There’s always the cover band from Pasadena, Snotty Scotty and the Hankies.

I don’t know why this is — the discussion at Feministe did not go the same way.

With whom?

Let’s try it again, with reading this time.

I’m not complaining that I don’t get enough attention from my husband. I’m not saying that my husband spends all his time playing jazz and none with me. We spend a lot of time together. I wasn’t responding out of personal identification with the writer.

And the point about people thinking I should be all into jazz while no one expects him to be interested in my job and hobbies? That’s about other people, about societal expectations, not about him. He is in fact interested in both, and I’m interested in jazz because it’s music and I love music and he’s a really good musician. But I’m not a jazz acolyte and never will be. In fact, his first marriage was to someone very involved in jazz. Didn’t work out.

I’m talking about relationships where the male half has his important untouchable interests that the female half either must participate in to see him, or can forget about ever seeing him except at meals and bedtime.

And from what I’ve read, this happens with video games.

JoAnne, instead of picking up your husband’s hobbies, how about just having some of your own? It’s undignified expecting throwing yourself at a man who isn’t interested. If he’s never interested, then maybe it’s not meant to be. But if the problem is that you’re unreasonably jealous of his hobbies, maybe you need to get your own instead of expecting him to entertain you.

Wow, no, I don’t expect him to entertain me. I’m not sure where you got that. I’m not complaining of my own situation (other than the assumption by some people that what my husband does is my central concern in life). I have my own hobbies and interests. I’m here, aren’t I? And we do things together, too.

That’s not the point I was trying to make. It was that, when there is a conflict of what to do with the couple’s spare time in a het relationship, it’s assumed that the wife or girlfriend should do what the husband or boyfriend does, because he won’t want to do what she does, or if she isn’t interested, to go away and do something by herself rather than him have to give up some of his precious free time to THE RELATIONSHIP.

The writer was entertaining herself but was lonely. Her husband seemed to be uninterested in hanging out with her; he wanted to play his game for hours and hours without even hearing what was going on in the apartment.

Was it because they really didn’t do anything together? I don’t know. But I know that this is the situation for some couples, and that was what I was responding to.

“You could lock Rush Limbaugh, Phyllis Schlafly and Mullah Omar in a room together with a stack of Hustlers and 10 ounces of meth, and they couldn’t come up with anything more misogynist.”

Give credit where credit is due!

I guess my question is, how do you make that determination? Because I’m a little puzzled by the way people are talking here — if your partner says “hey, I’d like to spend more time together, I miss you,” is that okay or is it acting like a needy, dependent child?

Honestly, this is one of the big reasons I think people should live together before they get married. You really don’t know what your “alone time” requirements will be until you’re actually in the same house/apartment sharing the same space.

My husband still cringes when he remembers his now-divorced parents bickering over the fact that his mother felt ignored if his father read a book while the TV was on. If the TV was on, he was supposed to concentrate on that, not read a book, even if he was doing it at the same time in the same room. She needed him to be doing the same thing she was doing if they were in the same room.

Since they were Irish Catholics who got married in the mid-1960s, their mismatch in private time needs was a disaster that resonated out to their three kids, not just a minor problem.

It’s not so much for any hobby or interest, just the ones that have a really huge role in a person’s life. Obviously you can play chess (boorrringggg!) and I can watch surreal Bollywood movies (shrill and meaningless!), and that’s OK.

But if you’re in a band, have regular gigs, go on tour, put out an EP, etc — I have to like the kind of music you play and think your band is good, otherwise it’s not going to work out. Because either I’m going to feel angsty at having to give up my precious time and energy to pretend I like what you do, or we’re just never going to see each other and have nothing much to talk about.

BTW, I think asymtotic is my word of the day. Good one!

It’s really simple: when you S.O. is wrapped up in his video game, you play WoW or read your blogs. When he’s spending two hours on SimCountry, you play on the console. And then you play D&D together.

And when you really need some attention, you walk over to him and let him know that you could really use some attention. If he loves you, he’ll turn off the damn game. (And if he really is spending too much time with it, then for pete’s sake, talk to him about it! It worked for me when we first got WoW.)

See? Problem solved.

But until you have a substantial life of your own, you won’t have the perspective to see if his hobbies are indulged at a reasonable level, or if he really is hiding from you because he hates you/all women.

I guess my question is, how do you make that determination? Because I’m a little puzzled by the way people are talking here — if your partner says “hey, I’d like to spend more time together, I miss you,” is that okay or is it acting like a needy, dependent child? If you legitimately have different needs for alone time, can you compromise or is the relationship doomed? Is it okay to ask for the compromise?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m sensing a lot of “more independent than thou” one-upmanship on this thread and I don’t think it’s very constructive. Yeah, it’s not good to let your life revolve around your partner. But some people (and some couples) like more togetherness than others. I think it’s something that should be negotiated, not left up to the partner with the more demanding hobbies right up until the moment the other partner decides to walk.