13 very real binge watching anxieties we can all relate to
Binge watching is great. At times, it’s hard to really remember the “old days” — you know, when you had to wait a whole week (or sometimes more) to see what happened next on your favorite show. In some ways it feels like we’ve been spoiled by the ability to binge watch, but with the good always comes at least a teensy bit of bad, and when it comes to binge watching, most of that bad manifests in the form of anxieties we never had to deal with before the binge.
Here are 13 anxiety-inducing situations that have come into our lives right along with Netflix autoplay.
When you’re busy the weekend a new Netflix show drops.
You know, when you catch yourself thinking things like, “But why did my sister have to plan her wedding the same weekend Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt comes back?” It’s not that you don’t love your real-life plans, too, but if you miss the initial binge, you’re basically out of the conversation or conceding to spoilers galore.
When you skip a binge and then spend a whole week trying to avoid spoilers.
But good luck because everyone else on the planet seems to have made time to watch House of Cards right away and they don’t care that you were busy.
When you accidentally spoil the end of a show for your best friend.
You’re sorry, but how could she let something like her sister’s wedding stop her from watching your favorite show all in one weekend?
When you suddenly don’t know how to communicate with other humans because you’re all trying to figure out where the others are in a binge and avoid spoilers.
“You’re on episode eight? That means nothing to me; I’ve just been letting it autoplay. Okay, just tell me what’s happening in the episode you’re on now, but nothing that would be a spoiler and I swear to god if you even mention what Kilgrave’s doing, I’ll plug my ears and leave.”
When you have other things to do, but try to binge anyway.
“NBD,” you think. “I’ll just finish the proposal for work and finish Daredevil, because I’m the real superhero.”
When you’re late to a binge.
You come to work, all excited to tell everyone about a great new show you discovered on Netflix, only to find out that everyone else has already seen every episode and now they’re going to talk about it and spoil the ending for you.
When you have other things to do, but you just started a really good new show.
It doesn’t even have to be a show that was made to binge. Sometimes, your friends just need to learn to understand that The O.C. just started streaming and you have priorities.
When you start to become a binge zombie.
You know, when you’re pulling double duty as a functioning, employed human during the day, but at night you’re watching six episodes of Lost instead of sleeping.
When you lie and say you’ve watched more a show than you actually have.
Because you’re suffering from binge envy, which lets you feel FOMO even when every single one of your friends stayed in and didn’t hang out with another human all weekend.
When you lie and say you’ve watched less of a show than you actually have.
Because you’re running on 26 hours and counting with no sleep all because you got really into a TV show and it occurs to you that maybe that’s not something to brag about.
When you start to worry if you have a problem.
You thought binge watching was such a beautiful thing, but now you’re worried that you might be doing permanent damage to your brain somehow.
When you catch up to a show that’s still on in real time.
Somehow, it never occurred to you that you’d make it through all eleven streaming seasons of Grey’s Anatomy before the show actually ended and now you’re back in the old days.
When you finish binge watching a show that’s been canceled and ended on a cliffhanger.
Nothing is worse than being on the penultimate episode of a show and having the realization that there’s no way they have time to wrap everything up and the last twelve hours of your life have been building to a forever cliffhanger.
