Uncute tweets from when I was a cute girlfriend. I hate cooking.

I am a woman in her late 20s, the breadwinner of the house, living with my boyfriend, a dog, and a cat.

Who does the cooking every day in your household?
In our home, my boyfriend, who is a great cook, handles the cooking.

Now that I've become the breadwinner, earning enough to support our family of four and ensure everyone's peaceful life, I leave most of the housework to him and spend my days glued to my PC. But even this tough (lol) version of me once had a time when I was a cute girlfriend.

There are various reasons why we started this current lifestyle of 'living expenses: me, all housework: him,' but if you trace it back to the source, it was my 'hatred of cooking' (lol).

You might wonder just how much I hated it, but even I was once a typical cute girl who diligently cooked.

Yes, to put it bluntly, I absolutely hate cooking.

Common tropes of sharing housework

I think couples living together might relate to this, but for some reason—whether it's a natural progression or an unspoken agreement—it seems like the girlfriend often ends up being the one in charge of cooking when they start living together.

Going back a few years.
When we started living together, we didn't discuss it, and he never told me to do it, but I ended up taking on the cooking role myself.

From the day after we moved in, I immediately started going grocery shopping alone and planning the menu for the week.

We started living together less than six months after we began dating.

Even though I'm not one to be bound by stereotypes or old customs, I still had a desire to be seen as feminine and to be liked by him, so I volunteered for the cooking duty, even though I was supposed to be bad at it...

Besides the gender standard, the amount of time spent at home is also a criterion for who does more housework and cooking, right?

He left the house early in the morning and returned after the sun had set.
Since I was working part-time, I was the one who spent significantly more time at home, which is one reason I became the cook.

Even so, he was the kind of person who never took it for granted that I cooked every day, and he always made sure to say 'thank you'.

Cooking starts outside the kitchen

If you ask me, cooking isn't just a simple task of chopping with a knife and simmering in a pot in the kitchen.

Planning the menu, going shopping, carrying heavy bags, washing the rice cooker, rinsing the rice, washing the dishes in the sink, preparing, serving, washing the plates, cleaning up...

It's extremely troublesome that it's not just the 'star' tasks of cooking—the cutting and grilling—but also washing the rice cooker from the day before, washing those few extra dishes in the sink that aren't really in the way but you'd rather have gone, and having to wash the curry pot left on the stove from breakfast...

You have to go through quite a lot of steps before you even get to the 'star' part!

Since this pre-cooking washing task is annoying, I was able to challenge myself on days when I could get it all done the night before or in the morning to have everything perfect!

But on days when we ate leftovers for breakfast, I wouldn't have the energy or time to clean up before heading to work, so it would inevitably end up being a task for after I got home—that is, before making dinner.

(Voices saying 'You should just make it a routine!' or 'Your time management is poor!' don't reach me...)

Using your head instead of your hands is also a big job

Moreover, I had to think about what to make on my way home from work.

Even if you aren't physically moving your hands, having to think about it in your head is a big job.

If I didn't have to cook, I could just think 'Work is done!' and head straight home with an empty head, or casually go window shopping somewhere.

But once you're the one in charge of cooking, stopping by the supermarket is a major task.
On top of that, there were days when I'd hop between stores because the meat was cheaper at this supermarket, but the vegetables were fresher at that one, and my favorite milk was only sold at a third supermarket.

Wait, isn't being in charge of cooking more than just what you do in the kitchen??

If only the menu were already decided, all the ingredients were in the house, there were no dishes from the day before, and I could just start from 'Let's cut the vegetables!' in a clean, organized kitchen, it wouldn't be this much of a burden...!

That's what I used to think.

The final straw was managing the food budget.
I've spent this much by today, so I only have this much left for the rest of the month.
Ah, I want to buy that ingredient, but I'll wait until next month and hold off this time...
And so on!

The person not in charge of cooking doesn't just have the luxury of eating what's served,
they just eat away without having to think about how much an ingredient costs, or that it's cheaper or fresher at another supermarket.

Isn't thinking about food costs, menus, and ingredients in your head a pretty big burden when it piles up every day...?

At the time, rent and living expenses were roughly split 50/50.
I say 'roughly' because he had a higher income back then, so he covered a bit more, and he would treat me when we ate out.

But, is it really worth the amount of labor equivalent to that large sum of money...?
While questioning that, I remembered articles I hadn't been interested in before, like 'If a housewife got a salary, it would be this much!', and

I thought, 'I can certainly understand why one wouldn't be satisfied unless money was involved.'

I told myself that I only feel this dissatisfied because I hate cooking, and I even thought about what I could do to learn to like it.
(In the end, I never did.)

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Well, like that, my dissatisfaction built up inside me, and after various things happened,
we adopted a style where I earn the living expenses and he is in charge of the housework.

I want to say it again and again: the chore of cooking is not just about chopping and simmering in the kitchen!
(↑ I want to say this to all the men who think, 'It must be easy for women to just stay home and do housework.')

When you consider the small pre- and post-tasks and the tasks outside the kitchen,
I can't help but think, 'Isn't the volume too much to be lumped together under the single word "cooking," like "cleaning" or "laundry"?!'

Since he was cooperative with housework—doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and occasionally cooking on his way home from work—even though my dissatisfaction with life grew, that anger was never directed at him; instead, I felt frustrated with myself for lacking financial power.

If only I had the money, I'd hire a maid...

If I had complained to him, I'm sure he would have suggested we take turns cooking, but because I wanted to play the role of a capable woman, I pushed myself to take it all on alone, and ended up exploding about two years later (lol).

I've just written down my complaints about cooking and the position of having to cook, but I hope there's someone out there who can empathize.

I couldn't remain a cute girlfriend,
but I think what's important isn't that, but rather what kind of self makes me feel like myself and makes life easier to live.