Tiff

T loves his Scrabble. He goes to competitions, and actually practices daily. He writes out lists of words to memorise, and has an anagram program on his computer that he uses to help him study. His next competition is in June.

I think it's pretty cool. People who are passionnate about things (even things I don't really care about) are just more interesting to spend time with.

However.

However, it seems like we have been spending entirely too much time sitting side-by-side on the couch, him practicing Scrabble, and me playing video games. Sometimes, after a long day at work, this is a necessary thing, and it's a relief that he doesn't feel ignored when the only thing I want to do is spend some quality time with Civilisation III. But I don't want it to become a routine.

This weekend, T was doing his Scrabble thing, and I was puttering around the house, cooking and cleaning and organising - weekend stuff I like to do. I wasn't fussed that he was playing, as he had worked 6 days last week, and overtime most of them, to boot. I kind of planned to pamper him a little.

Every time I got going on something, though, he got up to help.

I got annoyed - I felt like I was guilting him into doing housework, but really I just wanted to get a few things done. I did not want his help. I did not expect him to do anything.

I bit my tongue at first, but brought it up a little later, when I wasn't feeling so snappy. Told him I didn't want to feel like I was coercing him into helping, but didn't want to sit on my ass all day, either. While I was at it, I mentioned that maybe we should spend time together when we wanted to see each other, and not get caught up in the side-by-side computer games...Suggested he stay home on nights that he really wanted to focus on Scrabble practice.

T seemed pretty upset.

Later, he mentioned that it would be easier to have these discussions if I were more tactful about it.

I forsee a problem.

Tact and subtlety really aren't my strong suits. Not that I'm a jerk about things, but I tend to be quite direct. Direct like: "This is bothering me. This is why. Here's what I propose we do about it" sort of direct. Apparently, this is disturbing. I am not quite sure how to word things much more 'nicely' without missing the point of whatever I was trying to say.

Aah, well. In the end, we agreed that when we're together, we will do things together, and save the computers for the wind-down hour before bed. Hopefully, problem solved...