Dear Ralph: Boyfriend issues

Good evening Mr Ralph,
  I hope your day was okay? I need to ask a question and seek your advice in a situation I am having in my life right now. I don't know whether to say i'm dating or not because it's looking like I am not with every passing day. There is this guy i'm dating, it's been 3 months and I started noticing he refuses to answer my calls. Right now, I have to ask for permission to visit him. He never did that to me before, I could tell him I was coming and he'll say okay but now I need to seek his permission to come visit him. He doesn't return my calls even if he sees 100 missed calls from me.
I have asked him what I did wrong. He says I haven't asked how he eats, that cooking for him is supposed to come natural to me to do for him. I told him how could I cook for him when he's not around especially during weekends. I don't have keys to his apartment. At some point I felt it was all more than just about cooking or not visiting often or closing late from work. He just doesn't want to talk. I decided to let him be and give him some space. He is not married but I suspect that maybe he has someone else. Another thing is that when I come to his place of work, he greets me like as if nothing happened. I even sent him a short handwritten note for him to pick a place and date for us to see and talk but up till now, no response. His behavior started around beginning of December. I am trying to gt over him because it's not looking to me like i'm in a relationship. I don't know if to him we are still in a relationship. Sometimes I wonder that assuming if I were the rude type, the ''I don't care'' type if he'd have loved me more. What do u think I should do?? I've somehow stopped all communications with him via bbm...although he responds to my chats. Your response will be highly appreciated, thanks.


                                                                                                                                                         Bola












Dear Bola,
        I would like you to go and speak to him again and bring up the issue of him not picking your calls. Ask him if he feels you are crowding his space and if he would like you to lay off a little. You know the truth is that as humans, everybody needs their space and even while in a relationship most people, especially men like to also know you aren't trying to occupy all their time and tie them down. They want to know that you can still be fine not seeing them for a while and still be okay at least until they are married to you. But this is just for some men, you have to find out the kind he is. So Just talk it out with him in a calm and controlled heart to heart talk. Let him know that all you want is for things to be okay. If he still isn't responding well then consider backing off a little more.

I wouldn't advise you to go and collect his key and start cooking and cleaning his house for him just because he hinted at it. As he said, things like this are things that you should want to do on your own. So do not do it out of guilt or just to please him. If not, with time you would start having regrets and get really angry about it, relate any little problems you both have to it and from there the relationship could go south. Yes, trust me, something as small as that can ruin a relationship. So make sure that if you want to do that, that it's what you really want. Also, I know that part of the reason you might be holding back from doing that is because of how young the relationship is, you might not want to seem too eager to occupy all of his space. So if that is the case, bring it up and let him know the reason why you choose to do things the way you do. Let him know that it's not that you do not care about him but that you are still taking your time to get used to and comfortable with him.

About him having someone else. The truth is that you cannot be too sure right now. The relationship is young so you still need to just watch the way things are going. I don't think you should bring it up to him for now. Just don't put your mind too much to that. If there is something else going on, it would be revealed with time. Concentrate more on getting to know his kind of person better.

Try this out, if you call him a couple of times, like about two or three times for example, just let it go. Send him a text message and tell him that you tried to reach him then tell him what you wanted to say to him in the text. If you just wanted to check on him then write it there and if you wanted to ask about something or whatever it was, just put it down. Giving him space doesn't have to mean ejecting yourself from his life, you just have to cut down on somethings. At least for now, it wouldn't be forever, just until you get used to him and know how to attend to relate with him and the kind of person he is.

Finally I want you to just be calm whenever you want to speak, make sure you are showing him that you just want the relationship to be okay. You sent a letter to him and he didn't respond, don't take it too hard, just let this one go. Instead give him some time and reduce but not totally cut communication. If things carry on the way they are after a while without him noticing any changes then you would know where you are in the relationship. But don't sit waiting for him to notice or not notice anything, just take your mind off and do what you have to do. The relationship is still about 3 months old, I think you should wait a little, things can still turn around but just do the much you feel you can.

                                                                                                                                                      Ralph