Wanting human presence while doing your own thing

When I am at home, I have this thing that I enjoy human presence such as video calling or phone calls with my friends.

But sometimes I just want their presence and not really want to chat or talk to them. What we do is we will just leave the discord on for hours while doing our own thing.

I did this frequently with my ex when we don’t meet. He will video call me and we will do our things, occasionally chitchatting about random stuff and back to doing our things until either one goes to sleep.

Now that we have separated, I am dealing with this through watching live youtube channels (e.g Study with me Pomodoro) so that I can still have that.

Does anyone else have this problem too? Is this common? How do you deal with this.

Netizens’ comments

1. This is what I do with my Dad. He doesn’t say much but I just sit next to him while he’s watching TV. Occasionally I will ask him stuff about the show he’s watching otherwise I’d be using my phone. It feels comforting to me regardless.
2. it’s called body doubling, i use a discord channel with people from different countries that does it similarly as well. you feel more accountable to finish your daily works as well since you feel that someone is looking at you
3. There’s a do nothing escort in japan. U hire the person literally to follow u around. They wont talk to u unless u talk to them.
4. Maybe podcasts would help. The kind where the host is talking to his guests, or 2 hosts talking to each other. Just the sound of ppl having a conversation. I usually play these kinds when I’m working from home.
5. It just means your love language is quality time. I have the same thing too. Luckily I have a cat. His presence suffices.

I’m breaking off my engagement because he said he would make me breakfast but he didn’t.

And it was the last god damn straw after two years or so many empty words, broken promises and lack of follow through.

He made me fall for him mostly based on brownie points from saying the most romantic amazing thoughtful things and doing them less than 10% of the time.

This man is complacent and has no follow through. Not with me, not when he was at school, not at work, and I am so done.

Everytime I try to leave him he love bombs me because he does love me a lot. I know he does. His friends and family adore me and tell me how I’m the best thing that happened to him, but I got myself into a caregiver role slowly and surely.

I’m raising a man who’s 5 years older, finding him jobs, writing his cover letters, cooking his meals, being his therapist, organizing his plans with friends and family and all I get is empty words.

I love him but I don’t like him, it’s over and I’m leaving.

Netizens’ comments

1. I’ve heard it said that women marry men expecting them to change, and they don’t, while men marry women expecting them not to change, but they do.
2. I married like this. You are making a very right choice.
3. Good for you. How exciting to start a new chapter of your life that doesn’t weigh you down with the emotional turmoil from caring for a maliciously incompetent and emotionally neglectful partner.
4. This was the exact reason I broke things off with my ex fiancee. The best way I could summarize it was I felt like a parent, not a partner. Hard to do but you deserve to be happy!
5. When words and actions don’t align you have to do what’s best for you find your happy and live life to the fullest Best thing I ever did !!!!

My (24M) Girlfriend (24F) feels she needs to explore being intimate with another woman

So we are in a difficult predicament at the minute and I’m having trouble understanding and digesting my girlfriends emotions.

My (24M) girlfriend (24F) grew distant for a few days and I gave her space despite not communicating it. Anyway she decided to tell me last night when we met that she’s really struggling with her identity and feels she needs to experiment with women.

I understand this and know she’s had a growing interest in women for a few months but now I think it is going to end our relationship.

She said that she needs to “get these feelings out of her system” before we consider further commitment or look at starting a family.

Her intention is to break up for a few months so we can both explore then maybe get back together if we still want to. But then she is maybe open to being poly.

This makes absolutely no sense to me as I love her and I don’t even want to consider being with anyone else and I think if we did go poly I would just be sat around waiting for her as I have no other interests.

I don’t know the best way I can support her or whether my feelings of insecurity are valid. I’m starting to think I should just leave her to figure things out and move on with my life.

For context we have been together for 3 years and this is our 3rd time breaking up. The last time she was also involved with another man ! But I put this behind me. Now I feel like I’m stuck in a loop with her but the good times are too good to give up. I’m confused.

Edit: I have cut my losses now permanently and I think it came with a lot of remorse and denial on her end. She told me she’s losing her soul mate and she saw a future with me, but the hardest part was her telling me she loves me it just feels like such a lie. I remained gentlemanly of course and no hard feelings.

I feel relieved and I’m excited to focus on me and to see what the future holds.

What is SO WRONG WITH WORKING FROM HOME?!! Like really? What is so wrong with allowing your Team or company to WFH if they are capable of doing it?

What is wrong with Wfh ESPECIALLY if the team productivity went up during the pandemic due to being Wfh?

The pandemic was a blessing in disguise as far as WFH goes. We see now that a lot of companies are fully remote or hybrid (I prefer fully remote).

I personally don’t even care for hybrid either. Why make ppl come to work to have meetings that can be done on teams or zoom?

Please don’t mention “office camaraderie”. I don’t give a damn about that enough for me to come to an office

If you manage a team and want them to come back the office because you want to “make sure they are working” then that says you don’t trust your team and you probably need to re-evaluate YOURSELF as a leader.

Netizens’ comments

1. A lot of the rich don’t want to regret the amount of $$$ they spent on the offices and also they don’t want a single win for the working class but also don’t want to pay for commuting to the workplace.
   Basically they want their cake and to eat it too.
2. Because the middle managers can’t micromanage everything you do when you WFH so they need you to come in in order to justify the existence of their jobs.
3. This is all happening because rich people want corporations to rent office space from them.
4. I like my coworkers. But I don’t like anyone enough to think “I need to go in the office just to be in their presence”.
5. It is about control. They cannot control everything you do and it drives companies insane. They fully believe that during those hours you’re at work you belong to them and all of you should be undivided for their whims. They need to be able to micromanage and control everything you do because it validates managers, supervisors, and leads.

My wife(35F) told me (30M) that she doesn’t want to work and only wants to travel on my pay

My wife and I have been together for 8 years now. We don’t have any kids and have both worked for the majority of the time being together.

My current job has me travel a lot for work, however it does pay well and I can manage to pay for a majority of our expenses. My wife has been working part time and pursuing her degree at the same time and is soon to graduate school.

My wife and I were discussing our plans for when she graduates and how that lines up with my work schedule and our plan to move in 2024, I informed her that id be flying out for two months for work(Jan-Feb) and that it wouldn’t make sense for her to move with me for those two months of work as once I’m done I’d return back to our new home.

I suggested to her that she stay with our family while I’m away and save up money.

To which she informed me that she didn’t want to work and that she’d rather go travel with her Dad who’s retired. She wants to use the extra money we have to travel the country…

She said that since I’ll be traveling a lot next year for work (about 1 month trips at a time) that she’d rather just have me pay for her to travel and vacation with her dad instead of “saving for a home you won’t even be here to live in with me”. She also is telling me she shouldn’t have to work anyway because she “wouldn’t make any money”.

I told her it’s unfair for me to have to pay for everything and that even though I’m “traveling” it’s not to a vacation resort, I’m actually busy working, not having fun on a job site.

I’m just frustrated because somehow I’m The bad guy for suggesting she just get a part time job somewhere and save up for a month and then use that money strictly for traveling the next month. Just trying to use the extra money we would have to save up for a home…

Is there anyway to go about this situation?