My boyfriend and I had been in a relationship for almost six months and things were going pretty good for us. He wasn’t the super romantic kind, but I had come to enjoy his subtle and sweet gestures. We were both just starting off with college at that time – I was in Delhi University and he was in an engineering college in Delhi, so there was A LOT of time for us to spend together. We’d spend weeks missing classes, taking metro rides to nowhere and we savoured every moment of it.
He had applied for a hostel back when he joined his college, and after the first semester, he got a shared room which he decided to take since his house was a good 2 hour metro ride away. Initially, I was delighted… There were so many things we could do now that he wasn’t living with his parents – go to parties, take a vacation together, make dinner plans! Even he was enthusiastic about it as now he wouldn’t have to miss college to meet me and he wouldn’t have to make any excuses either!
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However, in a few days all our plans seemed to fizzle out. With new hostel friends, parties everyday and long classes, I started to feel like he never had time for me. Every time I would bring up this topic, he’d say he was trying to fit in at his hostel and it was important for him because he had to spend the next three years of his life there. He asked me to just give him some time to get used to life at a new place. I knew it was the truth – he wasn’t intentionally avoiding me, and yet, I could not shake off the feeling that there was a distance being created between us.
Maybe it was because we went from spending every minute together to not meeting for weeks, or maybe it just got to me every time my calls went unanswered. I started to be in a more irritable mood than usual and everything he did annoyed me. He, of course, never could figure out what was wrong. “Just because we don’t talk everyday doesn’t mean there is something wrong…” he’d say, “it’s just a sign that we are in a mature relationship”. For some reason, all this maturity wasn’t working out well for me.
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As each day passed by, I started to sense that a negativity brew between us and more importantly, within me. It was affecting not just our relationship but my day-to-day life as well. I’d wait all day for him to call and it upset me that he never did.
Unable to find a solution to this problem which was getting worse for me, and didn’t seem to exist for him, I started to wonder if, maybe, I was overthinking and making myself feel neglected. After months of feeling so distraught I was getting tired of the sadness, so I finally called him up and to my surprise, he picked up. “Hey babe, what’s up?” he said, and something about the warmth of his voice got me crying. I think that might have made him realise the seriousness of the situation because he instantly began to calm me down and apologised for not being around enough. He explained how he was trying to get used to living alone for the first time and got a little lazy with his time management – and I explained how I had been feeling like I was the only one making an effort in this relationship. We talked our hearts out and by the end of it, I realised that life was changing and even though he might not have time for me as often as I’d like, I could count on him when I really need it. He realised too (as he later admitted to me) that life was changing – and for any relationship to survive these changes, it is important for both partners to meet halfway!
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