I go to school in London, Ontario, but I'm originally from Toronto. So this summer I was working as a server at a restaurant and I met this girl and started going out with her. Everything was going fine until partway into September. It seems like she always wants to hang out with me when I'm not in class, and when I try to explain to her that I've got a lot of work to do, she gets very upset and says that I don't have enough time for her.

Further complicating this situation are my roommate and my brother. I live in an apartment with just one roommate, but he rarely leaves the place (except to go to class), so he's always expecting me to hang out with him at the apartment. (I'm one of his only friends in town). Whenever I'm "out of the apartment for too long", he gets really upset and says I abandoned him.

There's also my brother (who's 3 years younger) who's still in high school and doesn't have a lot of friends. My parents are always calling me and asking me to come back to Toronto for the weekend to spend time with him. I go back maybe once a month, but my brother complains that this isn't enough, that he wants me to spend more time with him.

Everytime I try to do homework in the library either one of these 3 people calls me and asks me to spend time with them. And whenever I'm in my apartment my roommate is always distracting me and trying to hang out with me, even though I try to explain to him I've got loads of work to do. He then gets upset and says I don't care for him, because I don't spend enough time with him.

One time I even spent an entire day in the library, shut off my phone. At the end of the day I check my messages with these 3 people upset at me, saying they couldn't get a hold of me and that they were worried about me.

Out of these 3 people I spend the most time with my girlfriend. I've considered breaking up with her, but then these 2 other people would always be on my back. And besides, this girl is the second girl I've ever dated. I've found it extremely hard to get girls to date me, and if I leave this girl then I won't get laid for a long time! (Even though we only have sex 3 times a month, that's better than nothing).

So I wonder "do these 3 people have lives? Do they have other friends besides me? Don't they have lots of homework too?" It's just do frustrating because I try to spend time with them while also doing my homework, but nothing's ever good enough for them, no matter how hard I try. Usually my homework gets neglected, and my grades have suffered.

I liked it better in the summer when I worked 35 hours a week and spent the rest of the time with these 3 people.

I know people have had issues with spending time with their girlfriends, but I haven't heard a lot about issues spending time with their roommates and siblings. I just need some answers so that I can make these 3 people happy and have enough time for my homework and myself! (Thankfully I don't work during the school year).

Thanks a lot!

-------
Jason

When your studying or just pretending to study ;) leave a message on your phone, something like "hey guys, sorry I'm completely swamped with work, when I find my way out of this paperwork I'll give you a call. [your name]"

Tell your roomate strait up you need space, he may not be happy about it but you are not going to stay roomates for very long if your relationship is strained. If he feels abandoned when you need to study offer he comes with you and reads or studies himself. Either he'll want to come and enjoy just having the company, he'll come get bored and stop asking or he'll be really clingy. If your roommate is preventing you from going out for any reason he is being too clingy, it may be time to reevaluate the relationship.

As for your brother, well it's not odd for him to miss you. Tell your family travelling every weekend is tiring you're a student you need your energy.

Of course you can also choose to compromise your grades a little, and there's nothing wrong with that. But if that's definitely not what you want, then you've got to stick to it. Otherwise you might just end up feeling overwhelmed and annoyed and stressed, and social time turns into obligations to please these people.

Lol I can totally relate when you said "don't they have homework too?" You sound like someone who likes to go sit down, focus, and do things well. Others might not have such a priority and just do homework because they have to (rather than because they care). That way, they leave it til last and don't care about perfecting it (and they can probably do just fine that way all the way through). They don't try to leave mental space to focus on it, they just get it done whenever it needs to be done and don't think much about it.

If that's the case with your brother/roomie/gf, then maybe you can refrain from saying "omg i have a load of work!" because they might not be able to relate to that. I found that it can come across as being perfectionist/annoying/heartless. Instead you can say something like "Sorry i can't hang out today, i've got a 16 page essay but I'll try to finish it asap then i'll call you k?" That makes it sound like you're more focused on them.

I'm not sure if you do this already though, but if you don't then it could be worth a try.

=)