DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’ve been dating this girl for weeks now and we were good at first, but after like a week, she started behaving awkward, she doesn’t even call me, but I do call her, she doesn’t seem like she’s interested in the relationship, she doesn’t seem like she loves me, when we chat, she hardly calls me sweet names and I’ve talked to her about her behavior and asked her if she’s still in love with me and she always says yes, that she still loves me, but her actions doesn’t show that she does.
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Even when I decided not to call her for days, she didn’t bother calling me.
Should I leave the relationship, should I give her a break because I can’t take it anymore.
A Touch Too Much
DEAR A TOUCH TOO MUCH: I have a whole lot of questions, ATTM, but honestly, I don’t think many of them matter. I think there’s a very fundamental disconnect in this… I hesitate to call it a relationship. I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I’m going to go ahead and say it’s not “dating”.
Some of this is a matter of mismatched expectations. Calling someone pet names isn’t a definitive part of a relationship. Lots of people do have pet names for their partners. Many don’t, and that’s OK. That’s just how they are. Many people want to talk or text with one another every day; others don’t. Some people are bad at initiating contact for many reasons; others aren’t. Again: that’s OK. People are going to vary, and it’s better to accept folks as they are than to get upset about who they aren’t.
If, for example, someone calling you “sweetie” or “darling” is important from a partner, then you’re better off dating someone who does that or understands that this is important to you than to get upset that it doesn’t come up organically.
But there’re other things here that make me wonder just how much you’ve rounded things up to “love” and “dating” and if your erstwhile sweetie disagrees. Because quite frankly, there’s a lot here that makes me think that this relationship is almost entirely one-sided.
Leaving aside the fact that it sounds far too early for you two to declare that you’re in love (seriously, you’ve only been dating for a few weeks), if within the first week she stops returning your calls and isn’t behaving like she’s in a relationship, then something is off. And I mean “either you missed something critically important” or “this is the most passive-aggressive break-up ever” levels of off.
The same goes for her not calling you or reaching out after going radio silent for days. To be sure: that’s a pretty bad way to handle a relationship conflict in general and especially one where you’re worried that you’re in a one-sided relationship. After all, your not calling for days could tell her that you are upset at her, which may confuse the issue further. But the fact that you’re doing this with absolutely no response? Yeah, that’s weird.
But, regardless of whether you haven’t recognized a one-sided relationship or if everyone did enter into this in good faith, there’s an important thing to consider: if you’ve had discussions about a problem in your relationship and nothing has changed? Especially if you’re having the same discussions about the same problems over and over? Then the relationship is already over. Someone has checked out. Either they don’t care about the relationship or they don’t care to change things or they don’t see any of it as a problem and feel no need to even say that. At that point, the relationship is dead. It may still be moving around like its alive, but it’s a zombie, a shambling corpse that only resembles something living. The best thing you can do then is to put two in its dome and let it die for good.
That, I think is where you are. Regardless of whether you’re the only one who thinks you’re in a relationship or not, this is relationship is done. The best thing you can do is make it official. You don’t need to send a final accounting of all of her supposed sins, nor should you. It’s pointless at best and only serves to salve your ego, while possibly causing unnecessary pain or discomfort for her.
Send a last text saying “this isn’t working for me, so I’m ending this, best of luck to you” and then just move on. And next time, make sure that you and your future partners are on the same page about what you want from a relationship, but whether you’re even in one in the first place.
Good luck.
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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com