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Would you date a workaholic? [DuckDuckGo Sociology] (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 10 hours ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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I'm a guy who has been dating a woman for several months. She is self-employed and I swear about 20% of our conversations is her explaining all the things she has to do every day that may prevent her from being able to commit to seeing me. She swears she just got backed up on things and she'll become more available, but I see her inventory continuing to grow, not shrink. She is also constantly supervising people on a variety of house projects (mutual disinterest in me getting involved there).

So I decided to ask the internet (DuckDuckGo (DDG) specifically): Am I dating a workaholic? What I found surprised me. I imagined I'd find a bunch of stupid little Cosmo-style quizzes, with the understanding that the reader would find out they were dating an workaholic and leave the relationship. Instead what I found was article after article after article with titles like,

  • How to Date a Workaholic: 8 Steps (with Pictures)
  • Dating a Workaholic (13 Tips to Make It Work)
  • 12 Tips to Cope when Dating a Workaholic

The internet is assuming I WANT to date a workaholic.

Contrast that with results to the question Am I dating someone emotionally unavailable? DDG more straightforwardly answer the question ("17 Signs Someone is Emotionally Unavailable") with a sprinkling of advice for how to cope.

I see workaholism as basically identical to emotional unavailability, but obviously it's treated differently by society (maybe because it comes with money and home repairs?). So what is going on? Would you date a workaholic?

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[–] 3 points 8 hours ago

Workaholic is just a tight framing around priorities. Someone who focuses too much on work is ordering their priorities in a certain way. All the excuses in the word don’t change that.

Every time they spend their time on their job, it’s a decision to not spend that time on something or someone else.

Maybe that’s critical to their long term survival. Maybe it’s not. Maybe they are chasing success and will reach it. Or not. Maybe they’re doing that because their parents were like that and it’s learned behaviour.

But it doesn’t matter. People don’t really change that much in the long term. Don’t stick around because you think they will “improve”. This is who she is. If you’re ok with that, set your expectations appropriately. If not, make a hard decision sooner rather than later.

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