How do I [27F] explain to my bf [31M] that pretending that he doesn't want to meet up or that he's forgotten plans, and then revealing otherwise, is not a fun surprise or funny joke?

My boyfriend and I have been together for a year and half now. We are both very busy people. I work full-time in a job that often requires you take work home and he works nights 5 days a week, and has university classes some days. We also don't live with each other, so as you can imagine, we have a very short period of time where we can actually message or see each other. Usually I stay over at his place Friday night and we spend Saturdays together. Of course, it would be great if we could see each other more, but it works because of our schedules and I'm satisfied with our time together.

When we are together we both engage in a bit of playful teasing. That's fine, and we're both people that can handle it. Recently there have been two occasions where I have gotten upset and I'm not really sure how to explain to him why. What happened was:

• He was supposed to book a specific restaurant for Valentines Day and my birthday. We spoke about it a few weeks in advance and agreed on this. A few days before the day, I still hadn't heard anything about it from him and it caused me a lot of stress. It's not like he didn't have time to do it and I'd given him reminders a few times. Finally, I asked him about it and he told me that he had booked it a week ago but was keeping it a secret to "surprise" me. I was not happy, as the whole time I had just been feeling like it wasn't a priority for him or that he'd forgotten.
• Another time, I had to stay home on the Friday night because I was feeling unwell, and told him we could meet up the next day if I felt better. Feeling better in the morning, I texted him to say hi. He didn't reply until an hour later, said he had a headache from sleeping too much (this is what happens when he tries to be awake during the day on weekends) and was going the gym to see if that would make him feel better (a lot later than he usually would). When I asked if we could see each other after, he texted me the same message I sent him when I cancelled the Friday night. As he had just been saying that he had a headache I didn't even realise, but understood that if he felt sick then he needed to rest. After I had replied, he laughed and asked if I'd noticed he had just copied my text. He said he was just joking and could meet up. This upset me because I was expecting him to have been more excited to see me, instead of joking about not, since we barely get to see each other, and barely get to talk during the week.

Am I overreacting? Why do these incidents bother me so much? They don't feel the same as playful teasing. I would like to ask him not to make jokes like those again... but I don't know how to explain my reasoning.

TL;DR: It upsets me when my boyfriend pretends that he doesn't want to or has forgotten to make plans with me and I want to tell him to stop. How do I explain to him that it isn't funny or a good surprise?

Submitted February 26, 2021 at 04:27PM by idonotlike___jelly https://ift.tt/3dSJ3oD