A bit of a weird argument I’m having with my bf.
We have been on and off long distance for 2.5 years now while he completes his degree abroad. The last time we met physically was a year ago, so we manage by video calling, sending photos of our day, watching movies, etc.
I dance for a hobby and maybe once or twice a month I’ll send him a video of a choreography I worked on, or a cover I did of somebody else’s choreo. I only send him ones that I’m really really happy with, because he’s not much into dancing and I don’t want to force my hobby onto him. I just thought it would be nice to show him clips I’m really happy with.
He watches my videos on mute… because he says the type of music (usually pop, hip hop) is not his style and he just doesn’t like the songs. But he says he really appreciates my dancing and says I keep improving.
Bear in mind, my clips are maximum 3 mins long– but usually just 1 minute. Again, I only send him a clip like once a month.
I told him that him muting my videos is absolutely ridiculous because it’s literally just one minute of audio. The whole point of my dancing is that it syncs to the music. I put effort into making sure the music comes to life through my dancing so what’s the point? I’m not a mime. Lol
He composes music for a hobby so he is very picky about music and I know he’s more informed than me in terms of what constitutes a good beat, lyrics, etc. I get that. I do. But is it that painful for him to suck it up and listen to 1 minute of a generic pop song to support me?
He says that I’m forcing him to do something that he doesn’t want to– I.e listen to music he doesn’t want to. I said okay. Then I’ll just stop sending you clips of my hobby. He said that’s fine with me.
When he sends me clips of his music, I listen all the way through even if it isn’t what I normally listen to. He is incredibly talented and I try to support him as best as I can. Is it unfair of me to expect him to support me in that way? Or am I just forcing him to support my hobby? Being in a LDR I thought something like this would just make sense but now I don’t know anymore.
TLDR; I send my bf videos of my hobby, dancing. He watches these videos on mute and does not understand why I find that ridiculous. I feel like I’m crazy.
14 comments
Yes, you are the crazy one here.
The videos are of you dancing. He watches them and gives you positive feedback. Meaning he is supporting you. Him listening to shitty music that he doesn’t like will not change how you dance.
In a relationship there needs to be interest in and reciprocation of the other person’s actions. If you take the time to listen to all his music because you respect and value his art, he should absolutely do the same for you. If it’s important to you it should be important to him! It would be different if you were sending him long videos all the time, but you’re not. This is a totally reasonable expectation to have in a relationship: that you support each other’s passions. Even if he doesn’t really like dancing, the moment you said it was important to you he should have realised it was worth listening to as well. One minute every few months is not a chore, it’s respect for what is important to your partner. You are sharing your passion and he should be respecting that you want him to see that part of you.
If you were asking him to watch videos every day that would be different. But one every few months? Sheesh it’s not that hard.
On the one hand, your boyfriend is watching the videos and gives you positive feedback. So he isn’t completely failing to be supportive. At the same time, he’s only partially engaging with the videos you send. It’s understandable to be upset by that. I also think that it is perfectly reasonable to expect him to engage fully with your hobbies for about an hour per year.
Sure, you are asking him to do something that he doesn’t want to do. But that is how relationships work. People occasionally have to forego self-indulgence for others. If your boyfriend can’t stomach doing something mildly annoying or unpleasant for a minute each week, I can’t see how your relationship will function when you see each other daily. Partnerships require compromise.
Let me weigh in real quick because I’m a lyrical dancer, I choreo, and my dance partner is my boyfriend. We’re literally the same age as y’all.
To say he doesn’t support you in your hobby is inaccurate. If he refused to watch your entire video? Yes. But according to you, he’s watching without sound and still giving you praise. ‘Keep improving.’
I’m not invalidating your feelings but to compare it with ‘when he sends his music, I still listen’ etc…is not the same thing. He’s solely working on music. If you mute his work then you’re not supporting at all. What’s the point, right?
I’m not replying with bias even though I’m the same way. My bf has recently got into hiphop and I usually watch without sound unless it’s old songs. I’m talking early 2000s and before. It’s never been an issue and he doesn’t care.
To answer your question and conclude this, you’re not forcing him because he would clearly stop watching your videos if he wanted to.
I kinda see where both of you might be coming from.
It sounds like you see the music as an integral part of the choreography you created, and so to fully appreciate the art of your hobby it needs to be experienced as a whole, which would make sense as you’re a dancer, so movement and sound might feel more interconnected with each other for you.
He on the other hand might see both parts as separate art forms that can be experienced apart from each other, so if he likes the part that you create – the choreography and your movement, but he doesn’t like the music, he might prefer to focus on the part he appreciates without the other part diminishing the overall impression, as it’s probably natural for a musician to perceive music predominantly as a standalone form of art.
If that’s the case, I think no way is better or worse than the other really. Art is perhaps the only field in which the majority of people agree that it’s a subjective experience and that there is no objective “truth” or one “right” way but rather anyone can interact with it in the way they feel is most appropriate for them.
Maybe you could both have a chat about your chosen forms of art, how you perceive the ways in which they are connected, how each of you experiences them both as spectators and as artists so you both learn more about each other craft. Maybe you could even try to collab together on a choreography, it could be fun and artistically inspiring for both of you, for example to do things the other way around than it’s usually done, and instead of you creating movements that fit the sounds, you could do movements and your boyfriend could create sounds that fit them 😉
If music is his thing allow him to have his preferences.. He is honest enough with you to tell you he doesnt like it and yes for some musicians listening to music they actively dislike is painful
Its like dragging an artist around a gallery of a genre they cant stand. He’s there to support you emotionally not to validate give your artistic endeavors.
something cute you guys could do is choreograph a dance to music he has made to and share it with him..then both of y’all’s hobbies are fully appreciated
Op the music is not the central part of your hobby. Your dancing is. He is watching the dancing part and is supporting it. For him his music is the central part if his hobby so you would have to listen to his music in order to support it. Now let’s say he puts his music over some random video that he didn’t make but he wanted to sync his music with and you don’t like the video but still listened to his music. Would you be unsupporting his music? No. You would still be supporting his music.
Listen I do art and my bf supports my art. I used to do speed paints and my bf doesn’t like speed paints so he would fast forward through them to see the end result. It did bother me at first but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t support my art. It just means he doesn’t like to see the entire process in a video.
This is something to get upset about?
On one hand, I think your BF is being pretentious and obnoxious for acting like listening to one minute of a pop song will kill him. Good for him that he’s a ~music composer, but that doesn’t mean he can’t briefly listen to something he dislikes, in the same way I cook as a hobby and can still eat food I don’t love. I feel like he might be doing that annoying young guy thing of trying to assert how cool and knowledgeable he is about music by refusing to engage with anything that doesn’t meet his standards. (I think a lot of/most people grow out of this, FWIW.)
Having said that, it isn’t true that your BF doesn’t support you in your hobby. He watches your dancing videos and gives compliments, just not in the specific way you’d like. I get that that sucks! I’m a poet, and my husband doesn’t give me the type of comments/critiques on my poems that I’d prefer because he just isn’t into poetry and isn’t knowledgeable enough about it to be able to. It would be great if he made more of an effort, but I don’t think I can realistically expect that, in the same way he can’t realistically expect me to get really into sports to be able to understand his sports writing. None of this is a lack of support; it’s more people being imperfect, having limited time and attention, etc.
I do think something that could help you is finding another audience for your dance videos. Not that you should stop sending them to your BF, but maybe send them to him with the intention of sharing a part of yourself rather than receiving accurate critiques and compliments. You could join a dance class or see if there is a community for your style of dance online to get better feedback and have an audience that’s really into what you’re doing. That might be what you’re missing.
This isn’t worth getting annoyed about. Your bf is supportive. He doesn’t have to like what you do as your hobby. But he watches and encourages you to do what you like. It’s YOUR hobby. So you enjoy it, find others to enjoy it with, find others who what to chat about music, choreography, etc.
Stop arguing about something so petty. Many LDR partners lose their connection after a while. Keep that in mind.
Your boyfriend is selfish. My husband has ZERO interest in anime but because I LOVE Naruto my husband is watching all 750 episodes because he knows how much it means to me.
No I didn’t ask him to, he does because he cares about me. Because what matters to me, matters to him.
And in that I’ve learned about basketball even though I hate sports, but I watch all the clips he shows me and listen and engage him when he talks about it.
Being in a relationship means showing interest in things your partner is passionate about. My husband and I use the motto “if it matters to your partner then it should matter to you.”
I’m a lot like you. I take the time to engage in things my SO likes or does as hobbies even if they’re not my top choice, or even if initially I don’t like them. This is because I take an interest in my SO. I want to love and appreciate them and what they do as best I can.
I dated a guy much like your bf, in that he didn’t do this for me. He was very pretentious and holier-than-thou about a lot of things. And in his case, his lack of interest in (and sometimes, active disdain for) my hobbies and interests was reflective of a deeper lack of interest in me as a person. He cared for me in various ways. But was usually not *open to influence* from me on anything meaningful. This extended to our disagreements, where my feelings and my perspective meant absolutely nothing to him. He was always superbly confident that he had it right and I had it wrong. Ultimately, this made the relationship unsustainable.
Your situation might be different. But I think this is worth a really careful look. Is he disinterested in you (your thoughts, feelings, perspective) in a more pervasive way? Or is it really *just* the music? And if it is just the music, is that something you can live with in a relationship?
If men went around demanding extremely specific forms of praise for our hobbies, we would be called nasty names.