Has going through lockdown with your significant other changed the way you look at them? Did their work-from-home schedule lead you to discover the approximately 72,000 unread work emails they’re sitting on? Are you a little disgusted that they have the audacity to put on actual pants every day while you’re strictly wearing sweatpants?
You’re not alone. This pandemic has the members of pretty much every cohabitating couple discovering some unnerving things about each other. Below, 12 comedians (or otherwise funny people) share the weirdest things they learned about their partners in 2020.
My boyfriend is firmly anti-snack.
“My boyfriend doesn’t like to snack. Isn’t that so unlikeable? It’s not just that he doesn’t snack ― he doesn’t even want to. Not even peanut butter. Like, he has a jar of peanut butter in his fridge that he only eats when he’s making himself a peanut butter sandwich as a meal. I’m really confused about how he fills the time, honestly. One time we baked a cake, and he didn’t want to try the leftover batter. It’s weird and troubling.” ― Ginny Hogan, comedian and author of “Toxic Femininity in the Workplace: Office Gender Politics Are a Battlefield”
My wife could quarantine for the rest of her life.
“2020 was the year I discovered that my wife could comfortably quarantine... forever. As long as she can get groceries, wine, books, skin products and weed delivered, and as long as her hunter-gatherer husband is available to pick up her prescriptions, take the dog to do her business, and pick up the occasional Taco Bell lunch, she’s free to lie in bed, work on her iPhone and watch MSNBC until she hears the same damn news story 112 times. Yes, she gets up to cook. Yes, she goes to the desk computer to write. Yes, we walk so we don’t weigh 700 pounds. But mainly, the bed beckons.” ― Joel Canfield, novelist, screenwriter and creator of the “Max Bowman” book series
My husband has harbored secret polka-dancer dreams.
“I learned my husband has an inner dancer that is begging to be unleashed. 2020 made him reconsider his ‘best life’ and now he has a bucket list that includes polka lessons.” — Shelley Brungardt, writer at Breathe and Reboot
My girlfriend really cares about even numbers.
“When my girlfriend started working from home during the pandemic, I started to notice her staring at all her drinks whenever I would pour them. It turns out she is secretly obsessed with even numbers. But here’s the kicker: It’s only when it comes to the number of ice cubes in her drinks or the number on the TV volume. Just those two things! If I ever choose not to abide by this, I get a look that I can only describe as ‘the face.’ I don’t like ‘the face.’ It scares me, so I avoid it like the plague. Want to pour her a drink? Four ice cubes are great, but give her three? You get ‘the face.’ Watching your favorite flick and want to turn it up? Well, you better turn that up to 36, because do 35? You get ‘the face.’ I’d like to get her to stop. But my desire to not get ‘the face’ is stronger.” ― Carlos Garcia, actor, comedian and co-host of the “FratChat” podcast
My boyfriend is always on r/conspiracy.
“Turns out my boyfriend is a conspiracy theorist. Unfortunately, the government is monitoring my communication so I’m not at liberty to say if that’s a joke or not.” ― Courtney Kocak, comedian and host of the “Private Parts Unknown” podcast
My girlfriend thinks I suck as an Instagram boyfriend.
“I have learned a lot about my girlfriend during this pandemic. I realized that when we go out, my girlfriend gets mad at me for not taking candid pictures of her. And I was like, ‘But I take pictures of you all the time.’ And my girlfriend responded, ‘Yeah, but they’re not candid’... which made me realize my role in the relationship is to be a paparazzi.” ― Francisco Ramos, stand-up comedian and director and co-writer of the short “Zoo Animals,” now streaming on HBO Max
My boyfriend needlessly wears a headlamp around the house.
“I started a relationship during quarantine. We met over the always-SUPER-authentic Instagram. His opening line was extremely cheesy, and although I don’t typically answer the ‘other messages,’ he somehow caught my attention. (Could have been the half-naked body of tan muscles in his profile pic, still can’t pinpoint the exact catalyst, though.) We maintained a long-distance, virtual relationship for a month and a half until he finally visited with an expectation of a weekend trip. Annnnd then he stayed for a month. For some reason, he packed a headlamp, and wore it... often. He would be on work calls with it just on his head, not even with the light on. I would come home from running errands and it would look like my home was getting fleeced by 1950s bank robbers, but he was just cooking dinner. If this relationship makes it, I’ll eventually show him the location of the multiple light switches, but only if he stops talking about being a ‘warrior’ in the bedroom.” ― Mara Marek, host of the “Muscle Spasms” and “Happy Never After” podcasts
My boyfriend hasn’t left the house, but still manages to lose everything.
“The weirdest thing I learned about my boyfriend (he’s on all my medical records as the person who gets to make decisions if I’m incapacitated, so it’s a little more serious than that, but I intensely dislike terms such as fiancé, betrothed, balls-n-chain, etc.) is that he can lose things even when we didn’t go anywhere, and then be entirely resolute that they’re gone forever. ‘Babe we haven’t left the apartment in weeks. I’m sure it’s here!’ On one of the many occasions he misplaced his cell (we have a SMALL one-bedroom in Queens) I found it INSIDE the wood frame of the couch. We flipped the couch over and I had to sneak my fingers inside the inch-wide opening that the phone had somehow magically managed to fall into. The upside of this is that one has way less time to panic about the state of the world when one is constantly looking for their boyfriend’s belongings.” ― Leah Bonnema, comedian and author of “The Holiday Breakdown,” a Christmas romance novel
My wife is all about the anti-bacteria products.
“My wife has always been a bit of a neat freak. Now, anti-bac is our life blood. Going to take out the trash? Anti-bac before and after. Walking the dog? Same. Anything put down, you hear a small woosh and it’s moved because it ‘doesn’t belong there,’ including the kids. The laundry now doesn’t stand a chance, because if clothes aren’t away 30 minutes after ironing they get stuffed into the drawers (which ironically annoys ME because they’re in order and she messes them up!). Honestly, COVID doesn’t stand a chance; if you even sneeze, before a booger hits the floor my darling wife is diving commando-style to the floor, trigger already tightening on the anti-bac spray mid-flight.” ― Paul Sutton, actor and part-time comedian
My husband eats the same fart-inducing lunch every day.
“I’m at home a lot more because as a stand-up, I can’t tour or perform right now. The other day my husband walked in on me doing a yoga DVD and at the end when the lady says ‘Deep peace to you’ I answered back ‘Deep peace to you, bitch!’ like I always do, and turns out that’s weird. As for him, he has eaten the same meal for lunch every day for months (eggs, broccoli, feta) and I don’t know when he’s going to break. His farts are breaking me, though.” -- Sofiya Alexandra, writer and comedian whose album “Father’s Day” came out this summer
My wife only knows Weezer lullabies.
“Our first child was born in mid-March! So I have spent the pandemic alone in our (new) condo with my wife and an infant. This means my wife and I are always around while the other one is spending time with our child... This is where I learned my wife’s preferred lullaby collection is the Weezer discography. I don’t know why. Before March, I didn’t even think my wife knew any Weezer songs. Now, I will find her lying on the floor gently singing ‘Island in the Sun’ to a child trying his darndest to eat the lid off his formula bottle.” ― C.J. Tuor, writer for Jackbox Games and co-host of the “Lakeshore & Limbo” podcast
My wife runs our house like a senior manager.
“With my wife of 12 years now working from home, I’ve learned just how much she needs a buffer between work and home. Since March, the kids and I have become more like her co-workers than her family. By that, I mean she now uses corporate buzzwords when talking to us.
“‘I’m going to have to circle back to that,’ she’ll tell our daughter, who just asked for help with her homework.
“‘Let’s take a step back and examine our goals,’ she’ll say as I begin to prepare dinner.
“‘How’s the family synergy?’ she’ll ask at breakfast.
“She used to be able to leave the office at the office, because she’d clock out and decompress while driving home. Now? Now all she has to do is walk out of a bedroom door and she’s a mom again. As George Costanza once said in exasperation, ‘Worlds are colliding!’ At least she sees us as her co-workers, though. I hope it doesn’t come to the point where we’re her employees...” ― Nathan Timmel, comedian and author of “It’s OK to Talk to Animals (and Other Letters from Dad)”
Responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
Before You Go
