three_blue_ticks

We were nearly over because of WhatsApp

I’m 35 and I have been seeing someone for eight months. They work changing shifts in a hospital and I work from home, which turned our phones into the entire problem. When they were off, we would talk all day and see each other twice in a week. Then a run of night shifts would happen and I might get one message in 24 hours. I told myself I was being understanding, but I was basically watching WhatsApp like it was a medical monitor. If they appeared online and did not reply to me, I would go cold. Then they would finish a shift, realise I was annoyed and feel as though they had walked into an argument they did not know was happening. We had never actually agreed what we were. I thought the daily messages during good weeks meant we were becoming partners. They thought we were dating seriously but slowly, with no expectation that either of us would be constantly available. Last month I said I could not keep doing the disappearing act. They said, “I’m not disappearing. I’m at work.” That stopped me because it was true, but it also did not solve the fact that the pattern was making me miserable. We nearly ended it that night. Instead, we met on their next day off and talked about what contact was realistic during different shifts. It was extremely unromantic. Calendars open, rota on the table, phones face down. They said they could send a quick message before sleeping after a night shift, but could not promise a conversation. I said I needed plans in the diary because vague “maybe this week” arrangements left me waiting. We agreed that if a shift changed, they would tell me directly instead of assuming I understood from silence. I also had to admit that “online” was not evidence they had the capacity to talk to me. Sometimes they were checking the work group or ordering food. I turned off the setting that showed when they were last active because I was using it to invent information I did not have. We also finally agreed that we are partners. Oddly, the label was the least useful part of the conversation. It has been five weeks. The rota is still horrible. I still sometimes wish they would answer more. But I no longer spend a whole evening deciding what three blue ticks mean about the relationship. The problem was not that one of us cared and the other did not. We had built two completely different rules for contact and then judged each other for breaking rules we had never shared.