When there is a distinct lack of communication in any dating relationship, a few things inevitably rise to the surface that will ultimately lead to the end of the relationship. I personally have experienced some of those repercussions because of little-to-no communication when I was dating a girl, and I must say that they aren’t healthy or life-giving repercussions.
Sure, it’s easy to act cool like nothing is wrong when someone asks how the girlfriend or boyfriend is doing, but that ache in the pit of your stomach tells a different story, doesn’t it? If communication dwindles, fear and anxiety begin to grow. Without a steady stream of dialogue between two people who are dating, the pair often begin to wonder what exactly is happening in the relationship. And man-oh-man was this true of me with the girl I was dating my senior year of college.
About halfway through my senior year at Virginia Tech, a young girl named Sara caught my attention and drew me in like a tractor beam. She was fun-loving, pretty, and she loved Jesus…the trifecta. I asked her out on a date, and very quickly afterward, we put the official “dating” label on our relationship. All was well for quite a few months, and I was pretty sure we had a good thing going that would last beyond my impending graduation from school. Sara was an interesting girl, though. She would often be very communicative, friendly, and attentive to me as her boyfriend, but every now and then she would just shut down and stop talking to me altogether.
It was strange. Days would go by where she would be too busy to hang out with me, and when I would call to try and connect and see how she was, she’d either not answer, or be very short with me on the phone like she was upset about something. I would inevitably ask if she was okay, and she’d respond with, “I’m fine.”
And then, just like nothing had happened, the next day would come and she’d call me or drop by my apartment or meet me somewhere on campus and act like nothing had ever been wrong at all. I didn’t want to rehash what might have been wrong with her, so I just accepted the more friendly version of my girlfriend and didn’t bring up the fact that she had been pretty distant. Simply put, we didn’t talk about it.
Our relationship went on like this for the final months of my time at college. Things would be great between us, she would have a “distant spell” for a few days, she’d snap out of it, and we’d go right back to being normal again. I liked her a lot, so I put up with it.
Looking back on this, however, I want to travel back in time to meet up with my former self, smack my own face, and ask, “Do you like waking up every morning wondering whether or not she actually wants to date you today? Do you really want to be with someone who doesn’t communicate with you for days at a time about what’s going on with her life? Is that the kind of woman you want to marry?”
Well, I can’t time travel to ask myself those questions, but I wish I could. The relationship story ends, of course, with her being very distant during the summer months we were apart after I graduated from college, and the obvious break up that should have happened long before it actually did. To this day, I still don’t know what bothered her so much that she refused to engage with me during those distant spells, but I wish I wouldn’t have settled for it the way I did when it was happening.
The consistent lack of communication between the two of us made me very insecure about our relationship, my ability to be a good boyfriend, and my appeal as a person. Bad relationships have a tendency to do that, don’t they? They can really derail us, because they permeate into every available space in our mind and heart. If Sara would have told me what was going on with her in those times, I would have been able to do a number of things differently that may have led to far better outcomes.
I could have given her more space instead of continually trying to reach out to her when she didn’t want me to. I could have proactively prayed for her if she was struggling with something difficult in her life. I could have evaluated whether or not this relationship was something I wanted in my life far earlier than I did. But she never talked with me about her distant spells, so I was left to wonder…which lead to distance and unhealthy scrutiny of myself and her.
Communication is essential and vital to the health of any dating relationship, because without a steady stream of verbal connection between a couple, both are left wondering about a variety of potentially negative things that draw our focus away from a life of walking closely with Jesus.
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