Dear Prudence,
My boyfriend and I have both been lucky enough to keep our jobs and be able to work from home during the pandemic. The issue I’m experiencing is relatively minor, but it’s been driving me nuts: My boyfriend does all his zoom meetings from our couch in the main area of our apartment.
Our apartment is a well-sized one-bedroom plus den with an open concept kitchen/dining/living room. The den is set up to be my boyfriend’s office, but he stopped using it because it doesn’t have windows and made him feel cooped up. I have a workspace set up in the bedroom, but I need to do things in the main area throughout the day, like make and eat lunch. Additionally, sometimes I’m done with work earlier than he is and would like to watch TV, empty the dishwasher, do random noisy human stuff, etc. But because he’s on calls for hours at a time—sometimes most of the day—I can’t do anything in the main area of our apartment that makes noise until he signs off, which is sometimes rather late. I’ve asked him if he can take calls from the den or the bedroom so I can have a bit more freedom to do things around the apartment (nothing crazy, just emptying the dishwasher and starting dinner), but he says that he doesn’t want to be cooped up in there for his longer calls and stays on the couch. Would I be unreasonable for insisting he use his den (or the bedroom)?
— You Can Always Tell a Milford Man