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I was recently watching My Big Fat Fabulous Life on TLC, and Whitney Thorne, the lovable subject of the show, was going through it on Wednesday’s episode. Her boyfriend, Lennie Alehat, was being very distant. How distant? Well, despite calling and texting him multiple times during the day, he could go almost the entire length of it without getting back to her. In one particular situation, Thorne had to drive by his home to get to her internship at a morning radio show, leaving the house at 3 a.m. When she passed his place, she didn’t see his car. When she called him to see what was going on, she didn’t get a response — for the entire morning. It took Thorne going back to his house, knocking on his door (while covering the peephole) for him to come out and explain what was going on. His reasoning? Well, he said that he’s not cheating, nor is he not into her anymore. Instead, he apologized for the fact that she worried unnecessarily, and claimed that he’s not the type of person who needs a whole lot of communication to be happy in a relationship. He’s not alone in this way of thinking.
I have a girlfriend who has been dating a guy for a couple of months now, and she’s pretty frustrated with how lax he can be when it comes to returning her phone calls. Sometimes she will call him and instead of calling back, he will message her. When she texts him, sometimes it takes him hours to respond to her. And when he responds quickly, his messages are missing a lot of the enthusiasm that she, herself, is so used to displaying. According to her, he’s good to her for the most part, but his indifference when it comes to touching base gives her the feeling that he’s really not interested in taking their budding relationship seriously.
Still, she doesn’t believe that it’s something worth parting ways over, though it can be incredibly frustrating (and stressful considering that sometimes she worries that something has happened to him when he goes all MIA communication-wise). So what is a girl to do when the guy she’s dating likes her, but doesn’t like the idea of being “checked on” (as he calls it) when it comes to correspondence? And what do you do when you’ve talked to them about it and they still leave you hanging?
I don’t know what other people base their relationship on, but for me, communication is everything. No one wants to be running after a grown person to ensure that nothing serious has happened when all it takes is a quick reply to let people know you’re okay. And I get it: not everybody is the “Let’s talk for hours!” kind of person. I know I’m not. Most grown folks are quite busy, and the best they can do at times is send a quick message as a reply. But when you rarely if ever send a message or drop a line to let someone know that you’re thinking of them, and then you barely respond to their attempts to get in touch with you unless you have or want to make plans with them, it’s hard for someone, like my friend, to not take such things personally. I know long-term relationships have moments where all the newness wears off and folks aren’t interested in doing the most over the phone. In fact, a touch base message here and there throughout the day works just fine for some. But these two are in the early stages of things. Plus, when you know that your behavior makes your partner feel left for dead or unwanted, it would be nice to at least attempt to make a better effort. Because being in a relationship is all about making an effort and keeping other people’s feelings in mind to show that you care. If you don’t want to be bothered because you claim you “don’t need all that,” then you might want to figure out if you need to be in a relationship altogether…
But as always, that’st just my opinion. What say you? Is she being petty, or is he being inconsiderate?
