Dear Dr. NerdLove,
I’m a geek gamer girl. I’m dating a geek gamer boy. I use the terms girl and boy loosely since we are in our thirties. We have been seeing each other for about 6 months. This particular relationship is kind of an experiment, since neither of us were looking to be trapped in a conventional relationship. We are both very laid back and easy going. I’m about a year out of a divorce, he’s been scalded by women repeatedly over the years. So, neither of us are looking to control or change the other person. We live separately, and have no short term plans to change that.
His job requires him to wake up around 5am every morning. Because of this, he tends to get his sleep schedule wonky, and the fact that both of us prefer to be night owls isn’t helping that. So, he tends to take naps when he can get them. I totally understand this.
My problem is that he will ask me if I want to do something the next day, and then, with increasing frequency, he has been falling asleep before we are supposed to meet, and basically standing me up. Most of the time when I call, he will not hear his phone and wake up. I am welcome at his home, but I feel a little like a nag, or a mom if I am forced to drive to his house to knock on his door and wait for him to hear the doorbell and hopefully wake up.
This puts me in a position where I am unsure of what to do. Should I:
A) suck it up, drive over there, and make him wake up?
B) decide he has blown his plans for that night for us, so go do something else?
C) sit at home and mope about how I used to be an interesting person?
Lol. I’m not really losing my mind, but I don’t know how to bring this up, I.e. ask for change without coming across as either a liar, or a crazy bitch. I really like the guy, and I’m fairly certain he isn’t doing this on purpose, but it seems like a discourtesy to me.
Night Owls
Dating someone who’s sleep schedule is opposed to yours is always rough, especially when you don’t actually live together. It’s a little harder to make those necessary compromises when you have to drive across town on top of things.
It sounds like his sleep schedule isn’t terribly consistent, which can be a problem for people. If he’s used to getting up at 5 AM on weekdays and sleeping in until a far more civilized hour (8, 9, 10…) on weekends, it’s going to play merry hell with his biorhythms and sleep patterns. Constantly changing when go to sleep and when you get up will screw up your internal clock, naps or no naps.
The best thing he could do is come up with a fixed sleep schedule and keep to it. If he has to get up at 5 AM regularly, he be getting up at 5 AM every day, weekends or no. Similarly, naps should be kept relatively short. A 20 minute power nap is ideal; it gives the body enough time to recharge your batteries without actually falling into a full sleep cycle. Considering that oversleeping seems to be an issue, your boyfriend may want to consider doing a caffeine nap – downing a soda, tea or coffee before a 20 minute power-nap. He’d be waking up just in time for the caffeine to hit his system.
So with that aspect out of the way, let’s deal with the rest.
You’re right, Night Owl: he’s being pretty inconsiderate towards you. He assuredly doesn’t mean to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is a recurring issue and one that’s affecting your relationship with him. Presumably his sleep issues aren’t keeping him from missing his job, so his tendency towards oversleeping is sending the unintended message that you rank lower in importance in his life than work or naptime. This is not a message that someone wants to send to their significant other, whether he realizes it or not.
Now hopefully, sorting out his actual sleep issues will ameliorate this somewhat; if he’s not dead-to-the-world unconscious as soon as he gets home from work he’s far less likely to stand you up when you have plans. However, in the meantime, the least (and I do mean literally the least) he could do is invest in an alarm clock or two and take the time to set them the day before you have plans, giving himself enough time to get up and ready before he’s supposed to come find you. Since he’s sleeping deep enough to not hear the phone ring, he may want to consider getting something with some decibel levels to it just to make sure.
Now, as for how you handle it… well, you have two options. Either you go over, wake his ass up and spend the time that it takes for him to stagger bleary-eyed into the bathroom and get ready or call the night a wash, send him a text telling him that since he’s down for the count (again), you’ve made other plans for the evening and he needs to figure out how he’s going to make things up to you.
And to be perfectly honest, unless you’re willing to be the one to make sure that he gets up on time, every time, I wouldn’t choose the first option terribly often.
You’re right: you’re not his mother. Nor are you his wife, his live-in girlfriend, his secretary, his legal guardian or otherwise responsible for making sure he manages to make it to his various obligations. That’s all on him. Now, if you wanted to add some incentive to his shaping up… say making sex somewhat contingent on his actually getting up on time… I wouldn’t say this was a bad idea. Still, He’s a grown-ass man and ultimately it’s up to him to manage his responsibilities.
In fairness, it may well not have occurred to him how this makes you feel. Sometimes us guys can be a little clueless. Explain to him how his behavior makes you feel and the times that it’s inconvenienced both of you, give him some advice on managing his sleep issues and see how he does. If he’s the good guy you say he is, hopefully he’ll take the hint and shape up.
Good luck.