As a dating coach, I hear questions and statements (usually complaints) like this from my clients all the time:
� "He only contacts me once a week. I hate that!"
� "Why can't he ask me before Friday if I'm free this weekend? My schedule fills up by mid-week."
� "She never calls me back. She only texts me when I leave a voicemail. It's really annoying."
All of these are, of course, completely valid concerns. What's not valid, though, is complaining about them if you haven't first addressed these concerns with the very person who's causing them. Despite our desire for them to be, people are not mind readers. Even if we think we're being perfectly clear, we often dance around things that bother us thinking the other person will just "figure it out"... and that usually doesn't happen. This leads to the demise of many relationships when simply talking it through would resolve the problem at the outset.
Let's take the example of texting. In this day and age, the default is to text. Running late? Send a text. Curious to know what someone is doing this evening? Send a text. Ask someone out on a second date? You guessed it. Most people will send a text. Now, I pose this question: If this overuse of texting bothers you, what do you do about it? Too often, the answer is nothing. If you allow the texting to go on by answering all the time within two minutes and not mentioning that you would prefer a phone call, your date/partner assumes that it's okay to keep texting you. Even just recently, a 54-year-old female client called me to ask what to do about a guy from an online dating site who has been texting her since asking for her phone number. She said, "He must be too lazy to call! Should I just ignore him?" My response was, "Write him back saying, 'Why don't you give me a ring, and we'll schedule a time to meet?' " She did. They met. She liked him.
For the next example, someone only contacting you once a week, again, it's more than okay to say something like, "I think it would be fun to talk a couple of times a week." You can even throw a joke in there with something like, "I think it would be fun to talk (and maybe even see each other) a couple of times a week, you know, so I don't forget what you look like. ;)" And for the issue about last-minute planning, again, it's A-okay to say to someone that you tend to plan ahead.
Let's put ourselves in the other person's shoes. If someone broached to you that he or she preferred that you called rather than texted, you'd be grateful to know what makes this person happy rather than angry that he or she has called you out. Stop putting so much thought into how hard it is to say something, and just say something!
In life, many people end up being passive-aggressive or unclear when trying to get a message across. The act of having a real, honest conversation about something that's bothering you is a lost art, but it's the foundation of a good relationship. Rather than having little things, like the frustration with texting, add up until you can't take it anymore, instead, you can ask yourself, "Have I mentioned that I would prefer a call sometimes? Do I answer every text as if it's no problem?" If the answers are no and yes, respectively, then before you break up, have a conversation about your different communication styles, and try to find a middle ground. Remember that you get what you allow, so by allowing the "problem" to continue, you're sending the message (likely via text, given the circumstances) that it's not a problem at all.
