Samantha is a city girl who married a country boy. He loves camping, but she hates camping. They usually compromise and get a cabin in the woods, but after spending time with his brothers, he booked a real campout for them. So she booked herself a hotel instead. Should Samantha have sucked it up and slept in a tent to make her husband happy, even through she really HATES camping?
Ayla Brown: I am really excited because I love camping. So when I read part of your email to Jim, I got some butterflies because I haven’t been camping in a while. Hi, Samantha. What’s going on with camping? And you?
Samantha: Hi. So, camping and me, we don’t get along very well.
Ayla Brown: Oh. Okay.
Samantha: I’m just a city girl at heart. I like the comforts of my electricity and my couch and my shower and, you know, the things that you don’t get in nature usually. My boyfriend, however, is very much a camper. He’s a country boy from western Massachusetts and loves camping.
Ayla Brown: My husband is from there too, but he actually hates camping, which is funny, but he is very kind of rural as well. So maybe they know each other.
Samantha: Well, he likes to go camping and I like to compromise with him on a camping trip. And my compromise is that if we go, we book a cabin or we book an Airbnb or something where I can at least have a bathroom, a place to sleep, someplace where there’s no bugs or dirt. And we’re still in nature. Don’t get me wrong. We will go someplace like Maine. We’ll go someplace out of state. We go and we’ll go on hikes. We’ll go on different trails, go to different state parks. But I like to go back at the end of the night. The biggest problem is that recently he went on a trip with his brother and it was a straight up wilderness camping trip, like no electricity, cooking everything by the fire, like sleeping in the tent, you know, no running water whatsoever. And he had a great time. Don’t get me wrong. I was very happy that he had a good time, but he had a great time with his brothers and he really thought that it would be a romantic trip if he tried it with me. So he booked it himself. I’m sorry. He booked us a trip. He booked a campsite, and he’s got all this stuff planned, and I’m just not that way. So I booked a hotel room nearby.
Ayla Brown: A separate room? So he has a campsite with no running water and just firewood. And you have a hotel down the street with electricity and a nice king size bed and a bubble bath. Jim loves you.
Samantha: Absolutely. Yes. Absolutely.
Ayla Brown: I feel bad for your husband in a way, because he wanted to do this with you together, thinking you would enjoy it.
Samantha: But he knows me so well. He knows I will not enjoy it. I voice this so much. So that’s what I came to. Am I in the wrong for getting the hotel room? With him knowing full well that I do not like camping and going out of his way to book this, knowing how much I hate it. Like am I the jerk for not coming?
