When I started blogging, my husband didn’t really know much about social media. He had an impressive LinkedIn profile, but didn’t really see the need for Twitter, and Facebook was just a place he went to virtually wave at old girlfriends occasionally. He is now a fully-fledged digital marketing expert, but in the beginning I was ahead of the game. A couple of months into my blogging career, I sent my first tweet. For a while, he lost me to a glass of wine in the kitchen every evening, as I chattered to my new friends. Then one day, he noticed my followers number.
You have 1000 followers? How do I get a Twitter account?
Over the years our online behaviour has completely swapped places. Where I have learned to switch off to enjoy a film, or read a book (occasionally – let’s be realistic here!), his obsession with social media has gone from strength to strength, and you might frequently find us bickering about whether or not he is actually looking at his phone, or just checking to make sure it’s still on. It’s like the twitter version of lifting the hook to make sure there is a dial tone.
So when I spotted a couple of people bemoaning their partners’ obsessions with hobbies, I just knew what I had to write about.
You know your partner is a social media addict when…
- Nothing you say registers. It may look like your instructions for the kids’ tea are sinking in, but be prepared for the nicely set-aside vegetables to be sitting happily in the fridge, where you left them, when you get back.
- He develops a passion for Spotify playlists. He claims it is ambience for mealtimes, but it’s really just an excuse to check his emails at the dinner table.
- When he goes out for the evening, and you get no answer when you call him, you immediately check Squarespace and Facebook to see if you can determine what time he’ll be back.
- You have conversations with each other after you’ve gone to bed. On twitter. When you thought he was asleep.
- Your children sit shivering in a cold bath, because Daddy just needs to send one more email before he gets them out.
- You discover that your children have social apps you’ve never heard of, and they tell you it’s so they can talk to Daddy.
- You are apprised of every single actor, in every single film you watch together, within 5 minutes of it starting. You marvel at his superior knowledge, until he tells you the film is not worth watching. According to his friends on Imdb, who are hiding under a cushion.
- Your kids stop smiling on holiday, in a wilful bid to deter their paparazzi father.
- You explore rock-pools for coral and hermit crabs, while he videos strangers surfing for his Vine profile.
- He gets your daughter to create a Viber recommendation for him, and takes it to his next job interview. Complete with little piggies and hearts. And shows his future employers.
- He takes you to an awesome new restaurant, and walks straight past it while he’s videoing his route.
- He asks you incessantly how many followers you have on Twitter.
- He pays your children extra pocket money if they agree not to tell on him. After a month they have enough for their own iPads.
- A trip to the toilet takes longer than the time needed to eat breakfast, clear the table, load the dishwasher, and have a shower.
- He tags his selfies with #cool to make himself more cool.
- Parents on the playground on a Monday morning ask you how your steak was on Saturday night.
Recognise anyone in here? Have you done worse?
For more fun check out
- You know your partner is a roleplaying geek – Keynko
- You know your partner is a runner – Me and my Shadow
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Heh heh heh heh heh #cool
Can you believe Papasaurus isn’t even on Facebook?!
Mind you he does stalk my timelines to keep up to date so I guess he’s sucked into it all after all x
I sometimes forget that the whole world isn’t online Annie – it’s an alien thought to me. Sometimes stalking is the only way to keep track of people 🙂
I’ve been on social media for a good 14 years or so, when I created my first blog, before blogs were even a thing. I went back to school, became an E-commerce webmaster/designer well my husband watched me. He still doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account. I think it’s great your children can understand Scratch (Harvard has free online courses Helen), and to learn to build a computer from the bottom up is fab. We taught ourselves and are kids years ago, simply because I couldn’t afford to pay someone to do it. As for the husband, maybe buy a nighty?
I can relate to quite a few of these. There are times when I have more ‘intellectual’ conversation with my husband on Twitter than in real life when he’s online and not listening at all! He even has a Twitter account for the cat – I rest my case!
Ooh what kind of thing does the cat talk about, I wonder??
Oh god I thought I was pretty good on SM but I actually haven’t heard of most of those things!!
Mines a phone addict though so I do recognise the sentiment. I think (hope) in a few years we’ll all wake up and think “f*** where did my child’s childhood go?”
What, you’ve never played on Viberr? Oh you must – so much fun to be had!
Oh dear Helen, your success has created a social media monster! I’m so pleased my husabdn has not been sucked into it all. MIch x
Equally, it’s really enhanced his marketing skills to be involved in all the channels, and he’s now more innovative than me with the types of app he uses. He’s educating the kids well on them too, so I don’t need to worry about their online behaviour – he’s going to be in charge of all that.
Yes I bet in his line of work it has actually been really useful x
Oh lord. I know when I first ventured into this stuff i got a bit distracted by it all and then, one night just sat on the sofa, Mr B was asking my opinion on something we were watching and I waved him away because I was having a chat…on twitter. I was ignoring MY ACTUAL HUSBAND IN THE ROOM in favour of a conversation with an online ‘friend’ on twitter. It really hit me, I’m not on twitter much now. I was also guilty of trying so hard to capture THE happy holiday family shots that I couldn’t actually enjoy being on holiday with my family. And I was making the whole holiday a lot less happy for everyone. Lesson learnt. Life needs to be LIVED, not blogged/instagramed/facebooked. And if you live it for real your actual online life will be so much richer. You are awesome. He should behave far, FAR, better.
Ah he’s alright really. I exaggerate for the sake of humour 😉 But I get what you mean – I’ve stopped videoing school plays and concerts now, as all I had to show for it was some dodgy wobbly footage, and a scant memory of what actually happened. I totally watch these days, and get much more emotional as a result. I don’t know which is worse!
ha ha that’s so funny. I think we’ve had a bit of that reversal happen in our house too. My husband couldn’t stand facebook at first but then i’d find him catching up with everything by looking at my facebook account so i told him to get his own. Wish I hadn’t now as he is constantly on facebook and I barely go on there nowadays. x
Mine has some knowledge of social media but is happy to defer to me – and then he and our son added a picture to imgur and he got over a million views in the first day! Front page of reddit for 24 hours! I was sooo ticked off but also kind of proud really!
Oh my! Taking over your forte?! Good for him – I feel slightly inadequate that I’ve never heard of imgur. *Adds to list*
Hilarious Helen! I do love to have a good ‘pop’ at our men every now and again 😉 My husband has about 9 followers on Twitter and isn’t even on Facebook. The only person he has every sent a tweet to is me! Sadly, I’ve lost him to ‘words with friends’ – google it, just don’t start playing it!
Uh-oh, I googled it. I’m afraid this is going to be more addictive than the dreaded Candy Crush and that took me a year to shake!
My D stalks me on Twitter, just to see if I’m talking about him…..his own vice is online chess, though. I could be telling him the kitchen’s on fire and he still wouldn’t react!
Ha! Love that he wants to know what you’re saying about him online!
Oh yea it’s number 1 and 14 for my partner lol
Oh my! Hubby can barely use anything other than Facebook, when he remembers he’s got Instagram on his phone I have to do the hashtags for him lol!
Ha ha, this made me laugh, my husband is stigma bit useless with social media. xx
Reading this post, I think I am the one who is addicted to social media! Oops! Haha! xx
Thankfully my husband isn’t quite that bad yet – but Definately point 2!
Haha brilliant! I’m with you on number 14 and find myself tapping on the door asking him just how long it takes to poo! (the shame)