I love talking, be it in person or over the phone, and I’ll always prefer to talk over email, texting, teams messages, etc. Conversations feel much more real and genuine and you’re way less likely to misinterpret tone or catastrophize about possibilities when you can see someone’s face or at least hear their voice. Personally, I think I’ve got a pretty good read on how to shift the tone of conversation over the course of a relationship from something polite and friendly to something intimate and sweet as my feelings change, or to something more practical when needed as we become comfortable with each other. No one’s told me in the past few years that I was communicating a tone I wasn’t intending to.
On the flip side, I hate texting. I hate how stilted it can feel, I hate the waiting, I hate the pressure to craft a perfect response, I hate trying to interpret and communicate tone, I hate the fact that conversations don’t have a defined end and kinda just drone on until someone leaves the other on read, etc.. I think it stems from some negative experiences I had with my first relationship where almost all of our important conversations were over text, tone would get lost, and the intimacy of a face to face conversation wasn’t there to help ease the tension. Now I just dread texting, it takes minutes to draft each text and I’m super careful to go heavy on an excited tone to ensure that my partner knows that I care about them. I just feel fake sometimes, even when I’m genuinely excited about being with someone, the way I genuinely talk and show affection in person just doesn’t translate well over text.
I want to know how to slowly shift the tone of text to something more practical without making my partner feel unwanted. Do y’all just maintain the same levels of “I’m excited to see you!” and “last night was really fun :)” forever? Do yall have explicit conversations about how to communicate or does it just come naturally? Is there even a difference between the way you talk and text? If this is just the reality of texting today then instead I’d like to learn how to be more comfortable with it at least.
For context, I (25M) have been dating a girl (28F) for about a month now and I love talking to her. She’s super smart and kind, she knows how to make me feel wanted, I learn something new almost every time we talk and I feel like we connect on a deep level. I just want to feel less anxious about communicating with her without making her feel insecure about how much I care for her. Any advice?