Why Some of Us Hate Weekends
We tend to be programmed to love the weekend and enjoy the ‘pit stop’. The idea is that it allows us to rest and recharge our energy to face the new week ahead. However, some people hate weekends and dread their arrival. In fact, weekends make them feel strange and out of place, and they don’t really know what to do with themselves.
Some of them are the elderly, who find weekday street noise and TV programming a distraction from their extreme loneliness. Others are single people of a certain age who find they have few plans when the weekend arrives.
It seems that, although being alone and independent is considered a luxury, this isn’t the case when it isn’t a personal choice.
Why do some of us hate weekends?
Society gives us the message that we should make a real effort toward enjoying our days off. However, not everyone loves weekends.
In fact, those who feel lonely and isolated often feel bad when they have to manage their own time. It’s also often a problem for those who are unemployed. Indeed, not only do they find the weekends more difficult, but sometimes they also feel guilty or critical of themselves. That’s because they believe that, while everyone else looks forward to the weekend, they don’t like them or don’t know how to make the most of them.
Furthermore, some people might be in certain personal situations that determine whether their weekends are more or less enjoyable. For example, perhaps you like your own solitude as an escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but if you have too much of it you start to feel isolated. After all, loving solitude isn’t the same as feeling emotionally isolated.
Here are some of the reasons why you may hate the weekend:
- Work or classes keep you active during the week, but at the weekend you have too much time to think and reflect on your life or yourself. Sometimes, this isn’t too pleasant.
- In the week, after work or study, you might watch a movie, read, or play games. On the other hand, when you do the same things on your days off, you feel like you’re wasting your time by always doing the same thing.
- Perhaps you need continuous social contact and have no problem maintaining it during the week. However, it doesn’t happen at weekends.
- You might occupy your afternoons from Monday to Friday with different activities and classes, but have a break from them when the weekend arrives.
Being single
If you’re single, you might actually define yourself as being unsociable at weekends. This isn’t a problem during the week, as you’re usually far too occupied to feel alone. You have clear objectives and demands on your time which means you’re too busy to focus too much on yourself.
This means that your general life and how you feel about it tend to take a backseat to the dynamism of your everyday life. Consequently, you experience the weekend as a vast emotional and social desert that you have to navigate before resuming your working week.
It could be the case that it’s often not too easy for you to find people to go out with. That’s because some friends are with their partners, others are working, or there are even those who’ve gone to other cities for relationship or work reasons. The result is a Saturday and a Sunday with nothing interesting or fun to do.
The feeling of being out of place
If you’re lonely, weekends can act as a reminder of your feelings of discomfort and not fitting in with others. This belief doesn’t necessarily have to be true. Nevertheless, you maintain it as you tend to compare yourself to others and feel ‘different’ from them.
On the other hand, if you’re single and have a rewarding job, you might find yourself living two lives. On the weekdays, you’re satisfied and accomplished, but at the weekends, you feel like a lonely outcast.
How to improve your weekends
Overall, it’s a good idea to try and make friends. However, this isn’t a short-term project. So here are a few ideas that might help turn your weekends around, if you’re one of those people who hates them.
- Do fun, interesting, and new things instead of simply killing time. Having no one to make plans or share time with doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to do anything or find anyone to do it with. In fact, it’s always a good idea to look for interesting activities or plans to carry out, both to have fun and meet new people.
- Volunteer. Helping others is always a good option for discovering the kind of meaning that you’re unable to find in other places.
All of these ideas may prove to be worthwhile if you hate the weekend for one reason or another. The idea is to be able to enjoy and feel good in your leisure time. Maybe you can even think of some other ways to take advantage of the weekend?
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Cardona Jiménez, J. L., Villamil Gallego, M. M., Villa, E. H., & Echeverri, Á. Q. (2013). El sentimiento de soledad en adultos. Medicina upb, 32(1).
- Montero, M., Lena, L., & Sánchez-Sosa, J. J. (2001). La soledad como fenómeno psicológico: un análisis conceptual. Salud mental, 24(1), 19-27.