In preparation for a dumpling making party, I (38f) asked my boyfriend (39m) to clear out the dining room table so that we have space to make dumplings, because as you know, not only do you need space for a filling bowl, but also a space to collect the finished dumplings…and not to mention a workspace where you have a bowl of water and the dumpling skin that you have!
Simply put, he was furious and sulked through the zoom party because the table had to be cleared because now he claims that everything is disorganized.
First context, due to our small space and our respective wfh situations, I took the office because my job requires a lot of conference calls and has some level of confidentiality. Plus I function better if there’s less noise and prefer a level of privacy. But also too, my role has transitioned into a 100% wfh and the office is completely closed. He has an operations role where in the early days of the pandemic he had wfh and so took the dining room table as his “office”, but slowly his office has been asking for him and another operations person to be in person regularly. So now almost a year later, he’s in the office 4 days a week and only 1 day a week wfh. But unlike me, he blurs his home and work life a bit more. His home computer is his work computer. So everything is done there and the dining room table has suddenly become his *everything* table. So not only does he have his work stuff there, it’s also his workshop type projects — fixing computers and other electronics for the community to help people during pandemic — all the electronic stuff he collected that he intends to find use or fix for our own use.
Before the pandemic, the dining table was actually partially usable. But nowadays, it’s typically covered with not only his laptop, piles of electronics like screws, wires, half-working electronics like laptops, tons of cords, lots tschoskes, tons of paperwork.
When we eat dinner, it’s typically on the coffee table, where’s very little space. And the same thing for any board games. It literally has been driving me nuts.
But also another thing, ever since the beginning of the pandemic, electronics like broken playstations, xboxes, wiis, laptop bags, monitors, printers have filled every single step from downstairs to upstairs. It also covers both sides of the hallways. I can’t literally tell you how many times i have stubbed my toes walking in the past year.
Because we used to host people before the pandemic, some of this “clutter” was minimized because he is aware (and I am super aware) of how other people would perceive it. We used to host movie nights, but now with nobody around, it has increased too much. But now, it’s too much and it’s driving me crazy.
The interesting thing is that due to a facebook bug, I didn’t even see my friend’s dumpling party invite at least initially. He sent a link to it and I saw it, noted the time and assumed that we both go. I didn’t put it in our mutual calendar thinking that he was going to keep the time in mind. So on Friday, I did say aloud that we were going to be buying ground pork the following day, a desire to get fresh meat rather than days old meat. Plus dried mushrooms. Then on Saturday morning, I said that we’ll need to get it for the dumpling party. A few hours before, I reminded him that we needed to clear the dining room table so that we could have the dumpling making. Then I repeated it again an hour before, citing an urgency that it was happening soon.
I was pissed because he seemed completely oblivious and complained about clearing everything. This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened that I demanded that we clear out the dining room table (see our anniversary dinner when I wanted the dining room table cleared out so that we could actually have dinner instead of having to crouch over it in front of the TV).
Anyway, he actually did clear the table and was unhappy and complained that he was tired and didn’t feel like it was worth it. I wanted him just go offscreen, but the pressure was there so he stayed around, but he wasn’t sociable. Although lately, he hasn’t been particularly sociable here. So unsure. Yes, I admit that I only knew the hosts of the dumpling party and as zoom parties go, it’s one of those awkward ones where everyone just says something and the topic is not always interesting. And I didn’t know everybody. So we weren’t particularly talkative, but I wanted to be there because my friends had set this all up and even sent everyone personal recipes. Now I am just angry.
Afterwards, because he was so upset, I finally admitted okay I pushed too hard and was wrong. He said that the party wasn’t wroth it at all, likely pointing to the fact that it wasn’t that fun sitting around making dumplings in front of a zoom screen, especially with people we sort of barely know but not really. And he seemed very satisfied. But now I am still annoyed. Because this clutter issue on the table, maybe it’s beyond. But AITA?