This entire situation happened last Thursday, but it has taken me a few days to process it, get over myself, and fully realize that what I did was a truly great thing.
I work at a local public radio station and through this job I have, had the opportunity to get free tickets to some really great shows. I was able to land our station's last pair of tickets to the sold out Alabama Shakes show and I just about cried. My boyfriend is also a fan of theirs and we were both excited to go.
Fast-forward to the morning of the show. We had been to the Godspeed You! Black Emperor show two days before and my boyfriend made a comment about being too tired to want to go to the show that night. While I was coming unglued inside, I was as polite as possible while discussing the matter.
He told me that it would be a huge favor to him if I could find someone else to go with me.
I spent the next few hours while he was in class pouting, making Facebook statuses, texting some friends, and trying to come to terms with the fact that I was very likely not going to the show that I spent 2 weeks being incredibly excited about and verbally expressing this excitement more than a handful of times. This was easily in the top 10 most crestfallen moments of my life. Unfortunately, the best I was able to do was find someone willing to buy the tickets. Saddest day ever.
When my boyfriend came home he told me about how shitty he had felt all day, and he felt even worse learning that I had found no one to go with me. He then confided that he was incredibly stressed out and had just found out while he was in class that he had an intense take home quiz to do over the weekend and a test the next week that he was unaware of, meaning that he now had two tests the next Tuesday.
Having this quick pile up of work and stress was too much for him and because of all of these things, Thursday was going to be his only chance all weekend to relax and do exactly what he wanted to do, which wasn't going to the show with me. He had a point, considering he works, goes to class, and studies all week, leaving very little time for relaxation, and with me there every weekend, he can't very well spend all day at his computer.
After a few minutes of silence and him assessing everything,
he made a final offer to go with me because he had promised me from the beginning. He felt terrible that no one was going to go with me and it would directly be his fault if he didn't go. The venue wasn't in the best part of town so there was no way I would consider going alone. What kind of terrible girlfriend would I be to take his offer after listening to his long, pitiful lamentation?
If he never gets a chance to spend a night doing exactly what he wants to do (this is his first opportunity to do that in a couple of weeks) and I have the power to give him that, how on Earth could I morally deny him that? Of course we weren't going to go! I was incredibly upset and I'd be lying if I said that I hadn't shed a tear or two over the course of the day (everything makes me cry), but I'm not a bitch. Unless he said, "There is no way I'm going to let you sell those tickets," which he didn't, they were going to be sold, and they were.
Still pretty angry that he let me sell the tickets and further upset that when I asked him to at least go with me to deliver them he wasn't all too willing, I went alone and took myself to Goodwill afterwards to blow off some steam and the new cash in my pocket. After being gone for well over an hour,
I returned home to find him playing World of Warcraft, which he plays every night. DID I REALLY JUST SELL MY TICKETS SO HE COULD SIT AND PLAY WORLD OF WARCRAFT ALL NIGHT LONG?!
After the WoWing was over, I learned that what he was doing was completely different and he was full of smiles, kisses, and gratitude for letting him have a full night to do exactly what he wanted to do and not have to worry about anything or anyone else (and of course, this meant spending time with me). He apologized for being really shitty about how he went about telling me he didn't want to go (meaning the morning of).
When we really love someone, we are willing to occasionally sacrifice things that are incredibly important to us for things that are incredibly important for them. He is a textbook introvert, and since I commute between living in Dallas and staying with him in Austin every week, he does me a constant favor by giving up the alone time he so greatly needs by being around me almost all day every day while I'm there.
I realize that some of these details sound strange, but if anyone is or has dated an introvert, you understand that different things need to be taken into consideration. If I have an opportunity to make him really happy and help him to just relax and not worry about anything, why wouldn't I want to do that? The satisfaction I would have gotten out of going to the show is of course measurably greater than spending the majority of the night bored as hell, but it doesn't compare to how great it was to see him so happy and appreciative.
What sacrifices have you made for the sake of improving the day of your SO?
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Comments (44)
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
That is such a cute picture. I dunno.
Being an introvert has nothing to do with his desire to play wow every day. And he couldn't even go with you to sell the tickets. At one point in his life, my boyfriend studied worked, gymed and competed in counter strike national tournaments and played wow. He managed them fine. Yes, gaming is therapeutic to people but it can also be unhealthy when it impacts the way you organise your time around it. It is a matter of setting your priorities out correctly.
If he really felt that bad about making you go through all that effort to get/sell tickets then I'd hope that he has repaid you in some loving way or another.
WoW is a social game though...as is any MMO it is simply an addiction, I bet he had a raid or something.
wtf. the words "tired" and "stressed" don't even exist in my vocabulary, and i certainly expect that the case to be for any girl i will take seriously (at least, for the word "tired"). nothing is more of a buzzkill to me than inviting someone to go rage with me and hearing "oh i'm too tired". fuck that shit, you can sleep when you're dead.
this is also one of the (very few) primary reasons i am glad to not be in school anymore, and why i don't like to date students: people seem to constantly have test anxiety. of course, if everyone was as smart as i am, we wouldn't have that problem.
basically, the world's problems can be solved by making everyone like me.
@LeeKymKween@xanga - hahaha, sometimes your bluntness is on par with mine, so i always thought you were a dude.
i think that's a pretty hot quality, given how wishy-washy girls can be. we should totally hang out sometime.
I'd be pretty pissed if my SO crushed my heart like that. 2 weeks in advance and he decided to bail on you?
BA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Way to sell yourself short
That sucks that you didn't get to go your concert but I don't really think he is the bad guy here. I don't think you are a bad person either. You just had different needs that clashed at the same time(or wrong time?). You sacrificed a concert for the sake of his happiness. As long as he doesn't ask you to do things like that all the time that's the kind of things S/O's do for each other. He seems to be a decent enough guy so the next time he gets a chance to sacrifice something for you, he may just do it.
Balance is the key.
Honestly, that's bullshit.
There was a boys like girls, all american rejects, and the ready set concert at my college. I really wanted my boyfriend to go with me. It was a Wednesday, and he lives 3 hours away, so I knew that there wasn't a good chance he would. HOWEVER! He had his mother, who he hates, drive him 3 hours up to my college. He waited for an hour in my dorm room for me to get out of class and dealt with my roommates babbling. And then, he went to the concert with me, and jumped with me and really got into it even though he has horrible knees, and a bad back. After this concert, he literally had to use me as a cane, but he pushed aside the pain he was in because he knew how much him being there meant to me. We then had to track down his mother at a bar, and he had to drive home. He didn't reach home til 4 in the morning.What I'm saying? He should have gone with you. It would have been one thing if you came home to him doing homework, but if he was playing world of warcraft instead of going to something you really cared about? That's not acceptable.As a girl in love with a particular computer game, I can relate to really needing that de-stress time in-between college midterms and busy schedules. I like to stick to myself 90% of the time, so I can relate to your boyfriend. People sometimes treat relationships like a job, and then wonder why things just don't work out. I need slow, quiet, alone time, a lot of it, so much that I've lost friends because they just don't get it and don't get me.
It's cool that you recognize your boyfriend's needs. It wasn't cool what he did about the last-minute cancelling, but you really can't predict when you'll need those days of de-stressing.
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Ảnh sưu tập - tui xach Đặng Thành
Stylist: Quốc Thịnh
-------------------------------------------------Photo: Kevin
Makeup: Hoà Hiệp
Trung tâm mua sắm thời trang Đặng Thành chuyên cung cấp các loại giày hiệu , giày thời trang ,giày cho tuổi teen , giay da ... và các mẫu giày đẹp , giày nam, giày nữ trên toàn thế giới
Túi Xách Đặng Thành chuyên cung cấp các loại túi xách giá cực cạnh tranh ,túi xách nam, túi xách nữ, túi xách da, túi xách vãi , túi xách vải bố , túi xách học sinh,túi xách laptop, túi xách ipad, túi xách fake, túi xách hiệu, túi xách đi học, túi xách da bò, túi xách dự tiệc , túi xách du lịch chất lượng cực tốtYou must love him. I'd punch babies to see Alabama Shakes.
I think you made the right decision. If you brought him along he probably would have stayed in his bad mood which would of ruined the concert anyway.
You did a good thing for your boyfriend. When it came down to it, he was willing to hold up his end of the promise and I think that's what's most important.I went shopping and sacrificed my own money to buy lots of things for myself
I treat myself like royalty
as for doing things for a guy...hmmm......
he can watch me spend my money on myself
my bf actually expressed his desire to watch me go shopping
he says that I have an eye for cute things and would like to see what things that I pick. I think he gets some sort of weird fix from that or he wishes that he could go crazy at the kid store, too. although I don't know why he wouldn't or couldn't. I like buying a lot of girly things. he laughs just hearing about my day shopping and wanted to film it
KAWAII-CAM!!!!!!!
it could be a show in japan. I could have my own youtube channel documenting my cute findings at various stores, but I don't like sharing with "others", so too bad he smiles watching me smile. so umm, that means that I sacrifice, or rather, I share my happiness with him
that's a whole lotta sharing for a princess
@TheNotoriousGOD@xanga - I'm a tranny, dude. Still wanna hang? ;)
@LeeKymKween@xanga - hahaha. last year in san francisco, a tranny hooker asked my friends and me "would you like to fuck or get fucked?" there's a larger story surrounding that, and that story is one of my favorites of all time.
Man.. I would probably sacrifice a really great concert for my boyfriend, but I don't think he'd ever demand that of me. And the way your guy went about it.. well, I don't know how well I would have handled that, but thats just different relationship dynamics!
The general thing for us though, is that we really don't care what we are doing as long as we get to do it together. So I don't really wanna go out with his friends, I still go, so he doesn't really want to see this movie with me, he still does it. Our sacrifices are usually more like, you want this so I'll go along with it, instead of you don't want this, so we'll change it, if that makes any sense.
I would be really pissed if my boyfriend did that. Sorry, but cancelling a concert to play some video game is pathetic. Yeah, life is stressful but if you make promises to someone (especially a promise to go to something like a concert) you can't just pull out because you're "tired". If he had a massive test the next day or he was sick, I would totally agree with what you did, but I would not be okay with my boyfriend cancelling plans with me to play a video game - ESPECIALLY one he plays every night.
That is sad. I think spending time with your significant other should be a great way to get rid of stress. he can play video games anytime. This is not a good excuse. I do not think you need to do this sacrifice but since you did he should make it up big time since you cried over it. If my boyfriend ever pick a video game over a promise i would send a virus to his computer so he can never go online to play games again. But he is not into video games so that is a good thing.
@immoral_sensei@xanga -
more than likely. =/I just bought a pair of tickets to an Andrea Bocelli concert that cost me $200. If my boyfriend decided to bail on me to play some WoW (or LoL in his case), I'd be really pissed.
I think your boyfriend manipulated you with all those kisses. :p
Is the WoW game going to suddenly pick up and run one of these days? No. It will still be there while concerts are pretty much once in a blue moon. If I had already bought tickets and had everything plan, I'd pick someone else to go with. He can play WoW any time of the day, some concerts are rare and don't happen again. However, yes I have made some sacrifices but not in this way. I used to date someone that played WoW but then that's all they ever did and I said to myself I deserve someone better.
Dated a WoW-geek, and it ruined the relationship. He'd never go out with me, didn't want to see his friends, etc.
I'm sorry. You think you did him a service, but you enabled his addiction. It only gets uglier the more they get into it, and he's going to disappoint you more and more if you do things like this for him every time he's "tired" and he needs to "de-stress".
I hear sex is a great de-stresser. Hell, it relieves just about any other physical ailment..
Very kind of you. Glad you did what you did, when you describe his demeanor both before and after, it seems like very much the right call.
I guess I have a sort-of similar story... I was dating a girl for about eight months, and had invited her over for dinner, and had bought her a present. It was my birthday, but she didn't know that... I'm not into celebrating myself, but I did want to have a nice dinner and then give her a present in celebration. She arrived completely worked up over an incident at work [she worked as an ER nurse], and was telling me the story in half-sobs before her coat was even off. So I just let her talk, sat her down, made her some popcorn [her comfort food of choice], went into the other room and snuffed the candles and threw away the dinner, and sat on the couch and listened for probably about three hours. Then we watched Anthony Bourdain try awesome foods in Germany for like an hour, and she left. And when she left, she was smiling. So the fact that I didn't get to go through with my plans was a bit disappointing, but if she came to me feeling upset and left feeling happy then I call the evening a win.