Contributed by: Jet on Sunday, June 10 2012 @ 08:24 am
Last modified on
Perhaps you’ve met someone new, and things are progressing well. You’ve gone on a few dates. You seem to be heading toward the status of “in a relationship.” You’re happy and excited. You might not know to be guarded against someone who’s insidious and negative: yourself. Or rather, your fears and insecurities.
Time and again, I’ll hear questions like, “What does it mean when my significant other sounds grumpy on the phone? Things are fine when we meet in person.” Chances are, whatever the reason is, it has absolutely nothing to do with you. Maybe your significant other doesn’t like talking on the phone. Maybe they’re having a stressful day at work, or a co-worker they don’t like is lurking nearby and they feel self-conscious.
What’s more, the answers to such concerns are easily obtained. Your significant other will probably not be offended if you mention that they sounded tense earlier and wondered how their day went. Perhaps they’ll even fill you in about that pesky co-worker. Still, we tend to keep such questions inside, instead playing psychologist or mind-reader. Chances are, we get it wrong, or obsess over nothing; worse, we plant the seeds of poor communication.
Now, granted, there are better and worse ways to approach the situation. Mildly mentioning that your significant other sounded tense or preoccupied is one thing; accusing them of, say, hiding something from you is something else again. So is demanding that they “tell you what’s wrong.” Chances are, whatever small incident that’s nagging you was so insignificant to them that they honestly don’t remember it at all.
And that’s the main thing to remember: we tend to blow things up in our mind, and make them much more important than they actually are, especially when something’s going well and we’re afraid it will end. Humans get terse, or even grumpy from time to time. More importantly, do they appear happy with the relationship? Do they want to keep seeing you? And do even the grumpy squalls make way for sunny skies, more often than not? If the answer to all these questions is yes, the biggest thing for you to focus on is getting out of your own head - and enjoying your blossoming romance.