An office worker says her boyfriend of two years has given her an ultimatum: either she leaves her job that “pays the bills,” or he leaves her “because he’s done dating an ‘office zombie.’ ”
The woman shared her side of things on Reddit’s “Am I the A——?” forum, detailing how her 27-year-old boyfriend, who is “anti-corporate to the extreme,” has been encouraging her to leave the stability of her job in order to potentially “follow his fantasy.”
Now, the 25-year-old office worker is asking others if she’s in the wrong for how she’s viewing the situation.
“He’s constantly going off about how capitalism is trash, anyone working a ‘normal’ job is brainwashed, blah blah blah. Meanwhile, I’m actually doing pretty well at my office job,” she wrote. “I mean, it’s not my ‘life’s passion’ or anything, but it’s solid, I’m decent at it and hey, it pays the bills.”
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As the Reddit user recalled, her boyfriend began “hardcore pushing” her to leave her job a year ago to escape what he called a “slave mindset” and “free” herself.
“He keeps talking about how we could live this carefree, spontaneous life, ‘following our souls’ or whatever,” she wrote. “He’s got these big dreams of us ‘living off the grid’ with zero responsibilities… but no actual plan on how we’re supposed to survive other than ‘going with the flow.’ When I asked for real details, he just got vague and started saying I don’t understand what true freedom is.”
Things took a turn days before the Reddit user shared her story, when her boyfriend gave her the “ultimatum.”
“Either I quit my job and ‘wake up to real life,’ or he’s out, because he’s done dating an ‘office zombie.’ And, to make things worse, he says I’m the one holding him back ‘cause my ‘chains’ are stressing him out,” she explained. “I tried explaining that, like, I actually like my life the way it is, and it’s my paycheck that’s covering our rent and food half the time, not his little ‘side hustles.’ ”
“When I told him no way, he stormed out, and now half our friends are telling me I’m missing out on a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ chance to live my best life,” she added. “The other half thinks he’s just trying to guilt-trip me into dropping everything to follow his fantasy.”
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After asking Reddit for some outside opinions, she was met with overwhelming support to keep her job — including a comment from a fellow Redditor with 16,000 upvotes telling her she’s on the right track.
“It sounds like he is the one draining your resources and holding you back,” the top response read. “Free time isn’t that fun when you have zero dollars. Set that free spirit free.”
Others told the woman that her boyfriend was “living on magical thinking and other people’s resources,” encouraged her to “run” and reminded her that alternative lifestyles — like the one proposed by her partner — require a “pretty rare set of circumstances to work comfortably.”
“NTA [not the a——]. The trash took itself out,” one user wrote. “Let us know how the poor man’s Bear Grylls is doing once you close your wallet to him.”
“Sounds like a loser,” another wrote. “All those grand plans of living off the grid, blah blah blah, are for trust fund influencers who don’t live in reality. Life costs money and money comes from somewhere. Living in a van down by the river, delivering DoorDash might work for him but it doesn’t make you wrong. Let him go and focus on your own happiness.”
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