What should i do regarding my (18F) boyfriend's (19M) Barça "obsession"?
TL;DR: I have a boyfriend who is annoyingly obssesed with barça and it annoys me how he prioritizes it over me.
I (19F) have a boyfriend (20M) who is completely obsessed with Barça, we have been togethrr for 9 months . And I don’t just mean he likes football. I mean obsessed. He has what feels like a full-on parasocial relationship with the players. It’s all he talks about, he (almost) never misses a match, he owns a ton of merch, and when they lose he gets genuinely depressed. It means so much to him and tbh im glad he has intrests and something he cares so much about.
For the most part, I’ve tried to be supportive. I do think it’s a little embarrassing to feel so extremely deprssed when a group of men kicking a ball around a field lose, but whatever, it’s his thing. I’ve ignored my feelings it for most of our relationship because I know it’s not that deep and I’m not into football like that, so I get that I just don’t fully understand it.
But sometimes I feel really invalidated, like, if we’re arguing and a match is on, he’ll literally tell me, “Can you wait please? I have to watch them play.” And I just have to sit there while he prioritizes the game.I’ve brushed it off, but it still feels bad.
Sometimes he hesitates when saying he'd pick me over the team, which is wild to me. I have interests too, but there’s no interest I would pick over him. For example, I love my favorite singer, but I wouldn’t pick some artist I don’t even know personally over my boyfriend.
The thing that really set me off was when we were joking about tattoos. I said I had a little FOMO because my friend got a tattoo and I want one but don’t have the money. I joked that he could tattoo my name on his forehead. Then I asked what if he got a small tattoo of my initial somewhere. He said he wouldn’t get any tattoos, which im fine with, that doesnt bother me. Except, he said if Messi signed his entire forearm, he would 100% get that signature tattooed. I asked him, “So you’d rather get his signature on your arm than a tiny initial of mine somewhere else?” jokingly, expecting him to say "dont be silly" But to my surprise he said "yes, of course, any day."
He only said he was joking after I got mad. Then he said it was “half joking.” Which makes it worse because that means he kind of meant it.
I’m sick of feeling like I’m competing with a football team. I understand that Barça means a lot historically, especially for Catalonia, (we’re both from there) I get being proud of what the club represents, especially with everything tied to Spain’s dictatorship and catalonia's independence from spain., i'm grateful for what the team symbolizes too.
But this feels excessive. He defends the players with his whole heart and soul, even when they’ve done objectively bad things. He constantly sends me videos about how hard they’ve worked and how unfair referees are to them. He’ll go on and on about how they’ve been treated unfairly, like other teams haven’t also had struggles.
It just feels like a full-blown parasocial relationship with a group of men who don’t know he exists. And I’m starting to get really mad because it feels like everything revolves around them. I low-key feel like I’m second place to a football club.
Posted Mar 2, 2026, 4:15 PM UTC