Dear Miss U,
I am terrified of talking on the phone to anyone and my girlfriend keeps trying to get me to talk to her on the phone and she wants to do it everyday, I want to but I am just not able to, what can I do or say to fix this problem. She also had a past boyfriend that would talk to her on the phone all the time and she said it was the sweetest thing ever; I feel like she is trying to compare me to him. If you don’t publish a reply that’s ok but I would really appreciate an answer it would be really helpful.
Phone Troubles
Dear PT,
You are not alone. Your fear isn’t all that uncommon, even in today’s era of technology. Unfortunately though, it is very hard to get through life without using the phone, and your SO is (ideally) the person you can trust and open up to the most – she is the perfect person to slowly and gently help you overcome this fear.
First of all, you must give up the notion that you’re not able to, because physically there is nothing stopping you doing this – it is something in your mind. And, it is YOUR mind. That is to say, you control it. You can choose to push yourself past this limitation, a little bit at a time.
I would suggest taking it slowly. Maybe even snail-slowly. She could call you, with the agreement that all you have to do is pick up. If you’re not able to speak right away, that’s fine. Just practice picking up the phone when it rings and listening to her voice. I bet you love hearing her voice! Concentrate on how it makes you feel when she talks to you, especially when she says your name or confesses her love for you. That feeling is what she wants to feel too. It’s a beautiful thing. Once you have this understanding, it can get easier. But first, just practice. Pick up the phone, listen and feel.
You could try this with Skype too. You can call each other, but you can type while she talks. Eventually, you will likely get sick of trying to type fast enough to hold a conversation, and the convenience of using your voice can over-ride the fear.
I think it’s a good idea to let your girlfriend read this article. She may not be aware your type of social anxiety exists, and she may not understand it. I’m confident however that she cares about you and wants you to feel comfortable. A compromise is obviously needed here. She can’t expect you to be up to talking on the phone every day, and you can’t expect her to accept never talking on the phone. Relationships don’t work like that. What you can expect from and provide for each other is understanding. She needs to try and understand where you’re coming from, and love you enough to move forward slowly while you need to try and understand why talking on the phone is beneficial for your relationship and deeply important to her.
Oh, ad you need to tell her that comparing a current partner to a past one is very uncool, no matter the reason!
Best of luck.
Dear Miss U,
Me and my love have been fighting a lot. He’s says I bitch too much, but I do it for a reason. He is gone a lot during the day, for like 1-2 hours or more. And I’m alone ALL the time, and he is the only person there for me. And that’s when I start ”bitching” cause I want him to be there.
At night he wants to go to sleep early and then I ”bitch” again cause I don’t want him to go, so then he stays BUT he still falls asleep on the phone.
I guess I’m just lonely, but do I bitch too much? 🙁
Sabrina
Dear Sabrina,
I’m going to go with yes. Yes, based on what you’ve said here I think you bitch too much. I also think that there is an obvious huge lack of respect in your relationship. You need to work on respecting each other enough to speak gently to each other and to allow each other simple necessities like enough love and enough sleep!
I’m going to assume that your letter contains a typo and that you meant he’s away 12 hours or more each day, not one or two. In the event you did actually mean 1-2, here is my response: You have nothing at all to complain about, and if you want any relationship of yours to survive you’re going to need to learn some maturity and independence.
My response based on the assumption you meant 12 hours is:
It can be very hard to balance work and life commitments. It’s not always easy to find time to talk and just be in love when you work or study so much – even for couples who are fortunate enough to live together. It takes effort. Perhaps you could organize a date night once a week and do something together over Skype or even just have an extra long conversation where you can catch up with each other. You can meet each other half way.
Perhaps he can text message you good morning, or on his lunch break, in return for having shorter phone conversations at night so he can actually get some decent rest. Or if you have a time difference, perhaps some of your communication could take place over email so that he’s not forced to stay up so late to speak to you.
Together you can work out a solution to this problem. Start by discussing how much contact each of you would desire (realistically) in an ideal week and compromise from there.
An important thing for you to look at personally is your independence. It’s neither possible nor healthy to have one person as the center of your world, your only point of human contact, your only friend or place to turn. People get caught up in the “romance” of us against the world, but in the real world this causes nothing but trouble. It is bad for your mental health. You need to find a way to fill your own hours so that you can be happy and feel loved and fulfilled even where you’re completely by yourself and alone. Study, get a job (preferably one with people you like), find some hobbies, join a gym. Just get out of the house and stop waiting around for his call. You need to be your own best friend because honestly, the only person who you can guarantee will always be there for you forever is yourself.
