I’m 39, my boyfriend is 40, and we’ve been together for a year. Of all the things I imagined examining at this point in a relationship, his response to funny videos wasn’t high on the list. Yet here I am, wondering what it means that he never has one.
I send him something because it makes me laugh and I want to share it. It’s a small gesture, requiring very little ceremony. A laugh, a comment, even an acknowledgment would complete the exchange. Eventually, I realized that part almost never happened.
When I asked about it, he said he was too busy with work to watch what I sent. Fair enough. Work gets busy. Nobody needs a second job keeping up with the contents of a message thread.
But hours later, there was time for phone games and basketball clips. That made the explanation harder to settle into. His phone wasn’t sitting untouched while he powered through an impossible day. He was using it for things he wanted to see.
So I asked whether he ever watched what I sent. “No, not really. No time.” It was a plain answer, and maybe that’s why it stayed with me. I had been wondering whether he was watching without commenting. Apparently, we weren’t even getting that far.
I feel a little petty spelling this out. They’re funny videos. I’m not sending urgent documents. Still, choosing something to share is one of the small ways I include him in my day. Finding out that he routinely skips it makes the gesture feel oddly lonely.
I don’t know whether this is a difference in how we use our phones or an early glimpse of something bigger. That uncertainty is what interests me more than the videos themselves.
What small thing did other people dismiss at first, only to recognize it later as part of a much larger problem? And when did they realize the little thing had been telling them something all along?
