsessive level. I also dislike how he presents himself when we go out and meet other people. He pretends to listen to weird “internet”-y music that critics praise but that he listened to maybe once on spotify to seem like he’s “in the know”.
This might seem like a minor gripe but music is a pretty big part of our lives and is kinda unavoidable because we bonded over it. I think it’s sad that he has to hide his personality and pretend to be somebody else to impress other people but I don’t know how I should approach this without seeming controlling or trying to make him conform to my worldview.
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**tl;dr**: My boyfriends way of expressing his love for music doesn’t reflect his actual personality. This ticks me off and I don’t know how to talk with him about it.
3 comments
> This might seem like a minor gripe but music is a pretty big part of our lives and is kinda unavoidable because we bonded over it.
> He has a pretty limited scope of music…pretends to be an expert on anything…takes differing opinions to his own as some kind of personal attack…drones on about tedious music facts for hours upon end
It sounds like you bonded over what you *hoped* he was rather than who he really is. Now that you know music is just a facet of his OCD and his way to try to impress people, and you don’t actually have a love of music in common — Is the rest of him enough for you to have a relationship?
I agree that maybe he was sort of putting on a performance for you before. The person you met first wasn’t really the real him. I guess my thing is, is he doing this in other areas of your life?
Has he always been like this? Maybe you’ve gotten older and wiser and more insightful, and see through the bluster now in a way you didn’t used to. That’s a bit sad, but if it’s you who has changed, and he’s being who he has always been, then maybe the relationship has run its course.
You can certainly, gently, ask him a bit about why he makes certain claims or presents himself to others the ways he does, but it’s very possible he will be very defensive about this, especially if the version he presents to others is who he wishes he was.