I live with my girlfriend and last night she was sat using her phone and I was playing a video game. I had a headset on since my girlfriend was watching videos on her phone. She kept coming over and trying to show me videos and photos etc that she had found. I asked her to wait 15-20 mins while I finished up on the game and then she could show me
She got annoyed and said she wanted me to give her some attention and it doesn’t take long to look at a phot/watch a short video etc. I said I will watch them but I need to finish what I was doing and I can’t just drop it when she gets bored. She said she wants attention and isn’t asking for much and I just repeat that she’ll get my attention when I’m done. It’s not like I never give her any attention, we have a date most weekends, regular movie and games nights, go for a drink every now and then during the week etc.
She just stood next to me for me to be finished and I just told her she was acting like a child and she should be able to wait 15 mins. I said it’s starting to look like she sees me as someone that’s there to entertain her as opposed to being an actual person and she said I was being unreasonable and that I’m wrong and she only wanted attention and was only trying to show me videos etc. How would you handle this?
tl;dr my girlfriend got annoyed when I wouldn’t keep pausing my video game to watch videos she kept finding. She said she wasn’t asking for much even though I told her I would be free in 15-20 mins. How would you handle this?
4 comments
She’s being rude and selfish. Like her time/interest/needs are more important than yours. That doesn’t sound very fun.
My partner does that sometimes and I hit pause, ask him if it’s an emergency, and remind him that I am busy and it’s rude to interrupt me when it’s not an emergency.
These days I mostly just say “whoa, is the house on fire?” And he gets the clue.
He has poorly managed ADHD and this is one of his major symptoms so I try not to be mean/rude back to him but he needs the reminder from time to time that just because I’m present doesn’t mean I’m available.
You’re both being immature about this.
Yes, she should be able to wait 15 minutes to show you a video but you should also be able to see that she wants more interaction with you than just at weekends and occasional weeknights.
>I said it’s starting to look like she sees me as someone that’s there to entertain her as opposed to being an actual person
But she’ll have the same perspective. That she has to hang around and wait until YOU’RE ready to interact with her. This is why a lot of GFs/wives of gamers get frustrated – because the game seems to be more important/interesting/entertaining than they are.
Look, my husband is a gamer. He spends many evenings and weekends on his PC with his mates. I also game but not to the same extent and I know objectively that he cares much more about me than his game. But it’s a balance – sometimes, I know that he’s having fun and I need to let him chill and I’ll entertain myself. When you live together, it’s not realistic or reasonable to expect to be at each other’s beck and call at all times. But also, he has to read the room and be able to see when I’d like to spend some time with him.
She just wanted to share a moment with you. She could have been more patient, yeah, but you should also try to see her perspective.
Set a time frame to play your video game and then set the give her attention time frame after. Tell her your gonna play for x amount of time and then say you guys can chill and look at whatever she wants after. We work and wanna chill sometimes, don’t always wanna be interacting with people/girlfriend 24/7. Tell her send you all the reels/pics then watch them and send her stuff back about them when the game is done. She sounds like she doesn’t give a fuck about what your doing at all and has no common courtesy. Not everything is gonna be all about her all the time, some people have absolutely 0 self awareness and absolutely cannot read a room no matter what hints are given. Things always have to be said passively aggressively or else they will just ignore the fuck out of your hints and just go back to doing what the want anyway. If you don’t passively aggressively say it, they will never ever understand. Loss/Loss situation for a person of such nature honestly.
>How would you handle this?
Tell her to send you the video/photo and you’ll look at it when you want to. This is very indicative of feeling entitled to control you.