h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm enjoying bagging Munros, but Ben doesn't find it enjoyable, so I'm trying to find a way to do them on my own without damaging our relationship.

So what do you do? Joint hobbies or your own thing.

How do you find time to do your own thing?

"Opposites attract" but you have to have things in common. We have a mixture of shared and separate interests, like playing music together, doing the garden , going walking; but then she likes sewing and I like painting, so we do that separately. However, bagging munros is perhaps a more time-intensive hobby than most relationships can easily manage, unless Ben has something of his own to indulge in during that time.

You're fine as long as Ben likes scotch... Find the nearest distillery to the particular Munro you're going to climb (preferably one that does tours) - drop her off in the morning and pick her up (out of the gutter) when you get down from the mountain...

We share some things and do other things separately.

We both enjoy singing, and are in two choirs (each of is in both choirs).

But Mrs G likes watching television while I enjoy footling around on h2g2. So we go our separate ways for these activities.

I think the older you are, the more time you need on your own.

Bit of both.

Bikes mean the world to him, so I did my test and will happily join him on the odd jaunt. But I know I will never feel as strongly as he does.

Dancing is my passion, so he'll don a kilt and accompany me to one or 2 dances a year (but probably wont come to weekly classes). And I'm a gym bunny whereas he's never been inside a gym in his life - but will be at the roadside cheering me on in fun runs etc.

We have similar tastes in music so will go to concerts together.

Me and Big R do a bit of both

He likes rugby league I don't so while he's watching that I do some crafting, however we both like rugby Union.

He's also come to enjoy things that I like e.g Moto GP and Cycle Racing, whilst I will tolerate watching Emerdale

We've got on better on shopping trips after I made it explicit that the only parts I enjoy are those in bookshops and 'exotic' food shops. My standing near the door with a glazed expression was no fun for either of us.

We share a lot in common... Very simular tastes in cooking/food, though I do the bread thing which he doesn't.... We both rather enjoy spending far too much time browsing round Ethnic/unusual food shops, as we both like cooking a lot of Asian/Indian food... We've both a strong music interest, but tend towards differnt sorts of music, though this crosses over a lot... Both like walking/being outside, and both like pubs for somewhat differnt reasons, as he doesn't actually drink anymore And our main common interest seems to coincide and match pretty-much perfectly Oh, and perhaps most importantly of all, we both listen to BBC radio Four... Differnces I guess are mainly that I tend to eat more meat whilst he's pretty-much vegetarian, but I do quite a lot of vegetarian cooking for myself anyhow
He doesn't like bacon though... which is very* strange
We both play, music instruments but very differnt types and styles so that isn't really communal as such
At the moment any differnces in waht we want to do, and in finding the time to do them, alone, is helped by us not as yet living together...

We have some similar hobbies and some separate ones, and we each make an effort to keep some level of interest in those separate hobbies just so we're not pursuing them completely separately... even if there's no interest in actually *doing* the hobby, it's nice to have some idea of what it's all about.

Ooooh, shopping!

We have very different approaches to food shopping: I draw up a menu plan (often on a spreadhsheet), check what ingredients we have, and what we need, add in the items listed on my notepad where I've jotted down during the week anything we run out of or are running short of, and then I do a methodical up and down the aisles with my list. Ok I might buy the odd impulse item,(half price wine will usually tempt me) but by and large that's my approach.

He believes in shopping from the aisle ends for any special offers.

So when I can diplomatically do so, I'll do the food shopping solo.

But he's marvellous at clothes shopping with me - very patient, has a real eye for style and what suits me, and honest enough to tell me when something isn't quite working.

Eep! Spreadsheets are way too organised for me. I wander from one end to another, mentally composing meals in my head and grabbing things as appropriate. It works - after a fashion.

Basically, the organising principle of my life is Brownian motion.

Past partners and I have normally been drawn together because of similar hobbies - I went out with 3 different role-players. One was also really into computers, as I was, although that ended badly with him being more interested in his chatrooms than coming home to me in the end.

I really like cross stitch, but I can do that in front of the telly, or on a train, so I can still be with the person I'm with. Motorhoming was one that didn't go down very well with the last fella. He pestered me to come on one weekend away, I then invited him on another a couple of months later because it was a big sale including auto jumble and he got really annoyed at one point and told me he wasn't interested in motorhoming every weekend. Which is odd, as I'd never asked him anyway.

I now like geocaching, and, obviously, dogs. I'd be disapointed if I couldn't share the geocaching with any new fella, but I'd probably look for someone who was interested in that sort of thing anyway.

Maybe that's where I'm going wrong? My hobbies change every few years, and suddenly my man is out of date.

And that's why I don't have one, makes it so much easier to do your own thing...

Mind you, I don't really do pubs and clubs, but have a different activity on nearly every night of the week, so if I did meet someone, it's likely we'd have at least one hobby in common.

You'll be able to fight each other with big swords.

No partner now.

Previous. Both of us artists which we could share...but she violinist...me gardner. I couldn't really share her thing but gained great pleasure from listening...she could share mine a bit more easily.

She was also teaching her daughter the violin. I did feel a bit left out sometimes as its such a brilliant skill..and she was damned good at it.

That's the plan, Ed - Yarreau says the man I marry will be the one who can defeat me in single combat

How sexist! Not vice versa?

I like sex, she likes shopping but 5 minutes spent sharing her pastime leaves me bored - and vice versa.

I think this is a part of the changing patterns in society. In the old days people lived in communities and each partner would have their sphere. Men would meet in working mens clubs or pubs and women would meet at home sharing childcare etc (excuse the slightly idyllic picture). As we have moved further from our communities (often repeatedly for jobs) we expect our partner to be everything to us, our lover, person we share household tasks with, and best friend. It’s a lot to ask one person to be everything to someone. I’ve come to realise that looking outside of my relationship for some things doesn’t have to be at the detriment of my relationship.

Although obviously it depends what those things are….