Keep watching your show and they should keep watching theirs.

mrsconn23

Dear Prudence,

Incredibly low stakes question here! My roommate and I watch a lot of TV together, but there are inevitably some shows we watch on our own. When I’m watching a show I know they’re not interested in and they come into the shared living room, I turn it off and find something else. When they’re watching a show they know I’m not interested in and I come into the shared living room, they keep their show on, usually until the end of the episode. What is the etiquette here? Is one of us more right than the other?

— Who Are these Characters?

levioosa

Why does this question annoy me so much? 

banana468

Can't you coordinate with the roommate?  

IMO, if you know that Tuesdays at 9 are a joint time then in community space watch the show you like together.   If there's nothing coordinated I don't think you need to stop what you're doing. 

Casadena

do people not know how to have conversations with each other? this is so dumb, i can't even. 

climbingsingle

Just keep watching your show? This is so weird to me. 

CharmedPam

I’m going to assume there’s only one TV? Yeah.  Finsih your show and then ask what they’d want to watch? Why is this so difficult?

short+sassy

I think it's crazy to stop an episode in the middle because a person comes into the room who doesn't like that show.  

For the "next" show, it is polite to put it on something they both like.  But that is also assuming they both have alone time to watch the shows they each only enjoy.

These are also basic, with no animosity needed, conversations they can have with their roommate.

In my own house, my H mainly lets me control the tv because I have a f/t job and he doesn't.  But I will still ask before I turn the channel off a show he has on.  He often just has the tv on for background.  If he says "no" and explains he is actually watching that, it's fine.  If there is something he really wants to watch "live", like a Saints game, he'll give me a heads up he wants the tv at whatever time that is.

There are three shows I know he especially hates.  Restaurant Impossible, Darcey and Stacey (90DF reality show), and Pitbulls and Parolees (PP).  I purposely try to watch those shows when he isn't going to be in the living room.  If he comes in unexpectedly, I'll tell him I'm finishing that episode but will put it on something else when it's over.  PP is an exception because it prompts anxiety for him, so I'll put a different show on in the middle of an episode for that one.

CharmedPam

I get him on the Darcey & Stacey thing.  I keep watching it @short+sassy and keep asking myself why? What is wrong with me that I keep putting it on?

HBO max has quality shows I could be seeing! Lol

climbingsingle

S&S - I'm cracking up at your reference to Darcey and Stacey. I need to watch the new season, and yeah, I'll have to watch that when N is not home. 

We have one TV (in the living room). During the week, we each get one night of our own shows (right now, Monday is for my Bravo shows, and Tuesday is for his History channel shows). The rest of the week we pick something together, and thankfully we usually mostly agree on what to watch. But I don't subject him to other reality TV shows He can't stand Real Housewives, so I'll watch that on my tablet in the bedroom. 

short+sassy

@climbingsingle and @CharmedPam, the only 90DF related show that was a no-go for me was the Family Chantel.  I didn't particularly like that couple anyway and both of them had mega-toxic families.  But I am a total glutton for all other things 90DF.  Even Darcey and Stacey.  They're over the top, but not bad people.  I like them.  My H finds them too eyerolling.  I can totally understand that POV also, lol.

charlotte989875

Finish your show, then decide if you want to watch TV together or no. Neither of you are wrong but if you’re upset you’re deferring to your roommate and their choosing not to do the same, you can do something about whether you’re deferring to them. 

climbingsingle

short+sassy said:

@climbingsingle and @CharmedPam, the only 90DF related show that was a no-go for me was the Family Chantel.  I didn't particularly like that couple anyway and both of them had mega-toxic families.  But I am a total glutton for all other things 90DF.  Even Darcey and Stacey.  They're over the top, but not bad people.  I like them.  My H finds them too eyerolling.  I can totally understand that POV also, lol.

I think I watched maybe the first season of Family Chantel. I couldn't do much more. They're all so massively unlikable.  

mrsconn23

This is almost so dumb that it's on the level of, "How do I human?"  IDK why LW would just assume because they enter a common space that their roommate stops what they're doing, be it watching a show or if they're reading a book, to entertain LW.  And just because you do a thing, doesn't mean that they need to do the same.

I guess LW could be all, "Have you noticed I turn off my shows that I watch alone if you come to the living room because you don't watch them too?"   But what is their roommate supposed to say or do?  That's LW's prerogative, but it's etiquette neutral.  Roommate is doing nothing wrong and I feel like it would only serve to rock the living situation boat to make an issue of this.  

kerbohl

Hubby does this - turns off what he is watching when I come into the room.  I've told him to stop doing that - just watch your show until you are done, I do not care.  But the difference is that we communicated that ... really not hard!