A 34-year-old Reddit user has confessed to creating excuses to bring their older brother over to their home because they are lonely and don’t know how to ask for his company directly.
The post, shared on the r/confessions forum, had drawn 63 comments as of publication. The poster said the 39-year-old brother is married and has two children.
The poster wrote that they moved back to their hometown after a breakup, only to find that most of their old friends had moved away. Making new friends in their 30s, they said, proved harder than expected.
The poster described a good relationship with their brother but said the two don’t typically call each other just to chat. “We could talk for hours while doing something, but sitting across from each other having an actual conversation? Somehow that feels weird,” they wrote.
The habit began a few months after the move, when the kitchen faucet started leaking. The poster said they knew how to fix it but called their brother anyway.
“He showed up on Saturday with his toolbox, fixed it in about fifteen minutes, and ended up staying for three hours,” the poster wrote. They said the two ordered pizza and talked about work, his children, their parents and things they did as teenagers. The poster said they had not laughed so much in months.
Since then, the poster has called the brother over for a loose towel rail, a new router setup and a cabinet door that needed adjusting, among other tasks. The poster acknowledged that each was an excuse.
The brother, they wrote, regularly teases them for being “hopeless with tools,” which they called embarrassing because the two learned the same skills from the same person.
On one visit to hang a shelf, the brother brought his daughter, the poster said. She drew while the adults worked, the family later ate grilled cheese sandwiches, and she left one of her drawings on the refrigerator.
The poster said they are not helpless, just lonely.
“I want to spend time with my brother, but asking him to drive over just to hang out makes me feel like I’m taking time away from his family,” they wrote. “Somehow asking him to fix a cabinet feels more legitimate, even though it takes up the exact same Saturday afternoon.”
The poster described the brother as a good person who would likely understand but said they were embarrassed to admit the repair troubles were an act.
Commenters largely encouraged the poster to be honest. “He comes over to help you all the time. He loves being with you,” one wrote. “You shouldn’t be embarrassed or afraid to tell him that you love his company.”
Another commenter, who said they were also an older brother with two children, urged the poster to simply invite him over for pizza. The commenter said they would make time for a sibling who said he missed hanging out, and noted that the brother’s decision to stay for hours after the repair suggested he enjoys the visits, too.
